visited my girlfriends grandmother the other day in her care home. I took the dog for a short walk round the gardens before going in and discovered this sad sight – a lovely old potting shed / greenhouse that has been left to fall to pieces. It was a sad sight indeed – because you could see that it was a perfect little place not that long ago. It almost looked like a gardener had died and nobody had known it was there – but it is not that hidden.

I feel partly like I should offer to fix it back up – or I should salvage what is still usable and take it to my allotment.

Not much to say about this – other than that if I ever saw my neighbour I would offer to help him empty his shed and straighten and stabilize it.

But this sort of thing is what’s great about allotments. I’m sure my shed will be doing the same after a few of these harsh coastal winters..

I finally had a bit of time and inclination to complete the shed. I filled the hole in the front of the roof – with rusty steel slats that I found thrown away outside an exhibition hall. I have also removed the polycarbonate window that was on the side of the shed and replaced that with more rusty strips – to make it so that the whole shady side is clad in the same thing.
I’m quite happy with the final result – its quite odd looking and i will probably make a few more amendments – but it is at least waterproof now and has a lockable door.
I am going to start removing items soon though as i have heard that the autumn and early winter is a bad time for break-ins.

Looks like I have got hold of some large sheets of clear polycarbonate for the shed roof – instead of the patched up bits of plywood and chipboard that I put up there a while ago and never got round to waterproofing.
Will try my best to get them up in place over the weekend.

Done it  I screwed a few sheets up there – over lapping – so that I now have a clear and waterproof roof.

Finally fitted the other half of the shed roof – and clad the remaining side in rusty steel strips that I found being thrown away at the end of an exhibition.
I forgot to take any pics of the shed as it is now – but here is a pic of the interior of the steel cladding bits. Its quite interesting looking – I wish I had enough of these strips to do the whole shed.

There is no photographic evidence yet – but I have put half of the roof on the shed – and need to keep a look out for more chipboard to do the other half.

almost ripped my left nipple off climbing up to fix the screws in – one of my ikea shelf brackets inside the shed was not strong enough to support my weight. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there.

The full sized shed is almost complete. It still needs a roof and one of the sides is still not clad – but I am waiting to find some suitable timber for this.

I got a pack of unwanted feather edge timber from a friend which has made the front look fantastic. I also got a great door from Eastbourne’s answer to freecycle (Freegle) and made a handle from a cherry tree branch. Window made of old window frame with glass broken out and plastic Polycarb  tri-wall inserted instead.

Now – do I paint it?

Made a short visit to the allotment at the weekend. Planted my courgettes and a row of sunflowers at the front of the plot (alongside the track).
Gave them a good watering in but it has been soo hot here for weeks. My girlfriend went over for a short visit yesterday to water everything and put some small stick in next to the sunflowers to give them some support (and stop them getting trodden on).

And today (Tuesday) I got a lift over to the plot from work with lots of timber frames that were being thrown away. These are going to make perfect raised beds (not raised by a great height but great for defining the individual beds).
So – Now I just have to wait till the weekend so that I can get out there and work out where the beds are going and what is going to go into them.

Really looking forward to the weekend now. I may even get a bit more done on the shed.

Made a good start on the man sized shed over the weekend.
Its laying on its front at the moment while i fix the panelling onto the back. then i’ll flip it up the right way.
I am a little worried that it may look quite tall because I have made the walls 2m high to suit my 6’3″ head in. but the pitched roof then takes it another 400mm higher. If it looks too high when lifted up I may change the roof to a simple gentle slope from front to back.

I have chosen to site it on a platform of paving slabs and have run these further forward so that the shed has a bit of a patio area.

Also planning to put a couple of polycarbonate windows in.

April 13th – Finished cladding the back wall of the shed – and lifted it upright. It was slightly wobbly – but I’ll add some more bracing at the weekend hopefully.

Once the sides and front are all clad properly it should feel a bit more stable too.

Had the afternoon off – so a short visit to the allotment was in order – I wanted to rake out the huge mound, at the rear of the plot, that I had dug over at the weekend – but it was hard going and the skies were trying to rain – and my son wasn’t quite in the mood today.

so I raked out some – but managed to break my 2 yr old rake (the top metal part just broke) as well as an old rake that I found 2 weeks ago under the old compost heap.

I resorted to shovelling out the soil towards the lowest areas – but it was getting hard work – so called it a day before I had finished.

The mini shed has been temporarily re-located into the middle of the plot while work take place at the back. For a small structure it sure is heavy to move around. I did enlist the help of my neighbour for that one.

Once the back are is flatter I can start thinking about building a shed there beside the cherry tree. As you can see I already have a pile of timber piling up – which needs to be used for the shed cladding or raised bed edging.

Allotment layout thoughts.

We have dug over the back area – approx 5m x 3m. This now needs raking out across the rear area so that a shed can be built alongside the cherry tree.

The plan shows a grassed area alongside the shed as well as half way along the plot.
I have drawn up the beds to be approx 1m x 2.1 each – allowing an 800mm path way along the centre.
Not yet worked out what is going into each bed – although there are already a few things in near the rear.

I’m also starting to plan how the shed will work – We don’t need anything huge – so I’m looking into the idea of a 1m deep x 2m wide shed that has 2 doors at the front. when we are working onsite – these 2 doors can be opened out creating a larger sheltered seating area under the overhanging roof.

Have also thoughts that I should add some trellis to the back of the compost bins – to hide them a bit.