Farcebook

Author: james

  • Monsoon Season

    Monsoon Season

    Seems the weather has switched from hot and dry to “wet”. It’s a bit hard to do anything on an allotment when it’s raining.

    I did notice the water butt on my shed at home was full though.

    And the small one on my other shed was looking a bit full too.

    So I figured I’d buy another water butt from Wickes and set it up to fill from the overflow of the first one.

    I also moved the water pump into the new butt. I’ll use that to water the roof garden in the summer.

    The finished setup looks quite tidy, although the second butt is half full already. I need to sort out an overflow so it doesn’t flood the area around my shed. The drainage isn’t great and a shed sat in a pool of water isn’t the best.

    Also out of curiosity I went to the allotment to see how the water butt there was doing. It seems to be filling up and holding water OK.

    At some point I’m sure I’ll add a second butt there too.

  • Shed roof garden maintenance

    Shed roof garden maintenance

    The roof garden on my shed needs sorting out, a lot of giant daisies grew this year and while they looked nice at the time, their dead remains need trimming.

    It’s not too difficult with a ladder, but some areas required a bit of climbing about on my fence.

    Once trimmed I moved some random bulbs I had in planters and tipped the remains of the planters on the roof to add some more soil.

    There’s quite a lot of different plants up there, some I didn’t put there. Also found a few small trees trying to grow and snipped their shoots off.

  • A pane in the grass

    A pane in the grass

    The nice thing about sheds is that their windows are all the same size. The bad thing about sheds is the glass is expensive. So I’ve reclaimed the almost-four panes from the old shed to reuse at home.

    No idea how old this shed is, but the windows are held in more by luck than anything.

    But with a bit of careful prying to remove old putty and rusty nails the glass came out without breaking any more than it currently is.

    After a bit of a clean they’ll be good as new and ready to fit in one of my sheds at home to provide some luxury double glazing.

  • Glueing up a butt hole

    Glueing up a butt hole

    At the allotment I’ve moved the water butt so it can catch rain off the shed roof, rather than not catching rain off the greenhouse’s broken roof.

    The butt is quite old, the plastic has faded in the sunlight and the tap leaks. The first job was attaching guttering to the shed.

    As it’s metal and about two millimetres thick I used rivets and they seem to hold it well enough.

    I managed to build a little platform out of a paving slab and some highly dubious wood that isn’t entirely rotten. It’s straight enough…

    Next door’s chickens were assessing the quality of the workmanship. There was some suspicious clucking but I think it passed.

    Finally I had to glue the tap in to stop it leaking. I used some cheap pound shop epoxy, it should be good enough.

    Now I just need it to rain!

  • I like big butts and neatly trimmed bushes…

    I like big butts and neatly trimmed bushes…

    Last year I made a roof garden on my shed, and I noticed it takes a fair amount of water in summer, so in the spirit of conserving resources I decided I need another water butt.

    The shed has a small butt, but it doesn’t catch much water and is mostly there to keep the runoff from watering. Also as you can see the downpipe has fallen off and it’s being overtaken by the bushes around it.

    I have another shed that doesn’t have a water butt, so I went off to Wickes and bought a 210L one.

    No idea why there’s a dent in it, but some rain will sort that out I’m sure. First I had to remove the tomatoes, they seem to have given up, the tomatoes aren’t ripening any more.

    The big butt came with a base and after levelling the ground it sits nicely with enough space to get a watering can under the tap (which I glued in to stop leaks).

    So finally the small butt needed some attention along with the messy bush, which had a trim. I fixed the downpipes and trimmed things so it’s easier to get to. I might rig up an overflow to the other butt at some point.

    Now I just need to wait for the rain. It’s mid September, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty in a week or two!