{"id":421,"date":"2011-04-08T09:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-08T09:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=421"},"modified":"2011-04-13T17:40:32","modified_gmt":"2011-04-13T17:40:32","slug":"gardening-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/?p=421","title":{"rendered":"Gardening column"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Silas<\/a>
A large green lizard comes in and sits beside me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our resident gardening expert SILAS SILAGE writes on the importance of weed control as spring gets underway.<\/strong>
\nSpring is roaring ahead, with nature\u2019s vandals trying to get a foothold in your garden before the lawn and the flowers awake from their winter slumbers to delight us with their colours and gentle scents.<\/p>\n

The rapacious fallopia convolvulus<\/em>, the wily\u00a0 cardamine corymbosa<\/em>, the menacing\u00a0 Nostoc commune<\/em>, the invasive ranucnculus ficara<\/em>, the lawn-scarring taraacum officinale<\/em>, agropyrum repens<\/em> and anthriscus sylvestris<\/em>,\u00a0 not to forget the insidious myosotis scorpiodes <\/em>and its flighty cousin myosotis arvensis <\/em>are just some of the invaders who can shatter the rural idyll with their choking tentacles of doom. (Oh, for God\u2019s sake \u2013Ed<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I firmly believe that total war is the only solution, and that means strong chemicals. None of that over-priced diluted rubbish from the supermarket for me. Thanks to trusted friends and colleagues at Porton Down, Hinkley Point and Aldermaston, I can normally obtain \u201cThe right stuff\u201d in sufficient quantities to make up a killer dose which will see off any unwelcome botanic guests, and animal ones too, for good measure.<\/p>\n

In my shed I have a large array of my home made\u201d brews\u201d, as I call them. It is very important to label them carefully and rack them in order of firepower, so you have everything ready and at your fingertips when the battle starts.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s this? An old bottle, labelled \u2018Home Made Damson Vodka 2009\u2019. And there\u2019s still some in there! A quick nip, and then to work.<\/p>\n

I sit in the old armchair after a couple of swigs. A large green Lizard comes in and sits beside me. And I mean large! It fills the whole shed. It\u2019s menacing red eyes are hypnotizing me. Oh dear, I\u2019m not feeling too good. Oh dear me. The room starts twirling and I think I\u2019m going to \u2026
\n(To be continued \u2013Ed<\/em>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our resident gardening expert SILAS SILAGE writes on the importance of weed control as spring gets underway. Spring is roaring ahead, with nature\u2019s vandals trying to get a foothold in your garden before the lawn and the flowers awake from their winter slumbers to delight us with their colours and gentle scents. The rapacious fallopia … Continue reading “Gardening column”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[794,2768],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-silas-silage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6glYD-6N","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":428,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions\/428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horsington.blog2.idnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}