Sheds

During our few days off, we cleared the septic tank of the stones that have been on it for a couple of years, in preparation for installing new storage units on it. We've been without a shed for almost exactly two years, when we took the old one down: it was rotting away, and starting to leak, besides not looking very attractive.

Our plan, since then, has been to get a series of storage 'boxes' that went down the septic tank. The top of this is only 120cm wide, although it's over 5m long, so it took a while to find something suitable. In the end, though, we settled on four 2'x4' mini-sheds. They're about 5' tall, and that footprint means that four of them will fit on the tank, and be able to open. It leaves only a 2' passage, but that's proved sufficient.

The four packages arrived yesterday, and we had a very late night assembling two, and starting the painting (of the bases, which will be in contact with occasionally wet concrete).

We continued today, and it's been an all-day affair, with Liz painting while I assembled the last two. We manoeuvred them into position, and finished installing them. They're individually locked, and we've put a pair of shelves into the front one, which is where the frequently used things go: the boxes of hand tools, gloves, fertilizers, slug pellets, and string; and the lawn mower. The second one has the bigger tools: I'd like to put up hooks, or similar, to organize them better. The third has fleece, mesh, and heavy duty bags; and the fourth has all the plastic pots.

This has made an enormous difference in the 'garage', which is much tidier, and more room-like.

Liz busily painting (© Ian 2014)

Septic tank / willow arch from the games lawn (© Ian 2014) 

Bare septic tank cover (© Ian 2014)

Willow arch / septic tank from the pond garden (© Ian 2014)

Sheds in place (© Ian 2014)

2'x4' Garden Stores on top of the septic tank (© Ian 2014)

Strimming the Orchard

The orchard's been starting to look rather overgrown, after a number of months without cutting the grass, so I was pleased to be able to spend this morning going over it with the brushcutter. Pleasingly, I was able to do this on my own, as it's now almost all grass (and a few short brambles, thistles, and the like), and Liz was able to get on with other work: painting the support tubes for the apple walk. They're now a very striking cream (a second coat will follow in due course), and stand out from much further. Only the Grandpa Buxton apple appears to have broken bud; but many are swelling. By the same token, a number of the grafted fruit trees look as though they will break bud, but not quite.

Liz also managed to get the construction wood (3x3 posts, 3x1 planks, and the like) cleared from the site of the pond, so I can get to the old shed panels. I need to chainsaw these into sections, for making compost bins.

We've had to chilli-oil the trees on the hillside, again, as one of the Scots pines has been attacked by deer.

After several years languishing in pots, we've finally been able to plant out our amelanchier, lilac (both in the corner where a pine was, near the top of the drive), and weeping willow (on the SE boundary). Hopefully they'll be happier in the ground, and the amelanchier, in particular, should be a nice feature on that border of the garden.

Wood-store

For the last month or so, at weekends and evenings, we've been building a wood store. It's where we originally thought we might put a shed and greenhouse, but we've had concerns about light levels (and the site's suitability for a greenhouse); the shape of the ground available isn't ideal; and we need the space for seasoning wood. Until now, we've been stacking the wood and covering it with a tarpaulin, the sides of the dismantled shed, and a couple of fence panels. Not the most attractive, and sadly ineffectual. The wood's not dried at all well, and in places is wetter than it went in.

It's taken so long partly because we've been building the new store around the woodstacks, because there's nowhere else for the wood to go, and moving it all wholesale onto the games lawn (the only alternative) would have taken an enormous amount of time/energy in itself. So we've worked around the stacks, dismantling them where we needed to dig post holes, and tossing it into heaps.

The woodstore is now complete. It's built of 75mm posts, with bearers/rafters at a height of 195cm at the front. There's a 5° pitch to the roof, so it's taller at the back. We stepped the roof, or the left side (where the ground's quite a lot lower) would have been very tall. The roof is made of 22mm OSB, painted with weather-proof shed/fence paint. This we covered with two layers of polyethylene, a continuous layer of pond liner, and clamped all the way around. This makes it completely watertight, and means that we can (in the spring) add fascia boards around it, and turn it into a green roof—with the sorts of plants I was eyeing up at Harlow Carr.

Wood store, from the path to the fruit beds (© Ian 2012)

It's got guttering along the front, draining into a waterbutt that I've never got round to attaching to the house's gutters. And, finally, we've cleared the ground between it and the kitchen garden beds, put down weed-suppressant membrane, made a stone-lined rill ditch (to minimize water entering from the front, and put down chippings. Constructing it has been a mammoth bit of work, but it's given us about 50m³ of wood storage, which should be two years' worth of good drying space.

Front of wood store, with mulched path and drainage rill (© Ian 2012)

And don't worry, we've got alternative/back-up plans for shed and greenhouse locating.

Shed to Deck

After several years of planning, we've finally taken down the shed. When we moved in, we were a little baffled by the choice of location for the shed: straight outside the kitchen window. It's not the loveliest of things, with faded/worn paint and a grubby roof. Then we discovered the roof was increasingly leaky, and there were rotting patches in the floor (which covers several mouse houses, I suspect) and walls. However, it took until earlier this year to sort the contents of the shed (which was, despite lack of aesthetic charm, vital storage space) into the garage, and fill the shed with items with varied destinies: installation in the garden (trellis, wall thermometer, clock), council recycling centre (old mattress), scrap metal merchant (old bike frames) or resale (the old fireplace). This made a different problem: sorting these things to their future homes. We almost managed that on Saturday. The to-the-tip stuff is actually to be collected by the council; the scrap metal will go there next Friday, when we're on leave; the others have, once again, been moved back into the garage. You can't win them all. This did, however, mean that we could take down the shed! It was a nasty job: the roof has been re-covered at some point, so there were several layers of grit/felt/tarred fabric to remove, and the frame isn't really designed for dismantling. Accordingly, it's taken all day, but the shed has gone. Not far, mind: the sides are now covering the wood stack, the roof slats are merely piled up, and the base is still in situ. But it's a vast improvement. Customary before vs after photos, showing the base-cum-decking:

From the back door (© Ian 2012)

From the corner of the patio (© Ian 2012)