Having served my vegetable growing apprenticeship in the allotments of northwest England and North Wales and a smallholding in West Cork.
I have come to the conclusion that gardening does need to cost the earth, No pun intended!
I made two cold frames from some old block paving bricks I had lying around and the cold frame glass is two doors from a shower curtain. Yes I use a stick to prop them open and its not got an hinge like those posh manufactured cold frames that you can buy. But to use one of Catherine Tate's comic characters quote:
"Am I bothered?"
This one is propped up with a piece of chipboard flooring that was left over from the farmhouse renovation last year. I didn't use any cement or mortar and it cost me ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to make on a Sunday morning when all the builders merchants and garden centres are CLOSED! My Japanese onions are doing well. We ate one for tea the other night and the freshness was better than anything you buy in the shops. There are some strawberries growing in an old tractor tyre behind the japs. This could do with weeding Dave! Behind that is my pallet compost heap. Its getting big. More recycling.
Planted with lettuces. I planted some of my perennials on the perimeter of the cold frame. They will flower and also be part of my nursery stock.
If you look closely. You will see roots on my newly rooted Cotoneaster plants. They are now planted and sat on my old metal patio table. Its rusted and corroded patina and frame doesn't look very good. Put it makes a great plant table in ye olde polytunnel.
More recycling ideas soon!
I have come to the conclusion that gardening does need to cost the earth, No pun intended!
I made two cold frames from some old block paving bricks I had lying around and the cold frame glass is two doors from a shower curtain. Yes I use a stick to prop them open and its not got an hinge like those posh manufactured cold frames that you can buy. But to use one of Catherine Tate's comic characters quote:
"Am I bothered?"
Planted with lettuces. I planted some of my perennials on the perimeter of the cold frame. They will flower and also be part of my nursery stock.
If you look closely. You will see roots on my newly rooted Cotoneaster plants. They are now planted and sat on my old metal patio table. Its rusted and corroded patina and frame doesn't look very good. Put it makes a great plant table in ye olde polytunnel.
More recycling ideas soon!
I like your recycling and you are obviously saving lots of money. I looked at big pots at the garden centre the other day and saw they are £20 upwards. I like to see old buckets, sinks, baths, tin baths, old tin containers used for plants and herbs and flowers. I think they look good.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rachel. I think it's nature not necessary the pot that makes the scene. I have wrote blogs about allotment art. I love how people like your brother with his pond paint wonderful living pictures. I also love Tramp and Canal art. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteyour cold frame didnt look that different to the ones I saw at Heligan the other week and they had pineapples growing in them!
ReplyDeleteHi Sol. Thanks. The town tip and the skip hire firm are good sources for stuff for the veg plot and garden. Our eldest was about two when we last visited Heligan. We left him with my mum having an ice cream while my wife, my dad and me went to explore the Jungle. We came back and it looked like he was shaving with ice cream all around his face. He"s twenty two next. Wonderful memories. Must visit Heligan some time. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI'm a flower and herb gardener but your blog might persuade me to plant the odd vegetable. What's the easiest thing to grow? Something easy to stick in a hole and let it get on with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Gwil. I suppose onion setts are dead easy. But if you are a flower and herb herb gardener. I can't see why can't grow lettuces, brassicas, beetroot,swedes..? I am going to sow some swedes and pick them when they are the size of a tennis ball. Small is beautiful. What herbs and flowers do you grow?
ReplyDeleteWe have roses and lilies and several herbs and plants I don't know the English names of. I have some rhubarb, if that's a vegetable or a fruit I don't know. But I was reading on Cro's blog about Portugese tomatoes and that he plants the seeds. Are the vegetables you mentioned slug proof? I imagine onions could be, so I'll pop a few bulbs in and see what happens. I have some bluebells but they don't get blue over here. Wild garlic does well. Grows like a weed in our local park.
DeleteThe wild garlic is also called Ransoms. You can eat it too. You can buy Spanish bluebells which are a garden variety. Onions are easy to grow. Slugs seem to like really tender plants. So you could buy lettuce or cabbage plants in pots. I have grown potatoes in a big pot in the window of our flat we once lived in. Would you not rent half an allotment? Saw some lovely vegetable gardens with sheds next to the Danube in Vienna. Good luck!
DeleteI'm not very near the Danube. I forgot to mention the sunflowers, I think the birds drop the seeds, but we generally get a few flowers, and the daffodils I planted a dozen last year as an experiment and about half of them came up earlier in the spring. Planting a spud in a pot sounds like a good idea. They have lovely flowers.
DeleteYeah sunflowers are great. I use to know somebody who use to smoke wild bird food. I think they call it Bush. It was very good. So I have been told.
DeleteYou can plant spuds in a pot in September and they will be ready for Christmas Dinner.
The Potato by Larry Zuckerman is a wonderful good book. He mentions how the French Kings wore potato flower posies. People thought it was deadly nightshade and people wouldn't eat the potatoes. It's a great book. Thanks Gwil.
We had some spuds in the cellar but the mice nibbled bits out of all of them. I could have planted them but Mrs G has thrown them out she tells me.
DeleteSpuds in the cellar. Sounds like the name of a Rock group. Hope the mice liked them. Once knew an allotment ER from the eyes of some potato peelings somebody gave them. Now I can be a tight wad. But who gives you their potato peelings?
DeleteI always found pleasure in things constructed from this and that....much better than the fancy stuff that costs the earth.
ReplyDeleteI agree Valerie. Productive vegetables plots need not be fancy but they can also be attractive. I would rather spend money on plants or good compost than a fancy pot. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou do inspire me to have a go at making garden equipment out of bits and pieces, but my husband tends to want to do things 'properly'. BUT now that he is busy working on his computer (which he loves) I now have free range out on the farm! Carry on writing....and I shall follow on behind you 'borrowing' your ideas!
ReplyDeleteThanks Vera. I what your husband means about doing things properly. But I also believe that gardening is for everybody and the old gardeners I have read about used what ever resources God gave them. I have seen allotment sheds held down with stones, homemade polytunnels, onions drying in unwanted supermarket trolleys ..? Thanks for the encouragement.
ReplyDeleteI see your blog daily, it is crispy to study.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is very useful for me & i like so much...
Thanks for sharing the good information!
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