At last our allotment is coming to life. Fruit trees are in bloom and shoots are peeping through the ground. We have even found an abundance of wild garlic on the site. Apart from its potential use in salads, garnishes and cooking, the children love to nibble on the leaves.
My energies have been mainly spent on erecting a shed/shelter (one end is completely open) out of recycled pallets; well, I say shed but actually it’s more like a personal tribute to Heath Robinson, there’s not a straight line, level or square angle on it anywhere.
Pallet wood is not nice stuff to work with; it’s very hard and brittle, loves giving you splinters and is filled with nails that cannot be removed. Having said this, it was all free; so I spent a quite a few lunch hours at work dismantling these nasty spiky items, loading up the car and piling the planks up on site.
Then I set about creating a carefully designed plan, with the help of a fully qualified architect, created a level base out of high grade concrete and fully treated all the timber before measuring twice and cutting everything to exact lengths (this part is all a big, fat lie).
To be truthful, I basically hammered several posts into steeply-sloping, uneven ground and then stumbled around trying to nail various planks of uneven sizes onto them; very much doing everything by eye and making plans up as I went along. I’m definitely not a qualified builder but I’m quite good at improvisation and the family and I will be pleased enough with the end result, especially if we get caught in a sudden shower.
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