Sheds&Muck&Rabbit Holes...

I had two very blustery afternoons on my allotment plot last week, before the temperature tumbled and the snow arrived.

I didn't see a soul while I was there, probably a good thing since I had a stupid amount of kirbigrips keeping hair out of my eyes and too many coats.

I have inherited a leaning shed, which the owners wanted to take with them but decided it was too rotten to move.  It does look like it would fall like a pack of brittle cards if anything other than a wren landed on it.

I have already spent too much time ruminating over this shed.  I think I've made a decision then realise I haven't then all my thoughts go round again.

What to do?

It has certainly been a long time since the shed had any TLC. The wood hasn't seen linseed oil in a while and is dry as a bone, kind of bleached and battered too.

But it's crooked, and I like crooked.  My instinct is to let it stay and grow blackberries and honeysuckles all over it.  A pragmatic person would surely drop it and salvage the wood, upcycle it into raised beds, cold frames, trellises and fences.  It would be a no-brainer for the creative ninja-gardening powers of, say, Alys Fowler, she is very handy with a hammer and drill etc.  This is the woman who grew an enormous houseplant from an avocado seed and used old wine crates and olive oil tins as containers.  Before everyone else joined in. 

Alys, garden guru

   

Ah Alys, you make it look so easy!

This is not a shed I can use to brew tea in a moment of need, shelter from a sudden downpour with the radio for company, or do any useful gardening-type thing inside at all -  but the outside has potential.

I will have to sleep on it, leave it for the worry dolls.

Not quite so bad, but I have spent a lot of hours cutting and raking and wishing I had some machinery (or a goat) until I amassed two great piles of stuff to burn - and I love a fire.  Sniggling used to be one of my favourite things.

It's still not done, but while tackling the overgrown nameless tangle of dead and dried up plant 'stuff' I found the following...

* a pea-green piece of wood with '10' painted on it

* a little purple plastic spade

* half a red plastic bucket

* many sweetie wrappers

* broken pots and wire

* lots of pieces of carpet

* dried up sweetcorn and parsnips

* large stones

* a crown of rhubarb - alive!

* strawberries - ditto!

* raspberry canes

* leeks growing, but nibbled by rabbits 

Ah, them rabbits.

Now, I don't want to come over all Mr McGregor but I have to take action against the bunnies (in a humane way).  There are lots of bunnies, and they're pretty big, and they breed like...as you know.

 

 

The RHS have a list of plants that they reckon are 'relatively resistant to rabbits'.  Spot the keyword there.  They suggest  planting bergamot, marigolds, hydrangeas, onions, and garlic to name a few.  Next they inform me that rabbits won't eat lobelia or echinacea (just not as many as other plants),and that snowdrops are toxic to bunnies (!) Who knew?  Have I found my silver bullet?

gulp...!

 

Yeah bunny, be afraid. I read on and discover that our furry friends don't like seeing their reflections; so Cd's, water in glass jars, foil things etc might just put them off for a while at least.

Leaving bits of hose about the garden to mimic snakes (a rabbit predator) is another option.  Or a fake dog, eagle or owl.  Perhaps I could whittle a massive bird of prey out of the shed?

I soon see there's a lot more to this than slinging slugs over the fence from a trowel and wonder - what would Alys do?

I am a bit comforted to find that dahlias (all hail) are on the 'relatively resistant' list, which can only be a good thing, because if the bunnies eat my dahlias then my plot might start to resemble something out of 'Tenko' and I could develop a twitch, like the late Herbert Lom in the Pink Panther films.  That's an awful image to leave you with folks - sorry!

Here's more Alys...

that's much better :)

 

 

 

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Now bring me that horizon!

For the past few weeks I have mostly been glued to seed catalogues

and gardening magazines, to such an extent that I have enough paper material to fashion myself a large overcoat!

Needless to say, there has been much mental gardening; list making,planning,summer bulb choosing(dahlias mostly),green manure considering.  Wildflower seeds, native grasses,climbers and hedging, rambling roses, pumpkins and rabbit deterrents.  To be honest it's exhausting, since I can't find my 'off' switch.

Vintage seed packets

It's the type of gardening you can do when it is too cold and the ground too hard to get out and do actual gardening. 

Normal behaviour for the time of year, but cranked up to eleven owing to the fact that the Greygirl garden is expanding! (I nearly wrote 'growing' but that would have been cheesy). 

More space equals more planting possibilities - not to mention more dahlias!

From this weekend I will be taking my wellies and wheelbarrow to a plot on the local allotment and start digging.  I know that there's a lot of work to be done before any planting can happen, and the soil needs to warm up a fair bit too.  I read this week that you shouldn't plant anything until you are happy to put your bare bum on the soil. Perhaps 'happy' isn't the right word but you get the meaning. Not the kind of behaviour that would go down well on the allotment, I'm pretty sure.

Suffice to say there is much coffee to be drunk from flasks, fingerless gloves to be knitted and thoughts to be mulled over etc, you can't rush a good thing.

 Luckily for me though, my lovely brother recently gave me a woolly hat :D

I have to put the brakes on from time to time because it's easy to become overwhelmed and then my head will melt.

At times I feel like a bear with a very small brain, one that only has the power equivalent to a 40watt light bulb (that's in old money - new light bulbs aren't like the old ones at all, but that's another bucket of fish).

must get me some of these pants & a pipe!

Whenever I go anywhere now I can't help scanning for useful bits of wood.  I walk ever-hopeful towards skips but they always seem to be full of plasterboard and mould.  Or plastic things.

I would like to build a cold frame for my plot and find some pallets to make a compost bin out of and who knows, attempt some kind of shed!  Old window frames, posts and planks of wood are my idea of treasure right now.

I'll let you know how it goes...

hmmm...

a shed of doors - brilliant!

a two storey shed

cute shed

The good news is that my sets of onions and shallots are planted and I have potted up more garlic.  The cloves I planted in Autumn have plenty of leaves and are looking good :)

All my container plants have been top dressed and mulched.  Shrubs and roses pruned, fruit bushes trimmed.

Jiffy envelopes stuffed with seeds are arriving through the post.  There are so many possibilities and potential plants it's mind-boggling.

Fetch me wellies, I'm off...!