And the Shed Blew Over

Got a bit of a surprise when I visited the plot yesterday, seems my shed tried to do a Wizard of Oz and take off. Didn’t get very far though…

After checking for any flattened witches I set about trying to rectify the mess. I’d only gone there to dump some kitchen waste in the compost bin. It’s been raining for the past month so the ground is too soggy to do anything in. Also it’s winter.

Can confirm, shed is not stood up correctly. Also it’s only gone and blown the bloody doors off. Those things are terrible and always need a good kicking to stay in their tracks at the best of times. Next door’s chickens were warily watching…

It’s only a light metal shed so fortunately quite easy to stand up again. I even managed to get the drain pipe back in the water butt. Even better, all of this was done without slashing my wrists and face on the insanely sharp metal edging.

In an attempt at stopping it from happening again I’ve put some plastic boxes on the roof full of water. They were originally stood on the floor full of water, so they might as well be useful. Helps increase my water storage capacity too.

Yes, at some point in the future I will securely attach the whole thing to the ground somehow.

Trying to make best of an annoying situation, I then figured the wind was hitting the big flat side of the shed, so moved the compost bins in front of it to give some shelter. It was also a good excuse to turn the contents of the compost bins over and realise thick branches don’t break down very quickly.

Moving the compost also means I have a more open and regular plot that I can go down and clear with the mower, strimmer, rotavator and a big binbag ready for planting.

Yeah that’s the next plan. Tidy up. While digging I kept finding bits of rubbish lost in the grass and weeds.

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Welcome to the frozen North

It’s a bit cold now, and I’ve not been to the allotment for a few weeks. I’m only here now because the food waste bins are full and starting to smell nasty.

The recent frost has killed all the weak plants that were fooled by November’s mild weather.

This rotavator continues to impress me, chewing through slightly frozen ground with no real trouble providing I went slowly.

I don’t care if it takes three or four goes to get this broken up, it’s much better than digging by hand!

In addition to hoarding rotten food, I’ve been storing cardboard to put down. It should keep the weeds away and also rot down to improve the soil.

Next time I need to bring the strimmer and remove the long grass and tougher weeds that the rotavator can’t manage.

This is all stuff I normally do last minute in March, so the fact I have the plot cleared by December is a novelty. Maybe I’ll get my plants in at the right time next year!

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Mr Rotavator

Since getting this allotment one of the more tedious jobs has been digging over the plot each year. It’s like painting the Forth Bridge – by the time I get to the end, the start is overgrown.

I’ve always wanted a rotavator but they’ve either been too expensive, bulky to store, or built around crappy two stroke engines that don’t always start.

Not any more! While browsing Amazon I came across this. It’s a battery powered tiller / rotavator. It’s light, easy to carry and the batteries actually last a decent amount of time.

I gave it a good test today. My plot is overgrown with lots of grass and weed, but it managed to turn this…

Into this…

With minimal effort from me. Normally this would have taken several hours spread over two days. I’m tall, the ground is far away, I hate digging.

Then it managed to also do this…

It doesn’t like long grass, so I need to mow or strim that first, but that’s not much effort either.

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Monsoon Season

Seems the weather has switched from hot and dry to “wet”. It’s a bit hard to do anything on an allotment when it’s raining.

I did notice the water butt on my shed at home was full though.

And the small one on my other shed was looking a bit full too.

So I figured I’d buy another water butt from Wickes and set it up to fill from the overflow of the first one.

I also moved the water pump into the new butt. I’ll use that to water the roof garden in the summer.

The finished setup looks quite tidy, although the second butt is half full already. I need to sort out an overflow so it doesn’t flood the area around my shed. The drainage isn’t great and a shed sat in a pool of water isn’t the best.

Also out of curiosity I went to the allotment to see how the water butt there was doing. It seems to be filling up and holding water OK.

At some point I’m sure I’ll add a second butt there too.

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Shed roof garden maintenance

The roof garden on my shed needs sorting out, a lot of giant daisies grew this year and while they looked nice at the time, their dead remains need trimming.

It’s not too difficult with a ladder, but some areas required a bit of climbing about on my fence.

Once trimmed I moved some random bulbs I had in planters and tipped the remains of the planters on the roof to add some more soil.

There’s quite a lot of different plants up there, some I didn’t put there. Also found a few small trees trying to grow and snipped their shoots off.

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A pane in the grass

The nice thing about sheds is that their windows are all the same size. The bad thing about sheds is the glass is expensive. So I’ve reclaimed the almost-four panes from the old shed to reuse at home.

No idea how old this shed is, but the windows are held in more by luck than anything.

But with a bit of careful prying to remove old putty and rusty nails the glass came out without breaking any more than it currently is.

After a bit of a clean they’ll be good as new and ready to fit in one of my sheds at home to provide some luxury double glazing.

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Glueing up a butt hole

At the allotment I’ve moved the water butt so it can catch rain off the shed roof, rather than not catching rain off the greenhouse’s broken roof.

The butt is quite old, the plastic has faded in the sunlight and the tap leaks. The first job was attaching guttering to the shed.

As it’s metal and about two millimetres thick I used rivets and they seem to hold it well enough.

I managed to build a little platform out of a paving slab and some highly dubious wood that isn’t entirely rotten. It’s straight enough…

Next door’s chickens were assessing the quality of the workmanship. There was some suspicious clucking but I think it passed.

Finally I had to glue the tap in to stop it leaking. I used some cheap pound shop epoxy, it should be good enough.

Now I just need it to rain!

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I like big butts and neatly trimmed bushes…

Last year I made a roof garden on my shed, and I noticed it takes a fair amount of water in summer, so in the spirit of conserving resources I decided I need another water butt.

The shed has a small butt, but it doesn’t catch much water and is mostly there to keep the runoff from watering. Also as you can see the downpipe has fallen off and it’s being overtaken by the bushes around it.

I have another shed that doesn’t have a water butt, so I went off to Wickes and bought a 210L one.

No idea why there’s a dent in it, but some rain will sort that out I’m sure. First I had to remove the tomatoes, they seem to have given up, the tomatoes aren’t ripening any more.

The big butt came with a base and after levelling the ground it sits nicely with enough space to get a watering can under the tap (which I glued in to stop leaks).

So finally the small butt needed some attention along with the messy bush, which had a trim. I fixed the downpipes and trimmed things so it’s easier to get to. I might rig up an overflow to the other butt at some point.

Now I just need to wait for the rain. It’s mid September, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty in a week or two!

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Taking the pea

I found one remaining pea pod, I think something else has had a chew at it though. It rattles, might keep it for next year.

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Too many tomatoes

It’s not been a good year for tomatoes. The plants have done well, but the actual tomatoes haven’t ripened at all. They’re just green balls of stomach ache now.

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