Standing in the back of my plot is The Greenhouse. It’s actually two stuck together like some sort of human centipede arrangement. We gained one greenhouse free from another plot, and then an ex-colleague of mine gave me his for free too, and they just happened to be identical.
Putting it up was a bit of a mission with no instructions, half the bolts missing and it not being very square. Also it went dark…
They had the usual free greenhouse condition of requiring glass, but that was solved by a trip to a local glass merchant who sold greenhouse glass for a sensible price.
Then, over time the door fell off, wind helped remove some of the glass and then between my own clumsiness and some local thieving bastards the rest of the glass just disappeared. And then the weeds and neck high grass took over.
After much procrastination I decided I really should sort the mess out. Also I had some tomato plants that needed planting properly if I was to get anything out of them this year. Last year’s tomatoes in grow bags were a bit sad looking by the end.
This is where I’m supposed to say it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and that it just needed a bit of strimming. Nah, it was worse than I thought and needed more than a bit of a strim. If you strim long grass it either binds up the strimmer, or lays flat over grass you’ve not yet done and it’s hard to tell which grass needs cutting.
I managed to clear a path towards the back, finding lots of lost and covered rubbish (a visit to the tip is a future problem). All round the thing were pieces of wrist-slashingly sharp glass just poking out the grass waiting for an unwary hand.
Once the outside was “done” I ventured inside. Since the soil was so dry I found a rake and a lot of manual labour was the way to clear things. Except the ants, they seem to live in the corner now. Also I discovered the strimmer’s metal blade is quite sharp.
Finally though, after much sweating, a bit of a sit down out the sun to recover and three bananas later I had my tomatoes planted in what looked to be soil.
A job for the future is to get some new glass to replace the missing panels. Amazon sell plastic sheets the correct size for a reasonable price. Being plastic I should be able to glue them in to deter thieving bastards.
I don’t understand why someone stole the glass out my greenhouse, but didn’t nick my mower when the shed blew over. It’s very odd. Might write my plot number across the plastic panels when I get them.
The original shed hasn’t yet magically disappeared. I’ll get around to it one day.
