Shed love

I have to admit to being a bit of a shed lover.  There's nothing I like better than to visit a garden and peer into the shed to see how it's all set out. I love to see how other people use their sheds. Sheds have all sorts of uses these days, for offices, studies, hobbies rooms, places to write, rest, retreat to etc.

One of our local bishops when he was first appointed and moved into his Bishop's house had a shed put in the garden to use as a chapel. He needed a quiet space away from the distractions of the telephone which he could use for his regular morning and evening prayer.  I had the privilege of seeing his shed once. Fitted out with a small altar and a few chairs, icons and christian symbols, the shed had a quiet, prayerful atmosphere, it was a very special place.

At our allotments there are some 'interesting' sheds made out of old doors, windows, fence panels, corrugated sheets. They are really ramshackle looking places, but great examples of recycling.  They are places to store garden stuff, sit and drink tea, shelter from the rain, but they are also well loved places.

At the RHS garden Harlow Carr there is a shed which I drool over whenever we go there. It's a lovely old fashioned Victorian gardener's shed. I'd love a shed like it, but, it's probably a bit too showy, too neat and tidy for me. My shed could never be so tidy.

 

This is a quirky sort of shed we spotted on a walk whilst visiting our daughter in Bedfordshire.

It's often said that men love their sheds and it seems to have started at an early age in our family because our 6 year old grandson, ever since he could walk, has had a thing about our shed.  Whenever we were out in the garden he would (and still does) make a beeline for the shed and would emerge brandishing mine or grandad's tools, much to our horror! Now he has his own tools in there and is a bit safer.

So what about my shed?  It's not very big and we have a lot of stuff to store in there, so it can get untidy.  But it fulfills all my organising dreams with hooks to hang tools on, shelves to store garden stuff and a bench to work on.   It gets an annual clean up in the autumn and then it's ready for winter projects, like making Christmas wreaths. 

I would love to have a big enough shed to be able to sit in and use for other things, like reading gardening magazines and drinking tea.  I think I really need a summer house!

Because it's not so big, outside of my shed is also a very special area.  That's where my potting bench is. It's home made by my husband out of an old kitchen table and it's perfect.  It's where I sow seeds, transplant seedlings, pot things on. But it's also a place where I can escape to. I can sit there in the sunshine with a mug of tea, listening to the birds singing, looking at the garden.

Are you a shed lover? What's your shed like?

                         

Loads of lettuce

I've had a few ups and downs with my salad growing this month. The wet weather has brought out all the slugs. Well you'll know that of course, everyone is complaining about the slugs. So I am beginning to see holes appearing in my salad leaves.

We went away for the weekend and I came back to find all the mizuna tops nibbled at. The lollo rossa seedlings have disappeared and so has the watercress.

However I am still pleased with the progress of the rocket, red salad bowl, tom thumb and little gem lettuce which were further on than the other stuff so could cope with a bit of slug damage. At the time of planting I thought I may have put too many in for our needs, but at least now I have enough leaves to be able to pick around the slug damaged ones. When I look back on last month's photos of my salad bed I can see how well everything has grown.  I'm still growing pea shoots, those are in a tub by the back door.

I'm so enjoying going out into the garden with a bowl to collect a few salad leaves to go with our lunch or dinner. And I haven't bought any lettuce for weeks now.

I don't seem to be very good at growing radish. I notice every year, that I get some pathetic looking radish, so I think it must be me who can't grow them. I've sown some at the allotment to see if they do any better there.

The herbs I planted in pots are romping away too, I've used the red veined sorrell in salads.

The second lot of outdoor cucumbers seem to be doing fine (the first lot died). I shall pot them into bigger pots before finally planting out into the cold frame

So now I just need to sow more seeds to replace all those slug eaten seedlings.

New allotment--getting started

If you've been following my allotment progress you will know that my daughter and I have had a mini allotment in the form of  a council run scheme of raised beds. The good news is that we now have our own 'proper' allotment. We, along with some other people who were near the top of the allotment waiting list were invited to an evening viewing of the vacant allotments. I have to say that none of them were very inspiring, but the one we finally decided on was plot 10b.

The previous tenant had been keeping chickens on the site. Unfortunately all his chickens had been got at by the fox so he decided to give up. The new plot is L shaped  and has one large stretch of weed filled area. The other bit has chicken sheds on it. There are 3 rather ramshackle looking sheds and one huge metal cabin.

We are still keeping our raised bed plots on until the end of the year because we have planted them up with summer veg. This will give us time to get some growing areas dug over in the new allotment to plant up with winter veg.

Last weekend we started work. We cleared out the rubbish from the best of the sheds, swept, cleaned and disinfected it. Then we started clearing some of the areas in which  we want to grow things.  There are a lot of stones as well as huge weeds.

We worked really hard, even the grandchildren, who seemed to enjoy themselves. Our grandson likes to help grandad so he (assisted?) him as he attempted to build a compost bin area using wood which had been kindly dumped nearby for any of the allotment people to use.  

The new plot has come complete with a cat.  The previous owners were unable to catch it to take it with them, so we agreed to look after it. It's very elusive, sometimes we see it watching us, then it disappears.  We leave food for it, which gets eaten and there is access into the shed for it to sleep. We hope she will eventually accept us as new owners.

There's a lot of work ahead of us, but we were really pleased with the progress we have made so far.

Coming home

We've just returned from a week away in North Devon and the garden has grown amazingly in that time.  In fact when we arrived home, as we trundled our holiday stuff from the car (in the rain) through the back garden up to the house, I was partly overjoyed to see it all again, with flowers which hadn't been there before we went away, and partly overwhelmed by the work I would need to do to sort it out. It looked like a jungle. There seemed to be too many plants crowded into the borders. I really should remember how big plants grow to.

The following day I saw things differently.  There was no rain, the sun was shining and my husband cut the lawn. The borders looked so much better once the grass was a decent length. Then a neighbour came round and exclaimed how beautiful the garden was looking.  I looked again with fresh eyes and decided  it did look quite good.

The poppies are now flowering. The lovely deep pink 'Raspberry Queen' is my favourite.  The paler pink is 'Victoria Louise'. 'Patty's Plum' has lots of buds but is yet to flower.

 The hardy geraniums are now out. 

Lots of pale pink in the front garden.

 

More blue in the back garden

Also lots of blue from the Iris

It was all so lovely that I cut some flowers for the house.