A Whole Plotta Love

We have been collecting pallets since April with the goal of eventually turning them into a shed and, as you can see from the featured image, we are nearly there. Our family worked enthusiastically and tirelessly (and without being put under any duress) to build our shed over a very cold weekend at the beginning of December. We are very grateful for all the effort they put in. There are a few little jobs that still need doing, such as window covers and flooring, and I am currently in the process of staining the wood with preservative.

Most of the materials used were collected via Freecycle, Freegle or items friends were throwing away. This shed is literally built from other people’s rubbish!

Dad and Rob put in the initial work on the Friday levelling the ground and laying paving slabs and base pallets. The cavalry arrived the following day when the epic shed building adventure began in earnest.

The shed is 1 3/5 pallets high at the front, and 1 2/5 pallets high at the back to create an angle for the pitched roof.

I am using Cuprinol wood stains for both the interior and exterior. The inside is in Lavender (the result of panic buying the colour in front of me when overwhelmed by choice in Jewson. Hopefully it will dry a few shades darker than the photograph shows) and Silver Copse on the outside (technically a fence stain but I am not sure what the difference is between shed and fence stain).

I will post more photographs as we progress. Another exterior coat is definitely needed.

Even though the shed is not yet ready to admit visitors, it is proudly sporting a Whole Plotta Love doormat in anticipation of the hordes of people who will no doubt come to admire it.

In other news from the plot, I have dug over the old pumpkin bed and covered it ready for spring use. I am yet to dig our other beds, but I have mulched our raspberry and currant canes with woodchip. I am a little concerned that they are planted in the soggiest and shadiest part of the plot, but it was the only bed we had available when we were given them. We will just have to keep an eye on them.

We have also recently lost all of our Brussel sprouts to mice. The bed was fenced and netted, but the mice burrowed up beside them.

Like other areas of the country we also had snow this month. The allotments looked beautiful, but it was also quite destructive. Netted defences and polytunnels really suffered under the weight of snow – we had 2 1/2 inches in total. We walked to the plot a few hours after the snow started falling and tried to rescue as many covers and structures as we could on our own and neighbouring plots. We were too late to save P’s polytunnel.

One advantage of the snowfall was the ability to track rabbit and deer prints and discover their points of entry onto our plot. At this time of year and in such inclement weather we do not mind sacrificing a cabbage or two. Their need is greater than ours so we will wait a little before once again shoring up our defences. We also left food for the birds before returning home.