Only just noticed by looking through my archives… If you look at:
http://www.waark.com/2008/02/sheds/
And
http://www.waark.com/2011/11/chicken-shed/
You’ll see my poor ol’ friend Ben being mugged into not only once putting up the same shed, but twice. But I have realised the shed is 3 years old… not bad for something that only cost £99, has been broken into, torn down and rebuilt.
A key bit of the work yesterday was painting fencing ready to slot in. I also replaced the old drainage on the back of my neighbours shed as it was previously draining onto my fence panels.
Today I finished the roof and got the guttering on with the help of both my friends Gary & Ben. But it wouldn’t be a proper finished job if we didn’t get the still wet panels into place. Gary, with the aid of my nice new water butt stand and me on some steps managed to easily slide in the first panel.
The 2nd panel almost killed the both of us and our silent observer Ben (didn’t want to get painted). 6ft x 6ft panels, even with no wind are a bit of a problem to fit.
The back of the boat (damaged by me accidentally throwing an oar through it) was repaired by Gary…
… and we finished off by painting it!
Well, several weeks of planning and here we are, a shed, ready for conversion into a chicken shed.
Yes, after many years as a gardening blog which really wanted/needed chickens to justify the name “waark”.
Well, we’re only a few months off…
Before we bring in the chickens, I need to do a lot of work setting up a proper run, doors etc!
I’m reusing the old fence posts (which were in a sorry state anyway!) as a base for the shed. Two were a bit too long – one of which was completely knackered.
Rather than get rid of it, I decided to use my toy the angle grinder…
And with the mini sledge and angle grinder I shortened the other perfectly
The extra length towards my neighbours fence will support a short bit of decking so during the winter we can store the chairs down there.
Similarly I need to get rid of the water coming off the shed, so rather than waste it, I’m running it into a water butt that came from the allotment.
The base was built using the old breeze blocks from the man cave renovation.
To finish off I need to put some pond liner between the base and the concrete blocks to stop the base rotting and some over the breeze blocks so they don’t dissolve.
The fencing was finished today – well obviously the panels aren’t yet in but that’s because we want to paint them first.
Our workman has done a good job maximising the loss of our garden (it seems our neighbours may have encroached a little onto our land with sheds and greenhouses if you compare fence lines) so the fences are in places a little bit angled but it all looks fine from the back door – its only if you’re looking for it you’d notice.
He’s done an excellent job removing stumps and levelling the ground – its just up to me now to get the fence panels painted and in. We’re going to use the old fencing posts as the foundations for the shed to keep it off the ground – a good bit of reuse!
Ecosac recently contacted me in regards to my post about the co-ops new degradable bags. Similar in feel and texture they assure me they will rot down completely in your home compost bin.
What was more “shocking” to me was the composting bin they sent with it – the “bio.box”. It’s a new design on me – rather than the solid design given out by the council, this one resembles a milk crate being relatively full of holes. The theory is that by letting it breathe, the condensation evaporates and you don’t get the little black fruit flies.
I was very skeptical – after all, we have open bins at work and we’re currently infested with fruit flies.
So far however so good. We’re emptying the bin about once a week and we put a lot of meat scraps in which is primarily from cat food (most of that seems to be soy as it only contains 4% meat making the cats more vegetarian than me…)
I have no idea of cost etc, the primary reason on choosing coop bags was that it transports my produce home and I can reuse them as caddy liners cheaper than I could buy liners – otherwise I was generally using old copies of papers picked off the train to line my caddy for free…
But the bin at least gets my vote – and with only using non modified corn starch you’ll have less chemicals than standard newspaper print AND a non smelly bin.
It is however november. We’ll carry on using it until next summer and if anything changes I’ll let you know, but they look good.
So hot, been wandering around in t-shirts this weekend. You’d not think it was late November. My strawberries are still at it and my orchard is starting to sprout leaves which can’t be good…
This weekend I finally got off my behind to do some work (the release if the latest activision offering of modern warfare 3 hasn’t helped) and I cleared up the orchard. The old tree stumps are now out the front with a strange assortment of wood worm eaten offerings to the freecycle gods.
As you can see we’re having the back fence “done”. My neighbours son has found himself with time on his hands. It was a job I wouldn’t mind doing with my wife, but it was very low down the priorities even though we’d bought the fencing supplies last month. Most of the work is getting the old stumps out which David has done by splitting them with an old ax head and a crow bar of epic proportions.
Next I’ve got to level the ground where the shed is to go and get the foundations down for the greenhouse. To get my ample frame in we’ve decided to raise it up by a few feet on blocks. This’ll make it far more comfortable for me when pottering away.
Proving mother nature really is a bit confused, I’ve picked my 2nd flush of strawberries. This is odd due to the fact it’s November. Where’s this autumn we’re supposed to be having?
It’s like Christmas. But in November. So many choices… What’ll we grow this year… Expect a list 
I'm Tim, a 29yr old ex-Allotmenteer. My wife and I used to have a small 5 rod plot in South Essex where we grew all manner of veg. I'm also involved in brewing the odd keg of beer.
Recently we bought a house with a 65ftx30ft garden, which we're converting into a mini orchard and veg beds. The entire transformation is happening at the moment and being chronicled by a timelapse camera.
The hope is to introduce chickens next year into the orchard to allow them free range.
If you want to contact me, you can do so here
