Shed Refurb

Our shed floor has been falling in since we got the allotment 17months ago. It seemed to be dipping alarmingly in the back right corner. We dealt with this by ignoring it and piling lots of crap into that corner; we just didn't use it.

We knew it was a job for good weather (as we had to empty everything out), but last summer we were just too busy to get round to it. So this summer was the earliest possibility.

The other evening at about 6pm, after a full sunny day on the plot, we thought we would 'have a little look' to try and suss out what the actual problem was. The next two days were forecast to be rain free and we were available, so it seemed to make sense to suss out what problems we would be tackling.

It turns out that, as we see when we pull up the ply and broken floorboards, the people who built the shed decided that a single nail would be fine to hold each joist, and these joists are about 7 or 8 inches off the ground at the rear of the shed. Obviously without any support the joists have just sagged, the nails have just bent, the wood has twisted and broken, and the floor caved in.

So . . . we figured we needed to support the areas where the joists meet the wall, and at various points along their length. We decide breeze blocks are the answer, especially as the nearby B&Q has them at 91p each.

After a little work with a mallet and a cold chisel we have suitably sized lumps to fit underneath. While we have the floor up I throw some damp proof plastic sheet under there to try and keep the evaporation up into the shed to the minimum, and we get it re-boarded with some tongue and groove we salvaged from a local theatre company's store, when they were emptying it.

This gave us a good sound surface, but there was still a bit of movement. Without taking up all the floor we couldn't secure it all on blocks, but we decided that if we could board over the whole floor with sheet material it would secure it enough.

We have a storage unit with lots of bits and pieces we have collected over the years, so we went there to see what we had. We found some 'paintings' we had done for an exhibition in 2006. We will never use them again as they were site specific, so although they are technically exhibited pieces of artwork (created for an International Festival no less!) they are also bits of MDF with paint on one side!

We sawed them up at the storage unit into pieces 400mm wide (so we could fir them in our car) and 1700mm long, which is the front to back measurement for the shed.

And: Voila! A shed floor, complete with exciting decoration! It must be the most stylish floor on the site. And much more stable than it was. We then started putting furniture in. We had a drawer/cupboard thing already, which went in the formerly wonky corner. It already had a batten on the side of it, so we used some offcuts to fill in the space next to it as a desk.This would then become the 'kitchen', with our little camping stove, and storage space for the plates etc. We had also found a lovely gate leg table in the street in June, with the intention of it going in the shed, so that got added too. Along with some metal shelves, new hooks for all our tools, and a few rails and shelves for our bits and bobs, the new style shed was complete.

We have spent so much time in it since then! It has been quite humid here for the past few days, so it has been a case of do a bit outside, and then pop into the shed to have a sit at the table and read. Then back out again.

It will really be the biggest benefit in winter though, when it will make the prospect of going to the allotment much more desirable.

Summer! Sun! Growth!

It seems we are having a summer, so I have been at the allotment a lot.

I will get the photos of my phone and get blogging my activities soon.

Maybe even today, as it looks a little overcast out the window.

New Bed

Our beans are doing rather well in their drain pipe, so we decided it was time to prepare a bed for them to go into. To one side of the potato, bean, and cabbage beds there was a space next to the fence, filled with weeds and grass and an old chair. A frame was constructed, the space cleared and a new bed installed.


We haven't put the beans in yet, we are going to let them get a bit bigger, but we sowed some peas in there. Hopefully we will get some autumn peas and beans from that bed to freeze for over winter. We've surrounded the place where we've sown the peas with copper mesh tape to try and keep the slugs off the seedlings.

lean-house™ 2

We now have all the walls and roof cladded. We just need to put walls and doors on the ends, but we need to build wooden frames for that and our drill ran out of power again.

But it is sheltered in there so we moved in the tomatoes that have been getting a bit crowded in the cold frame. Because of the bars on the ceiling we can run strings from the tops of canes or grow bags up to the ceiling to stabilise them, which is great.

So we have 15 tomatoes (5 varieties) and 4 aubergines (2 varieties) in there now. I hope they like their new home.

lean-house™

The leaning greenhouse ( leanhouse™ ) is coming along. The batteries on the drills are getting past their best, so we can only do a bit at a time, but it has a bit of plastic on it now. We can clad it bit by bit though.

We are going to fill the trench that the back wall is in with the brick rubble we have, that should act as a bit of a heat store and help with drainage too.

new greenhouse

Well all the plans from the last time I posted changed as we inherited (or re-inherited) some things which moved the greenhouse on.

A while (6 years) ago we designed an exhibition that had some 'leaning posts' - tall upright metal posts with padded cushions, so that people could lean back and watch an overhead projection screen. After the exhibition they went on a tour round various storage spaces and theatre companies and have now ended up back with us. So, greenhouse time!

It took us a day to load them and a load of wood onto the van and to the allotment (thanks to Sarah, and to Bard in the Botanics for the help). And then today we started building. We have ten of these posts and they are 1.5m wide and 2.3m tall. We are going to use 3 for the front and 3 for the back, and 3 for the roof. No idea what we will do with the 10th one.

They are going to go next to the current shed/greenhouse combo.



The walls are in and the floor is levelled, so just the roof to go.



We are going to clad it with transluscent correx. If we can convince a delivery company to send stuff to an allotment (tomorrow's task).



I think it is going to look great, the metal is powder coated in a teal blue which is quite good. And their will be loads of room for all our tomatoes, which are languishing in the cold frame at the moment.

Earlies

The Arran Pilots are showing their faces. I had started to get worried about them, but here they are.



Also new on the plot this week is our all new singing dancing 2 compartment compost bin. Constructed from 'Chep' pallets. MrUrban must have moved a tonne of compost (1m x 1m x 1m) from the old heap to the new one. He aches now.



New guttering on the shed too - just in time for the rain.

March Update

It has been a while since I got my act together and posted information here, but I have been keeping a diary, so here is what happened in March.

We have got a host of seeds going. Sweet peas and little round parmex carrots were first - both are now out in the plot after a spell in the cold frame (if you can call a window frame leant up against a shed that). Next the potatoes went into the top left bed - pink fir and arran pilot. The potatoes went in the first bed we laid out in the top left corner of the plot.



We built another bed below that - left middle. Then the beans and onion sets went in - we have broad beans, red onions and shollots. We put a brick path between these two as we uncovered another pile of brick.



Radish seeds, beetroot seeds and carrot seedlings went in the top middle bed. This one is a raised one with a brick wall at the front and also, we discovered as we started to dig in it, a wall in the middle under the soil. We took that one out with the help of a sledge hammer.



By this time a rhubarb plant that had been hiding in the grass under where we had put the windows as a cold frame had responded to its nice new warn envirnment and shot up. We now have a freezer full of rhubarb - good job I like it.



Our spicy salad seedlings came out and into the bath we have set into the ground in front of the shed, along with some more of the carrot seedlings and some dill and parsely seeds.



The only thing that seems to have survived from the previous plot holder is some purple sprouting broccoli (apart form the rhubarb and I don't think that counts - rhubarb just exists). It was looking a bit sad, falling over and with yellowing leaves, so we put supporting canes in, weeded round them and pinched out the growing tips to see if it would do anything.

Aubergine, tomato and chilli seeds went into the greenhouse, along with lobelia, aquilegia, marogold, chive and basil seeds.

They all started to germinate (apart from the tomoatoes), although there was only one chilli and one aubergine.

We went crazy in the garden centre and bought strawberries, 3 different tomato plants, a chilli plant, and an aubergine plant. I'm not convinced I'll get anywhere with the tom and chilli seeds so I have relegated them to the staus of an extra bonus on top of the bought plants.

Gert, the longest serving plot holder (40+ years), collared us and gave us some of his cabbage seedlings, he had done well with them and didn't want to discard the thinnings so is sharing the wealth with anyone who wants some. He is 80odd years old and has 4 plots all joined together and about 5 sizable greenhouses, I'm sure we will be able to pick his brains when needed. So we now have: late, early, and red cabbages, and some cauliflowers too.

Michael the allotment secretary had been growing on some gooseberry bushes for someone who no longer needed them, so he gave us one of those. We could have had all 6 but we didn't really have the room. He tried to give us red currants too, but again no space. Shame really. The fruit cage is quite full now.

After all that we left for a week to go and demolish my Mum's shed over Easter and build the new one she has bought. We didn't know what to expect on our return - hopefully not a wilted dead plot. We fashioned makeshift drip watering systems for greehouse stuff, and sat the tomatoes in trays of water. We had some shade fabric from a project we had done, so that went on the greenhouse windows in the hope that things wouldn't wilt in the promised hot weather.

Below is a plan of what we have so far, the big bed on the right was there, so was the compost heap and shed. Most other stuff we have done ourselves. If you clcik on it you get a big version where you can see the text:

Roofs and walls

The next big task is one that was a condition of us getting this plot. We were told we could have it but we had to get the fence sorted asap. The fence had blown down in the high winds in January and it has been lying on the ground ever since and, given that most people have to walk Plot 60 on the way in, is making the place look a mess.

The fence is no problem really, all the posts are still in but the fence is quite tall and wibbly so it has just wrenched itself of the posts in the wind. It should be the work of half an hour to screw it back to the posts, but I have a feeling that it will be a regular job after every bout of bad weather. However we are thinking of rearranging where the gate is, at the moment it is a corner one at the top of the plot but we want to move it next to the shed. Fortunately among the free gifts left by the previous plot-holder were two tallish fence posts and a wire mesh and stainless steel panel. It has something growing up it at the moment, but I'm going to disentangle it and turn it in to a gate.

So today is fence day, but also roof day for the shed. We really should re-felt it, but given that it is still wet at the moment, we are just going to go for a short term solution until the weather improves and we can dry out the whole roof a bit. We have some damp proof membrane, which is big enough to cover the whole roof in one piece, so that will be going up and getting nailed in place. Once we get up a ladder and have a look at the roof we can decide whether we will take off the felt before doing that, or just stick it on over the top.

And I thought we had enough DIY to do at home!