Travelling On

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, do let us know how your plotting and planning turns out KC. It's an excellent time of year for it I think. The switch from summer to autumn always feels like a bigger change than the other seasons to me, maybe because of the whole back to school thing. Always feels like a good time for a check in. Focusing on finances feels like a great thing to do. 

greenbee

KC - I got my big (expensive) raised bed as a kit from Harrod Horticultural (with cashback). Someone was going to build the small one for me, but let me down, so I got it from amazon. It's not as robust, but still pretty good. Build them as deep as you can!

Karmacat

Autumn coming on certainly seems to make a difference to me, Cheery, yes, even though I'm mostly detached from the academic year pesonally – though it still has an effect in terms of holiday bookings, or even when schools will be taking their charges to see an exhibition I also want to see. The finances still need work: I spent all my free time in July working on them, and I brought things up to date, finally, but I need to do the going-forward stuff, new accounts etc. So here's the first draft, 5 items per month plus ordinary to-dos, and in December all bets are off:

SEPTEMBER

follow up on finances

get new computer and its software up and running

prepare garden for fencing work

contact friends I've not been in touch with

make masks

OCTOBER

fencing work is being done

self care – my skin, my muscle tone, hydration, that sort of thing

Christmas presents

use up paint, especially outdoors

can I mortar the patio?

NOVEMBER

prepare garden for …

next part of the fencing project (the back garden and the brick shed)

Christmas cards

genealogy biographies

DECEMBER

December is possibly going to contain the weirdest ever Christmas, because of covid, but it also contains the birthday when I finally get the dratted state pension! So there'll be money shenanigans, but mostly there'll be shenanigans. These will include bubbly, alcoholic drinks.

Karmacat

greenbee, I hadn't checked amazon, or Harrod Horticultural, thanks for that.  I looked at Wickes, where I got my kitchen, and the local timber merchants.  Wickes had a lot out of stock, but I'm confident that if needs must I could use timber from one or the other supplier - single sleepers/planks seem to be 150mm/ 200mm in height, which I hope is good enough.  I'll check amazon and HH and come back. 

Karmacat

Hmm, no raised beds at all from HH on Amazon right now, and hwat is there sounds downright dodgy ... I won't be ordering until my side gate is working again, don't want this stuff stored on the hardstanding at the front of the house.  So interesting, though, and I've seen the double raised bed thing that a neighbour has  

greenbee

I got the Harrod stuff direct from them (via Quidco) as they don’t sell on amazon. Much better quality than the spear and Jackson one I got from amazon in a hurry. I was looking for something extra-deep, that I could also net. The quality was pretty good and I lined the bottom with wee depressant fabric and the sides with plastic from compost bags to help prolong the life of the wood. https://www.harrodhorticultural.com/standard-wooden-raised-beds-pid7994.html

I’m like the metal ones too, but they wouldn’t have looked right! I also got some veg trugs - some via amazon and some direct.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, love the idea of five big things a month KC! Sounds very manageable and well thought out, well done! Exciting about the pension too, but you're right, Christmas will indeed be weird, hadn't started thinking about that yet...

Suffolk_lass

We have raised beds made from sleepers - more than ten years now, new when bought, they are rapidly being colonised by ants and wasps (the wasps take the wood for their nests, the ants live in and next to them). Ours are also too wide as I left it to DH and he is 8" taller than me so the instruction to make sure you can reach to weed the middle was taken literally.

If I were doing it now I would get a builder (husband) to use 18" concrete fence gravel boards (possibly sunk a bit into the ground, to stop the b-rabbits) and then clad them on the outside with scaffold boards, or perhaps sleepers on the front edge, and I would go higher than you think. Our salad bed is four high and I can sit on the edge or a stool while I weed. I don't want to be on my knees weeding as I get older. Local builders merchants are advertising on FB marketplace round here and offer free or low-cost delivery, and assembly is straightforward for a builder (or keen brother) - cheaper than a kit and can be bespoke to your space. Just saying

apple_muncher

greenbee said:

 I lined the bottom with wee depressant fabric

Tee hee

themadvix

Suffolk_lass said:

We have raised beds made from sleepers - more than ten years now, new when bought, they are rapidly being colonised by ants and wasps (the wasps take the wood for their nests, the ants live in and next to them). Ours are also too wide as I left it to DH and he is 8" taller than me so the instruction to make sure you can reach to weed the middle was taken literally.

If I were doing it now I would get a builder (husband) to use 18" concrete fence gravel boards (possibly sunk a bit into the ground, to stop the b-rabbits) and then clad them on the outside with scaffold boards, or perhaps sleepers on the front edge, and I would go higher than you think. Our salad bed is four high and I can sit on the edge or a stool while I weed. I don't want to be on my knees weeding as I get older. Local builders merchants are advertising on FB marketplace round here and offer free or low-cost delivery, and assembly is straightforward for a builder (or keen brother) - cheaper than a kit and can be bespoke to your space. Just saying

I'd second this and that sort of height is what I'll be creating if/when we move - much better for your back! (And me, being lazy, needs all the tools necessary to make it easy to weed!)