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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