Sorting the Garden Shed

Thursday was quite productive. When we moved we'd packed away all the gardening gear, pots and trays etc into boxes and put them into the cowsheds. Then the builders arrived to renovate the sheds so the boxes got stacked up outside. After all, it doesn't harm plant pots if they get wet!

Well, when the builders had done their thing, the boxes were pretty wet and since the contents were for the garden shed, we left them where they were. So far, so good but when  I come to finally putting things in their home, the bases of the boxes had rotted and everything fell out. So it was back and forth to the shed with the pots in the wheelbarrow.

When the garden shed went up, it felt vast inside, like an aircraft hanger when I gave the floor a couple of coats of Cuprinol. Putting in the old potting bench and building a long bench under the window and some shelves made it feel a little smaller and more homely.

Now all the pots are in there along with the hand tools, tunnel cloches, sprayer and all those other bits you accumulate, it's full! In fact, I need to put more shelves up. The rotovators and shredder are in the cow shed, so they're not even in the garden shed. And we've not got a lawn mower any more, either.

Val pointed out that we had quite a large shed in the garden at the last house plus I had the shed on the allotment plus we had 3 greenhouses which had a lot of stuff in, so it's no surprise to her that the shed is full.

Despite still needing to some more shelves and to sort things out, at least I can find my tools now Gardening is all about preparation. You prepare the soil and things grow well. So now I'm prepared to prepare!

Getting the main plot prepared is going to be a big job but I want to get going with something now at least. So get ready to laugh. We've moved to a place with 4 acres of land and we're going to start off some salads in pots and set up two raised bed kits!

So on Friday I thought I'd set up the raised beds. This involves stripping the turf, breaking up the underlying soil, replacing the turf upside down and filling the beds with a mix of compost and soil.

Whilst half the country is doing rain dances in a parched, arid desert-like land, it decides to pour down here. So we headed off to a few garden centres in search of supplies and possibly a few decorative bushes for the garden area.

We visited a couple and quite frankly we were really disappointed. Back in Crewe we had Bridgemere and Stapely within very easy reach. Neither are cheap but they have a huge range and some very knowledgeable staff. I'm not too good on growing stuff that you can't eat. Here we found small centres, very nice but not a large selection of plants and they weren't cheap either.

One thing I really need is some garden lime. Not just for the soil but also for the compost bins. Now I'm used to paying around £4.00 for 25Kg sacks but ended up paying £5.49 for just 10Kg. Luckily I've plenty of fertiliser because that was even dearer compared to what I'm used to paying.

Anyway, we did buy some bags of multi-purpose compost, which will mix into the soil to improve it in the raised beds and in a moment of madness a morello cherry tree in a pot. Not sure where that will end up, but it will hold for a few months at least whilst we cogitate.

As I write, on Saturday, the weather has turned much for the worst. The rain is heavier and accompanied by strong winds. We're in the low clouds at points as well which is like being in fog. Perhaps summer will arrive soon, please. As requested, more photos. Click on them for gallery view and then click the main photo for a full sized image.