We like to make stuff. We especially like to make stuff for gardens out of things that were going to get thrown away.
how to ...
make newspaper seed pots
They look cool, re-using is always better than recycling, and the satisfaction of turning Peter Mandleson's face into a slowly rotting substrate for growing my dinner in is second to none.
how to ...
dig
It is entirely our conviction that you don't know jack about digging until you've seen the balletic performance of an 80 year old man who has been doing it for at least 50 years.
how to ...
make a coldframe
We make coldframes out of old sash windows destined for landfill. We scavenge wood from scaffolding companies who would otherwise burn it when it gets split.
Natural Wombles that we are, we try to make as much of your garden stuff out of other people's throw-away.
Reusing / repurposing is always better than recycling, and recycling is a whole load of times better for everyone that chucking away. Or burning.
Everything in the following sequence was saved from landfill or fire. And we promise to try and source everything we use in your garden from the same fate.
So. If you have just repolaced your windows and they are still basically sound, and you happen to have some wood lying around, this is how you could spend an enjoyable afternoon in the garden with a saw in your hand and the sun on your back making a coldframe for your early seeds and your late lettuces
Here's a sash window. They usually have little feet on them. I've already sawed them off. People chuck out sash windows all the time. Sometimes a builder will ask for a couple of quid for them. Sometimes you'll get them for free.
The window is a bit big and heavy. We might want to move the cold frame between spring and winter, so let's get a bit of serious weight-reduction going on.
When it's a window, it needs to hold it's own weight. On the coldframe, it's going to be resting on the frame, so we can happily get rid of some of the wood surround. I did this with an electric plane. They're brilliant, but noisy.
These struts will be the back of the frame. The tops are all cut at about 22 1/2 degrees. That might sound terribly accurate, but it's a quarter of a right angle, so easy enough. I cut the first one by eye , the accuracy bit is making sure you cut them all equally. If you have an electric mitre saw, this is dead easy. But I like to do things by hand. You get much more of a feeling of making stuff if you run the risk of a splinter.
Then screw them all together. Somethings (sawing) are pleasuable to do by hand. Some (drilling) are not. There are going to be a lot of screws, and because I like to countresink everything, an auful lot of screwing and drillingDrill guide holes and drill countersink holes, then pop in the screws and screw 'em in.
Final step is to find someone putting new fence panels in. Or, more to the point, chucking old ones out. They might be a bit split or damage, but they's always going to be enough good wood for a cold frame.
Carefully (with a claw hammer) deconstruct the fence panel, render it into it's constituent parts. If you've got it all just about the same size as on of our lovely cold frames, then you should find that by halving all the horizontals, you've got a pile of wood just the right length and just the right quantity to completelty clad a sash-window scrap cold frame.
No need to measure the middle, there should be a nail hole at the centre. If your fence panel was made nicely.
Nail them on, then trim the overhang.
