Autumn is a busy time in the garden. But sometimes the weather doesn’t allow us to do the tasks we’d planned outside. I find those occasions useful for spending time in the potting shed. Having a sort through of all those items that got ‘dumped’ in there during those warm balmy summer months.
You know what I mean, all those oddments that you kept throwing in to the corner when you were too busy outside in the summer and never quite got round to organising. Twine, nails, odd plant labels stuck in jam jars….
Whilst you’re busy tidying, rather than throwing everything away, look at it first and decide whether re-using it is possible. Being in the habit of re-using or recycling is an easy one for the gardener. And if you’re an allotmenteer or smallholder it’s positively second nature! It could be one reason why I feel like I’ve always re-used items having had garden, smallholding or allotment myself for thirty years or so and helped my mother and grandfather before that.
However, the tendency can be to horde things ‘just in case’. Which is why I do set myself the task of thorough sort out of the potting shed and surrounding areas at least twice a year.
We also separately go through our work equipment roughly four times a year. Even with the best will in the world, there’s always the occasion when you’ve been on site for ten hours for the fourth day in a row and you’re actually going out for the evening, so something gets chucked cheerfully ‘into the box’.
Ah, ‘the box’ – where would we be without it! The beauty of it is that it can make tidying the potting shed (at work or home) easier. In 10 minutes you can feel you’ve achieved something positive which can motivate you to sort out that dusty top shelf. Or, if you’re interrupted, still fill you with enthusiasm to tackle another part of the potting shed next time. The other delight of ‘the box’ is that you find items you thought you had lost; you know, like the spring for those expensive secateurs that you had to order a replacement one of; well, now you have a spare!
How long is a piece of string? Or to be more precise, the question is – how long should a piece of string or garden twine be to be worth keeping? All those little items, string, vine eyes, spare plant labels, for example, are usually needed as soon as you throw them away! Organisation is the answer. This could be a small chest of drawers – the kind that sits on a shelf – with each drawer labelled as to contents. If you’re in a recycling mood, clear plastic food boxes stacked on a shelf provide a storage solution where the contents are easily seen and found.
Ok, you’re sitting there, reading this and thinking “that’s all very well, but what do I do with that teetering pile of plastic plant pots?” Funnily enough we have a lot of these at Plews, could be something to do with all the planting designs we plant out maybe? There are solutions: firstly sort through them, putting split, or really dirty ones to one side in a recycling box; they are recyclable, either collected from your house or if taken to your local depot.
Then go through what’s left, being ruthless about how many you really need. Some garden centres will take empty plastic pots back, so you can return the empties when you go to buy more plants and potting compost! We donate most of our used plant pots to people who sell plants for charity. And if nobody wants them then recycle with the broken pots.
Clay pots also need to be sorted and cleaned if you’re going to use them again.
At public and larger private gardens pot cleaning is a winter chore often reserved for the apprentices. You may find a willing teenager in need of some extra money, but otherwise it is time well spent. Clean pots will mean your freshly sown seeds and seedlings have a better chance of being disease free.
The pots you do want to keep can be organised into sizes and cleaned, either now, or during the winter months. That way when you’re sowing seeds in the spring the pots are stacked and washed ready to use in a corner of the potting shed.
And now I need to find out if the cat has found a mouse or is just playing with the rolled up twine I dropped…
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