Topic: Advice needed for Disability Allotment Site

[zaney.marie]

Hi All,
first a run down on my site, I run a completely hard standing site compromising of all raised beds for ALL disabled people but we also cater for mothers with children who dont have the time to run an allotment with their busy lifestyle, we allow them to have the time to work a full bed and still have time for their family commitments. The site has hot nd cold running water, disability toilets, a meeting, kitchen, rest area all designed and built within old cargo containers, however we were badly let down with the construction of our beds, we have been open for 7 years and we are the only outlet for a social life for some of our plot holders but it looks like our days are numbered as our beds are rotting away, the company that built our site cut corners in the building process and used poor timber ... to cut a long story short, we badley need to rebuild our beds but we have two problems we need either a huge mount of funding or (the option i would prefere, material donations from bigger companies and I also need advice from any builders out there on how to rebuild the beds as in do we use wood, brick, kick boards etc as to build beds which this time will last longer than 7 years. If we do not manage to get these beds rebuilt we will have no option than to close the site leaving a lot of disabled people in our community loosing their only social outlet they have .... I dont know how to upload images on here but if you look at https://www.facebook.com/reederoadallotments.dagenham?fref=ts you will be able to see pictures of the beds ..... I would appreciate ANY help anyone cn give me as the situation has become desperate now.
Thanks all, Zaney :0)

[Tee Gee]

I don't think your builder was to blame for supplying poor timber  I think seven years was a fair lifetime!

I had a look at the photos and based on the height of the beds you have I would go the concrete route.

May I suggest that you have a look at slotted concrete fence posts and concrete gravel boards as used as a base for fence panels.

They come in 6ft x 1 ft  concrete planks meaning you can build raised beds of varying heights in increments of one foot.

For example the beds could be either one foot,two foot or three foot high and the planks would be interchangeable meaning that you could raise or lower the bed heights at will  because the planks are not fixtures as your current timber panels are.

Plus! Because  the planks are made of concrete they would have an indefinite life.

As a stop gap and to save money you could invest in the slotted posts first and slot  the best of the timber planks you have into the slots and buy the concrete planks as more finance becomes available.

I would have suggested UPVC boards but these would bulge under the weight of the soil they would be holding in.

OK this would be a an expensive suggestion but in the long term it might work out cheaper than buying timber every six or seven years, as the concrete would last indefinitely.

Add to that you can simply change the dimensions of the beds ( height,width and length) by installing a few more posts and moving the planks around.

That's my tuppence ha'porth for what it is worth....Tg

[daveyboi]

TG has got it right in all the suggestions.

With timber if you use pressure treated timber it will last a long time in raised beds but only if you treat the soil side with a couple of good coats of bitumen paint to waterproof it . However it is important to leave the other side uncoated so the timber can dry out naturally when it gets wet.

[Jayb]

Hi Zaney.marie, Welcome to Allotments4All   

Have you been in touch with Thrive, I'm sure they would be able to give good advice too http://www.thrive.org.uk/
They also have a great leaflet about raised beds  http://www.carryongardening.org.uk/files/documents/How%20to%20build%20raised%20beds%20final_Nov08.pdf