Greenhouse plans (1)

I managed to delete the page, and the comment from Paul and Melanie - apologies ! Hopefully this is the link to greenhouse plans draft 1

Initial budget was £200, but it's looking like more than £300. Not too bad though for bespoke structure, as long as you forget the days it will take me to work out and build....

Base	Slabs - Freecycled !	£0
Wall	Bricks - 250 single or 500 double wall	£100
OR	Oak Beams - Fingers crossed on sourcing here	£0
Structure	2"*2"*@300ft pressure treated timber	£100
Glazing	4mm twinwall polycarbonate, mostly precut 610mm*1220mm for ease	£150
Misc	Fixtures and fittings	£30

Digging Starts

Well we've made a start  on the soil. Black polythene, courtesy of polyfast (good price fantastic delivery) over one of the beds-to-be and the barrows of turf, and half of one bed dug and tillered. So 10% of primary digging completed - doesn't look a lot but feels massive. Spuds !

Our first bags of manure and a free shed

A dozen or so bags of well rotted horse manure - who ever would have thought that would be an exciting event ? And they will be perfect for weiging down the plastic over the barrows when we get around to that task.

A free shed ! Well almost. It won't cost anything as it's our own shed, from the garden - we will just move the shed contents into the garage (huh? where will we put all the junk in the garage - need to work that one out first), and then dismantle the shed and move to the allotment. Then we get to fill up the space where the shed was with a greenhouse. Only, it's right next to the trampoline so glass is out and polycarb is in - meaning a design and build greenhouse. Bring on visio.

Start of the hard work

Finally decisions made (turfcut !) and the weather with us, we made a start on the physical work. Needless to say I left my carefully designed computer generated plans at home so just went with the flow.

• 20 foot patch at the top for chickens, shed, compost and all that
• 5 lots of 9 foot wide beds with 2 foot paths between. 9 foot width totally arbitrary of course and based only on 'that looks a bit narrow better make it a bit wider !' - the 2 foot path width because that's just slightly wider than the mower wheels.
• 15 foot patch at the bottom for fruit trees (?)

After 10 minutes of pulling the starter cord on the turfer I found the on-off switch but we won't mention that again. Totally hard work, but the beds were pretty much de-turfed on Saturday, and most of the turf rolled up and moved off the beds on Sunday.

Side View

Giant ! Late sunshine

Scavenging #3 - a car load of timber

Followed up scavenging #2 and came back with a much more satisfactory pile of timber of all sizes. And a promise that I would saw up loads of firewood next visit

Things to come ? (Halloween 2010)

Tescos last year, from the garden this year ?

Money well spent - local businesses

Support your local garden centre rather than the big boys if you can - just picked up 3 crowns of asparagus, a bag of vermiculite and 4 hessian sacks for £3.50. Planted the asparagus out for OH and pleased with a job well done until she pointed out it was upside down. Australian anyone ?
I also found that I would save around 30% by buying tanalised timber from my local supplier who has a limited website, against a less local supplier with a much swisher website. If you're in the East Midlands then try contacting Gary/Graham from Coltman Bros

Paid up and staked out

Although it feels like ages I guess its only been a few days. Subs are paid and the plot is staked out. Of course this has left lots of time for research and planning. To kill and rotovate, or cover to suppress and do things bit by bit, or - current favourite - turfcut first then rotovate.
Found some nice pages of others who've done just that, together with ideas on what to do with the turf (form a barrow 2ft high, grass down, then plant spuds - great loam next year), designing for beds (leave some turf to allow barrows).

Scavenging #2

Found a source for some timber (partners mom) - came back with one piece of 3*2 ! At least it will do to fashion a saw-table in preparation for all the other jobs I plan to do. Cold frames and compost bins and raised beds and planters ... and all that.

In hindsight I will revisit and be a little more acquisitive :)

Scavenging #1

Buying stuff new can be pricey :( so I'm relying on a couple of workmates who are always DIYing/building. I knew they would come good, and sure enough an offer of 60ft of 2x6 Tanalised, 30 ft of 2x5 Tanalised and 30 ft of 2x4 non-treated came along in a late email
Note to self - must link in Marks pages especially the bit where he loses an entire JCB digging the foundations for his shed :)