Saturday 7 March 2009

I'm full of admiration for the DIY'ers on the allotment

I worked for around 3 hours on the plot today, and whilst up there I was full of admiration for the DIY skills of our new plot holders. They have built not only a fantastic chicken run and house, but are also building their own shed from scratch. It cost them the princely sum of £5 yes !! £5, apparently they went to Homebase and it was all in a skip ready to be scrapped, all assorted bits of timber and broken panels, and they asked to buy it and that was what they got it for, amazing eh ? My immediate lottie neighbour and I, another Maureen, went over to introduce ourselves and to be nosy ( of course!) they are very nice and come from Georgia, Russia. So our little end of the allotment is a mixed bag of Scottish, Irish, English and Russian, and 3 Maureen's !!

The photo below is of the Russians new timber shed, not quite finished yet, and the chicken house. They are so clever.


And then as I was walking along the path I spotted another building going up. My friend Tom was building what looks like a shed, but it's not a shed it's going to be a greenhouse, Wow ! I am so amazed at peoples skills. I will post another photo when Tom has finished it.I finally planted out all of the garlic that I had growing in the greenhouse. I have been hardening it off over the last week. I got 12 into the end of the bed that the Broad beans went into the other day. (photo below) and planted another 20 in a different bed. I am not sure how many I planted straight into the ground last autumn but it looks like I might be self sufficient with garlic this year, which is great as I use a lot.


6 comments:

Corner Gardener Sue said...

Your garlic looks good. I wish my husband and I had more skills to build or at least fix things.

EB said...

Maureen - that £5 shed is most impressive! I quite fancy their chicken run too. I'd love to keep chickens but my husband feels we haven't got space for them and I suspect he's right really.

Sue, I do sympathise, but could you perhaps learn to do it yourself?

Anonymous said...

If I'm gonna built something, I'll ask my brother for help. He's handy at those kind of things. My husband and I will help of course. It is a lot cheaper to built your own.

Anna said...

Some great constructions in the making there Maureen. Have you heard of allotmenteers being compared to the Wombles ? :) I like your new blog header !

Maureen said...

Thanks you all for the comments.
SUE, I wish myself and the husband had the skills as well. I do all the decorating and can put flat packs furniture together, but I would love to be able to build something from scratch. Like BLOSSOM,I have a handy relative as well,when we need help.
ANNA no I haven't heard of the Womble rumour, that's funny. Glad you like my title photo, I made that sign last year for my plot.

Carrie said...

Don't you love people's resourcefulness! Good for them £5 is nothing for a shed.
Hate (not really) to rub it in but i have one of those husbands that can turn a hand to anything!! So lucky. Though it wouldn't stop me from giving it a go myself.
We'll be self sufficent in garlic too - went a bit overboard with the amount we planted, hehe!