We’ve even got the kitchen sink!
It’s been a month of projects for us. Just after we moved to this house in 2009 I bought an aluminium-framed plastic greenhouse; at the time I thought it was a great investment because it was reasonably priced, the frames were solid enough and the plastic would be child proof. The greenhouse lasted the first season brilliantly – we grew aubergines, okra and tomatoes, but once the storm season began it didn’t look anywhere near as sturdy as I initially thought. That winter there were strong winds and I could see the greenhouse lifting, so in the middle of a storm I tried to hold it down. I managed to save it from the first few gusts, then a really powerful one blew the greenhouse out of my hands, up in the air and landed in the garden in a crumpled mess!
Not to let that greenhouse go to waste I had some leftover timber salvaged from a skip, so I built a lean-to wooden framed greenhouse and clad it with the plastic from the old one. Fast forward 10 years and this second greenhouse has been battered by the winds and suffered from a little neglect, so now it’s time to start dismantling greenhouse number two. Rather than sending the plastic sheeting off to landfill, I thought it’s better to repurpose it and make another mini greenhouse or cloche.
I put all the kids to work helping me dismantle the wooden greenhouse, paint the batons for the new cold frame and help build the new mini greenhouse
– we made lots of mess and it ended up taking way longer than it needed to, but we had so much fun doing it!
I currently have two greenhouses: one I built a couple of years ago from recycled timber and
polycarbonate and the other is a traditional, aluminium-framed glass greenhouse. The second project of the month was to build a potting table for the glasshouse, but because of the way the staging is set up there’s little space for a fixed potting up bench, so time to get my thinking cap on.
I salvaged a kitchen sink late last year when my sister had her kitchen replaced, with an idea of using it in the garden somehow, and I decided to use it to make a fold-away potting up bench that fits in place with the existing greenhouse staging. I’m really proud of the way the project turned out – the basin can be used to store compost and the plants potted up on the drainer. Not only does it work as a potting up bench but it’s also really good when it comes to watering; the bowl can be filled and dry pots placed in it to soak. Once the watering is finished, I unplug the sink and catch all the excess water in a bucket.
I can really see this idea catching on – a few people have sent me pictures of the potting up benches they’ve made using recycled sinks.