Garden Project 2010 – Number One

One of the girls has been doing allotmenteering at school this year, and has developed a healthy interest in all things home-grown.  Keen to reinforce this and to build on the wonderful appreciation of our garden-grown strawberries (all 6 of them) last year, we’ve invested in a few small self-sufficiency projects.

1. Improved strawberry growing. I’m not saying how this has been achieved. It’s a secret from the kids.
2. A raspberry plant. I bought one last year but a neighbourhood idiot uprooted the “sticks” from the embankment in front of our house and threw them into the canal.  This time they’re in the back garden!
3. A growing house for tomatoes.  This is what this blog entry is about.

The Tomato House

In an attack of bargain-hunting that orange fraudster David Dickinson would be proud of, my Other Half snapped up a steel-and-plastic mini-greenhouse for about £7.  “Excellent!” we thought.  Over the weekend I took the bits out of the box and realised that, while a very good idea and no doubt excellent for tomatoes, the weather-proofyness of said greenhouse was less than ideal for the foothills of the Pennines.

So, down to B&Q I went and spent £25 on materials to build a suitably stable base for our £7 greenhouse.  Brilliant.

An hour or two later, with blistered office-worker hands thanks to my battery failing on the power drill, I chocked up the base so it was level and attached the uprights of the greenhouse to the shed.  Now the thing will only blow away if the shed blows away too – and the bikes should stop that happening!

A job well done, I think.  What do you think?

The tommies are propagating at the moment so they should be in there in about a fortnight.  Watch this space…

p.s. I did get out on the bike, 9.3 miles around Hollingworth Lake after being delayed by my own poor workmanship.  Time lost due to a 3-step puncture repair, gah.  But a nice ride nonetheless. 🙂