What did you do in the garden today?

Big thunderstorms went through last night. No power, atm, and today will be a clean up day. Hopefully the power is on mid-afternoon, like they said.

We have a tree down in the side yard. It missed the car by inches and the chicken coop by feet.

Sounds like not too much damage. A person needs to be thankful for the near miss on the car and the coop. Hope the cleanup goes well.

Reminds me of a good storm we had in my neighborhood about 3 years ago. We had a few big trees come down. One big tree came down on my neighbor's property and was blocking the driveway. I noticed a few people were down there and looking at the obstruction. Fortunately, nothing was damaged.

I loaded up my 18v and 40v Ryobi chainsaws and headed over to his place to help.

My 18v chainsaw has a small 12-inch bar, and my 40v chainsaw has a 14-inch bar. Neither one is a monster chainsaw. But I told my neighbor I would start cutting up and clearing the tree on the driveway while he got out his larger 18-inch gas chainsaw.

To make a long story short, I had almost the entire tree cut up and removed before he was able to get his gas chainsaw, find some gas and mix it properly, and then fight to get his gas chainsaw started and running. I had already cut off all the branches and cut the top half, or more, of the tree trunk into rounds, clearing the driveway. All he had left to do was cut the lower half of the tree trunk with his larger chainsaw.

At that time, I only had one 40v battery for my chainsaw, so I would not have been able to finish cutting up the entire tree trunk which was maybe 24 inches round at the base. But if I would have had more batteries for a longer run time, I could have finished the job just with my small battery Ryobi chainsaws.

I now have three 40v batteries and probably could have finished that job just with my battery Ryobi chainsaws. Anyways, I really am a big fan of the battery chainsaws because it is so easy to slap a fresh battery in them and get to work. For home use, my 12-inch 18v and 14-inch 40v Ryobi chainsaws do about 95% of the jobs I have.

I do have a 16-inch Sthil gas chainsaw, but it's always a challenge to get it started and running because I rarely use it. Sitting in the shed and not getting used is not so good for a gas chainsaw. It's a nice chainsaw, but I just don't need a larger bar or the extended run time of a gas chainsaw most of the time for cleanups around the house.

Also, over the past three years, I have upgraded my 40v chainsaw with both 16-inch and 18-inch bars in addition to the 14-inch bar that came with the chainsaw. With the longer bars and multiple batteries, I have not used my gas chainsaw for over 2 years now.

:old I grew up with gas chainsaws and would never have imagined using a battery chainsaw to get work done. But unless you cut wood to heat your house, a battery chainsaw with all their improvements over the years is probably all a homeowner needs these days. I have become a big fan of battery chainsaws for home use.

If you are already into a battery brand and platform, it makes most sense to me to stay with a chainsaw that shares your batteries. All the battery chainsaws seem to work pretty darn good. I know that my Ryobi chainsaws are not the top rated, but the major cost of these chainsaws is the cost of the battery. It just makes most sense, to me at least, to stay within whatever battery platform you use for your other lawn equipment like weed trimmers, leaf blowers, etc...

I also have a Ryobi mini tiller and a cultivator which use Ryobi batteries. So, my gardening equipment shares the same batteries that I use for my chainsaws. The mini tiller and cultivator are nice for breaking up soil in the raised beds in the spring. I don't need a big gas tiller for the raised beds which is all I do these days.
 
Grass needs mowed and weeds need pulled. Not until this heat subsides.

Yep, I've been taking a break from outside work as well. The temp was only 76F the other day, but the humidity was 92%! I worked up a sweat just walking out to the chicken coop to check for eggs. It's the humidity that makes things miserable for me.
 
Well, this prolonged triple digit heat and no rain in 2-3 weeks has killed off the grass. A lot of things in my garden, containers, raised beds, and in-ground alike, are all suffering greatly. I will probably lose some things. I have several tree saplings that I was hoping to plant in fall which may not make it to fall. 😕 My herbs are looking really rough and crispy. The few strawberries that survived in the tire beds look nearly dead. The strawberries in the hugelkultur barrels look decent which is a positive. One peach tree is yellowing and dropping leaves like crazy. I'm sure from the dry conditions. I might lose a plum sapling too.... I did water by hand and run the irrigation system for an hour but it might be too little too late.
🤷
 
Nothing in the garden today as my son fell this morning around 1am in the bathroom and tore the skin graft in his left armpit. I so took him to the ER where we spent the next 7 hours. 😳
They said it was so backed up because another nearby hospital had no AC and everyone was being diverted to the hospital we were at.
Good news though, he doesn’t need any surgery to repair the damage, just keep antibiotic ointment on it and let it heal from the inside out. Plus he already has an appointment for the burn clinic on Monday. I only got a total of 2 hours sleep since Thursday morning so I am headed to bed.
Oh, I did fix fresh green beans from the church garden for dinner.
 

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