This is not one of my better ideas, but I have always (for some reason) wanted to turn chipboard (particle board) to see what would happen, well now I know.
It's not something I'll ever do again, chipboard or particle board as it's known is horrible stuff to turn for obvious reasons, the end result is oddly pleasing, but the actual turning was very messy, lots of dust so it goes without saying that you need a proper dust mask and eye protection (even when turning proper wood)
I'm a bit behind with posting due to work and other things, so I'm combining the last two allotment visits into one post.
The fist video is us harvesting our borlotti beans and some squash plants, and the second video is us picking this years apple harvest, which isn't as big as it has been in previous years, but we still got enough to make some wine and juice and the rest my wife cut up and froze for pie fillings through the autumn and winter.
There's not much on the plot now, we will get some kale and chard and we should also get some sprouts for Christmas dinner, but for now the plot has been left alone and once Christmas is over I'll start fixing the fences that are damaged (and anything else that needs fixing) and come spring I'll start moving plants about, we have two gooseberry bushes in the gardens at home which are being relocated to the plot, and there are some small fruit trees on the plot that I want to move.
So look out for more allotment posts next year, and in the meantime I'll try and finish off some of the Christmas makes I've started and post / make videos about.
A lot of plants can easily be propagated using water, we usually just use jars of various sizes, but I thought I'd make a proper propagation station, you can buy ready made ones in all sorts of different styles and shapes, and with different types of glass, but I wanted to recycle some old spice jars and some old pallet wood so these cost nothing to make, I'm surprised at how well they turned out, and they look quite good as well.
Here's how I made them -
Rooting cuttings in water works for many different plants, and these are a good way to see the progress of roots growing, and they cost nothing but a little time to make.
One of the many things we do in preparation for Christmas (and winter) is to make liqueurs, we normally use our homegrown blackcurrants or blackberries (we're doing both this year) we pick from the hedgerows, either way the method is the same, basically it's infusing a spirit (brandy in this case) with the flavour of a fruit of some kind, the same way sloe gin is made, we're just not big gin drinkers so this is a good replacement for gin, many different spirits can be used, vodka being one of them.
It takes a few minutes to prepare then it can be left alone for a couple of months, once it's ready it takes a few minutes to strain the fruit out and bottle, if you start this a few months before christmas you'll have a nice warming winter drink for very little effort and money.
We recently acquired a new hoover (vacuum cleaner) but it didn't have a brush attachment, we could have bought one, but it was quicker to make one of our old ones fit, all I did was use part of another attachment that I don't use, not a huge saving money wise but a saving none the less and it saved time in trying to find the right sized attachment online and getting it posted to us.
I could have cut out some of the steps as they aren't really needed.
It's been a while since I posted one of these, but here's a video of the latest visit to the plot, today I've dug up our spuds and now we have 18kg of good potatoes, not bad really.
I haven't had quite as much time lately so the plot has got a little wild, but I've started clearing and making plans for next year, and I have been back since this visit to pick beans and squash, as well as the apples.
A short video of me turning a spinning top from oak, it's a simple turning project, but the end results are always pleasing, who doesn't love a spinning top, and it's a good use for those little odd bits of wood you end up with after a project (or is that just me?)
The oak is still a bit green, but it turns well, there's a small video at the end of some of the tops I've made recently.
Here I use some buddleia (buddleja) that I cut down at the start of the year to make some bobbins (also known as spools or reels) on my lathe, this wood has a very soft pith to it which is handy if you want to make something with a hole through the middle, although I did do some tests and found that if you want a perfectly drilled hole an 11.5mm drill bit works best.
My wife and daughter use the bobbins to wind ribbon onto and other materials for crafting, it's a good use for a material that would probably end up as fire wood or mulch.
How to easily make a string holder from garden wire (other wire could be used) this has come in quite handy because you can hang it up in the shed or greenhouse, or on a fence or even from a tree branch which is what I did the other day when I was tying our tomato plants to their canes.
I'm pleased with it and it has become quite useful, and it's such an easy thing to make, hopefully the video is easy enough to follow, and you don't need any special tools, just a pair of pliers will do the job.
This is a little behind where things are at on the plot, this was just a quick visit to the plot to get the other bed ready and to plant some more plants (squash) out, also planted some bean plants and got the polytunnel ready for our melon plants and birdhouse gourds.
We've had a lot of rain in the last few weeks, what we really need is more sun so the pumpkins and other squashes can get going.
We're getting ready for harvesting some of our crops and what better to carry things in than a trug, this is a simple thing to make and it can be made out of scrap wood or even a pallet.
This isn't the first time I've written a post about making trugs but I thought a video might be helpful and I always enjoy the process of sorting out the wood so it's more workable, this one is made from an old shelving unit, as have some of the others I've made.
Just a quick trip to the plot this time, planted out some beetroot plants in between the borlotti beans, which is a good use of bare space that might have not been used otherwise, also planted six salsify plants, these are a new plant for us, we're growing them at home as ornamental plants and on the plot as a crop, the whole plant is edible, but we're growing it for the root and lastly I've put in some red chard plants as a cut and come again crop.
Not much left to go into the ground, we may plant some quick crops later once things have been picked and harvested, but for now it's waiting for things to grow and keeping up with the weeding, I might even have some free time to make some stuff in my work shop.
A quick how to for making simple trellis for plant pots, this can easily be adapted for smaller or larger pots, and is great for climbing plants or just as a plant support, all you need is some garden canes and some bamboo skewers (plus a few tools)
Doesn't really get much easier to be honest, it would be easy enough to scale up for larger trellis panels and for bigger pots, you could also change the design for something more artistic.
The trips to the plot are getting more frequent now that there's more growing, this visit is mainly for getting some of the squash plants in the ground, but I also planted out the snake beans and some kohlrabi (first time growing it this year) and it seems someone has cut their way into our plot and some of the other plots on the site looking for things to steal, no real damage was done but they did knock off a load of gooseberries when they cut into the neighbouring plot.
It's worth reporting any break in or damage to your allotment plot to both your local council and the police, the chances they'll catch anyone are slim but you should always report these things, it's also a good idea not to keep anything too expensive on your plot, we only keep a few basic tools on ours anything else is kept at home and taken to the plot as and when we need it.
Another trip to the plot, this time it's bean planting, I've put in two types of beans, borlotti and dwarf beans along with some russian kale, sprouts and one lonely spinach plant.
Things are doing well, we've got loads of radish coming up and I harvested more rhubarb and the gooseberry bushes are loaded with berries so it should be a good year for our fruit crops this year.
It's hard to keep up with everything that's going on on the plot now, amazing what a bit of rain and sun will do, but we're getting there, things have moved on a fair bit from this video.
A quick how to guide on layering gooseberry plants for propagation, it's probably the easiest way to get new plants, simply pin a low stem to the ground and leave it to form roots, this works for many other plants, it works well with climbers and I've had good success using this technique to propagate wisteria plants.
A quick guide on building a bean frame for climbing beans, I've used normal bamboo canes for this frame (I've been using them for years) but any straight stick would do, like hazel, or even lengths of timber just as long as it's relatively straight and the right height, for climbing beans you'll want canes at least two metres (about six feet)
Here's the video -
And in case you don't have time to watch the how to I've attached a few basic diagrams of how to make a simple climbing bean frame.
Growing rhubarb? has it started to flower? have no fear, it's easy to remove the flowers, all you need is a sharp knife, trace the flower stalk down to the base of the plant and cut it off as close to the crown as you can, and that's it.
Letting the flowers grow and produce seed won't hurt the plant, but it will affect the harvest you get, plus it takes a while to get a good sized crown at the very least a couple of years from seed to a plant you can get a small harvest from, it's quicker to get a crown and divide it, people often give divided crowns away so keep an eye on free websites (like freecycle etc) and if you have an allotment see if anyone has some spare, maybe swap some plants for a crown.
Here's how to remove the flowers should you already have rhubarb -
Work is progressing on the plot, more prep work done, this time I have to deal with the rhubarb flowers, and the weeds, it does feel as though we're getting somewhere with things now, just waiting for the weather to pick up.
I've also made two simple bean frames for some of our climbing beans, it was a nice sunny day and I'm happy with the work so far, it'll soon be time to plant out the beans and squashes and all the other stuff.
Anyway here's a video from the latest trip to the plot -
Another pin cushion I made recently, this one was made without using a lathe, and it's made from a piece of spalted birch with a tie dyed pink cushion, and in a droplet style shape.
It's something that can easily be done with hand tools and is a bit different from the usual round pin cushions I've made, it's a really easy wood working project and one that you can get creative with, this one like all the things I make is made from reclaimed materials, so not only is it a good project it's cheap as well.
I do sell some of the things I make and I've now listed the pin cushions on my website, there's a load of other stuff on there as well - www.the-shed-and-beyond.co.uk
A rough guide on how to repair a puncture in a bicycle inner tube, or at least the way I've been doing it for years, it's a simple process, it can be done almost anywhere as long as you have a repair kit and a pump.
There are products you can buy that will temporarily fix a puncture really quickly, Tire weld is one that springs to mind, technically made for cars but it does work for pushbikes.
Finally got the fruit bed sorted out, so now the strawberries, black currants, gooseberries and rhubarb are weed free (ish) sowed some radish seed in a blank patch of earth while we decided what to do with it.
Didn't get round to moving the skirret, but as it's started to grow I'm leaving it where it is for now, and really it's just getting ready for planting stuff out, once it's grown.
We've loads of stuff on the go in the greenhouse, beans of various types, squashes of various types and a host of other things, but the weather has been a bit bad for the time of year so we're holding off on planting a lot of stuff out.
Another productive day though and I'm pleased with the results.
I've been trying to use up some of the scraps of wood I have, I tend to hoard small bits of wood as they might come in useful at some point, I've made pincushions before on my lathe and it is a quick and simple use of any small off cuts of wood and indeed material as well.
The one's I've made in the video are all from recycled materials, even the polyester padding, it's from an old cushion, I'm quite pleased with the way they turned out.
Here's a video on how to make them -
And here's a picture of the ones I made recently -
If you've ever had trouble telling Foxglove from Comfrey which is a mistake I've made in the past (and recently) hopefully this post will help you (and me) avoid future mistakes.
It's easily done especially when the plants are young, I recently moved some plants about on our plot and thought I'd moved 3 Comfrey plants, turns out it was 1 Comfrey plant and 2 Foxgloves, either way I'm happy the comfrey will make a useful feed for plants and wildlife and the foxglove is a great plant for bees and such like as well.
If you don't want to watch the video I've added a couple of pictures as well as a guide to -
Video -
Picture guide (you can click on the images for a better view)
Another productive session on the plot, relocated the self seeded leeks, made a new bed for our black currant plants and discovered that some of the black currants have big bud mite, which I talk about a couple of times in the video, but basically it is a sap sucking mite that gets into the forming leaf buds and they become swollen, there is a diagram in the video that shows the difference between a good leaf bud and an infected one.
I didn't manage to move our skirret plants, so that'll have to be done on the next visit, and as the weather warms up we'll start sowing seeds for a variety of crops.
One of the perennial weeds found on allotment plots and in gardens is dock, it's a problem plant, but it can be controlled by removing as much of it as possible, this includes the roots, which can be very long as you can see in the video below.
You can just hoe the tops off, but I prefer to dig them up using a fork which helps loosen the soil so you can get as much root out as possible.
This is how we deal with them on the allotment, and some of the other weeds.
Work continues, and as the weather warms up we need to put in more hours on the plot, this time it's planting potatoes, horseradish and the tidying continues as well, and there are some bonus velvet mites, we often see them on the plot, I've seen them in garden as well.
We get a lot of other critters on the plot, some welcome, some not so much but it's all part of gardening in general.
A quick guide on how to make a dibber, perfect for planting bulbs of all variety's, cheap and quick to make, this one is made from an old pallet, or at least part of an old pallet.
Obviously you'd need a lathe to make this, it's what I used, but your could make one like this with hand tools easily enough, it'd just take a bit longer.
This one would be good for planting bulbs as it's quite thick and with the added lines down it, it will be easy to make sure things are planted at the right depth, the marks are made at 1cm intervals with a total of 12cm in all.
Another day and another set of jobs, this time some actual planting, we've put in some shallots, onions and some broad beans and carried on tidying things up.
Probably not the best day for digging, it was very wet and muddy, but time waits for no one, all in all I'm happy with what we got done.
So the first actual working trip to the allotment occurred recently, it doesn't look like much was done, but the main job was sorting out the grape vines, so that's out of the way now.
We use more of a no dig method now than we did when we first started out, which is why there's weed control fabric all over the place, we started using it last year (mainly due to time constraints) but noticed a difference in the crops we got.
As an example we grew squashes in two beds on the plot, one that was dug over and prepared the usual way and the other we used weed control fabric and we got a better crop of squashes from the bed where we'd used weed control, so we've expanded the use of it for this year, and as I said it saves time.
A quick guide on how to make a garden sieve, perfect for covering seeds in seed trays, cheap and quick to make, I had the bit of wood and an off cut of steel mesh already, but you could use a piece of pallet wood, and then all you'd need is some mesh, which you can pick up for around six pounds from various diy type shops.
This one is a good size for covering seeds once you've sown them in seed trays, and as you can see from the video it's easy to make, you don't need any special tools or materials.
It's the time of year where my thoughts turn to all things gardening and so I start making plans and lists of jobs to be done.
Trouble is I broke the handle of the only fork I have for use at home, I have a couple down the allotment, probably should get another for home use (how many forks is too many?) I broke the handle whilst trying to dig up some very old rose bushes that someone in our local area had put on a freecycle type website, in the end I got eight very large (rooted) rose bushes, which are now in the garden in various places, which is good, but it did leave me with a broken garden fork.
So off to the workshop to make a new handle, below is the video.
It's been a while since I put an allotment update on here, so here's the first for this year.
The plot isn't as bad as I thought considering we haven't been near it since October last year and for the whole of last year we weren't able to spend a lot of time there due to work and other reasons.
It will take a bit of graft to get it ship shape, but not too much and we've changed the way we do things over the years to make it a little easier.
Anyway here's the state of our allotment plot, we'll be starting work down there soon.
I've strung together some of the steps I used to make this gift for my wife, it's made in the same way as the hanging Christmas decorations, just slightly more elaborate.
I used Cherry, Pear and copper to make it and each material has a meaning or symbolism attached to it which varies from culture to culture, as an example Cherry trees in Japanese culture symbolise good fortune, new beginnings and revival and in old Buddhist stories the Cherry represents femininity, Pear wood has similar meanings as Cherry, and the shape of the fruit has long been associated with the female form and Pear trees usually live for a long time and Chinese culture associates this with immortality.
The Copper elements also have similar meanings, the metal represented Venus the goddess and the planet in Roman beliefs and copper has long been used by the Celts for making jewellery, it was in ancient times a highly regarded material, which is why it's often found in burials along with other metals such as Bronze, which is a Copper alloy.
For many years I have tried to make some kind of decoration for Christmas and a couple of years ago I made some hanging decorations similar to the one I make in this set of videos, I've broken the steps into 3 parts, and yes it's either very late or very early depending on your view, but it is relevant for this time of year because I'm using the same method for making something for my wife for valentines day.
If you've visited this blog before you'll know I try to make things for various occasions during the year, and valentines is no exception, I'll be putting a video of that make on the you tube channel as well.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Hopefully you'll be able to see all the steps, and although I use my lathe and various other tools this could be made using just hand tools, it'll just take a bit longer.
I use forstner bits quite a lot for various projects and after a while like most things used for cutting they get blunt, but you can sharpen them quite easily, so below is a quick video of how I go about sharpening my forstner bits.
This method has worked for me for years and the set of bits I use has plenty of life left in them it's a quick and cheap way of maintaining your forstner bits.
This is a job I've been meaning to get round to, we've had the same tumble dryer for 15 odd years and it started to make a horrible grinding noise, it was an easy enough fix once I'd found the parts for it.
Cosmetically the dryer is looking tired, but it still works fine and honestly we don't use it that much as we prefer to dry clothes outside where possible, but for rainy days it's a handy thing to have.
We could have bought a new dryer, but didn't want to spend that much money and repairing was the cheaper option and fingers crossed it'll last a few more years now.
