The biggest challenge in our Mediterranean garden in rural Mallorca is keeping the agaves under control. This entails The Boss taking his special saw to the lowest ‘blades’ – they’re more like weapons than something as innocent-sounding as leaves.
This summer we did more gardening than is usual for the time of year, by getting up earlier in the morning. I’m Head of Weeding. The Boss is Head of Sawing & Agave Management. He doesn’t allow me access to his saw (boys and their toys), or the agaves. Thank goodness.
As well as a sharp point at the tip, each blade has spikes down each side. As careful as The Boss is when he squeezes himself among the agaves to trim them back, he still takes on the additional role of a human pincushion. Head of Weeding adds Emergency Nurse to her duties, wielding Betadine, cotton wool, and plasters. If you don’t yet have shares in a company making first-aid necessities, now could be the time to invest!
Off But Not Gone
Disposing of the sawn-off ‘blades’ is no easy task. Our local Parc Verde (recycling centre) won’t take them as garden waste, and these things have to dry out fully before we can burn them on the bonfire. We’re fortunate: we have a large field and the bottom of that field isn’t visible from our house. Just as well really, as several dozen agave ‘blades’ are spread out across the land to dry in the sun. One day they’ll have dried out enough to burn.
We were gifted our agaves by a couple of kind neighbours. The plants were very small at the time, and we had no idea how close together and large (and dangerous) they would become. My advice if you acquire some small agaves to plant in your garden would be to space them out well, buy yourself a good saw and some sturdy gauntlets.
A pair of the latter is winging its way to our apartado (post office box) as I write. We should save a lot of money on plasters and iodine next year.
@Jan Edwards 2021
So useful!!!! Thanks Jan!!!!
Thanks, Sylvia. And thank you for following Living in Rural Mallorca!
the second photo looks like something from the movie Mars Attacks!!!! (a bit intimidated)
Ha ha! Love it! Actually, we’ve just discovered a different kind of attack going on in our garden. More to come in the next post!
Hi Jan, Reminds me of a tip I was given many years ago. This applies to Higochumbos, the mikeymouse cactus, not sure if it will work with agaves. If you have a dirt road with a slope which at this time of year can tend to wash out leaving bare jagged rock and stone beneath, place layers of higochumbos on the bad bits. They squash down,, give useable traction to car tyres and help protect from more erosion. I tried it when I lived near Vilafranca – it worked for me.
Hi John. Now that sounds a great tip, thank you for that. Who knew all those leaves could be so useful?
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