Topic: Getting started - top tips on equipment wanted!

[Womble]

Hi everyone, I quizzed you before Christmas about where to start with my lottie, and then have done nothing (apart from more research and Christmas shopping!). But, I'm raring to go again, and planning to go up and get started with some clearing tomorrow.

Would love to get some top tips from you about good sources of free or nearly free gear - I'm thinking about things like old pallets for making compost heaps (want to get one in ASAP for some of the stuff I clear), chicken wire (for the leaf compost) etc etc. Would like to re-use stuff as much as possible, rather than buy new from the big bad corporate DIY stores! I'm sure some of the lottie owners at the site will have tips, but interested to hear any ideas from you too!

Thanks everyone and HAPPY NEW YEAR. May 2005 bring you lots and lots of yummy crops.

[Doris_Pinks]

Hi Womble! Try  your local D.I.Y store for pallets, I know our focus has loads and seem willing to get rid of a few, though lots of places you ask say they have a deposit on them and have to be returned!! Chicken wire is very expensive!! I have used plastic coated wire on my leaf heap as it is cheaper and does the job. (was scrounged from a relative!)
The other great place to salvage is your local tip, Or skips, but remember to ask permission before you remove anything!!
Get the word out to your mates, you will be amazed at what people will gladly give you!  DP

[Painter]

Hi Womble
Get into the habit of checking your local Free Adds, its amazing the number of people who are changing garden layouts etc and want rid of various items, over the past 3 months i have found , paving flags, water buts and a garden shed (had to dismantle). The only problem is having suitable transport to remove these items. Pallets were obtained free from my local garden centre.
All the best for 2005

[aquilegia]

Ask around friends, relatives and neighbours. And look in every skip you pass.

I've got most of my tools from relatives. I have my grandad's fork and spade which are really old, but very strong, well made and worn in - much better than the new ones I got (Mr Aqui uses those now!)

And i get loads of green waste from a non-gardening neighbour to top up my compost heap. Very useful indeed!

[pinkhebe]

Hi, I'm new too, and I'm just starting to get my plot in order.

In Brighton, there is a wood recycling centre who will deliver as many pallets to your plot as you want for £5, and also sell scaffolding planks for a very small amount, it might be worth speaking to your council and allotment society to see if there are any similar schemes in your area.  :)

[Mimi]

Car boot sales are also a good place to look. ;)

[ajb]

Ask at building sites, they are suprisingly generous with substantial bits of wood. You may even help to recycle things that would otherwise be thrown away.
A.

[BAGGY]

You can also use the plastic woven / canvas bags that sand is delivered in for compost heaps and leaf mould.  (the square ones that have loops on each corner).

[Womble]

Thanks everyone! Sorry for being a bit quiet... been away the last few weekends, so my poor allotment & A4A has been abandoned for a while. Bring on the days when it's light enough to go after work!! Cheers for the tips though everyone. Going to go and bug local timber yards / tips etc. tomorow.....!  :)

[Apple Dumpling]

Hope your equiping goes well. I've always thought that allotments are the natural home of recycling.

Around here palletts seem to be readily available from industrial estates. We found that our four pallett compost heap needed a three pallett extention less than a year later, so I'd suggest you leave room for that next to the first.

Our wheelbarrow was rescued from a skip on a building site many years ago, and has been used so much on a couple of major landscaping in the garden at home, and many of my tools were inherited from my grandfather, including a couple ( don't know what they're called) which I've never seen anywhere else but are a pleasure to use, they're that well designed.

For a water butt we use an oil drum which we bought for £2 at a local scrap merchants, but be very selective if you are going to do this. Ours was used only to deliver componants to a nearby double glazing company. The componants were in plastic bags and then surrounded with sawdust. Obviously I wouldn't touch any involved with any type of chemical, but was happy with this one.
It's fed only with rainwater from the shed roof and  I have it raised off the ground with old breeeze blocks so I can use a hosepipe fitting near the bottom and the height, combined with a slight downwards slope, means I get a reasonable flow of water through the hose. It works a treat really.

Fence posts around the plot ( for a rabbit proof fence) were scrounged lengths of reinforcing metal hammered in. The gate is a section of scrounged metal grid and the gate post is a length of scaffolding pole, which my housebuilders so kindly buried in my back garden for me before we moved in.

Strapped horizontally to my pallett compost bin is another scaffolding pole (Thank You Midas Homes!!) and on this sits my cable reel hosepipe reel. This holds the 100m of hosepipe I need to reach the tap, which a boughten hosepipe reel could not, and winds up easily with screwed on handle.

Hope I've given you some ideas. I could go on but I'm sure you've got the jist by now. It all depends on what you need and what you can get your hands on. We've all been told that neccessity is the mother of invention, but you might not realise what it really means until you have an allotment!

Best of luck.
Apple.

[wardy]

Baggy

I agree!  Those big bags which come from the builder's merchants with sand in are brill as compost bins.  I put some leaves in and they started to rot really quickly.  I built a leafmould bin on the lotty and put the leaves in and nowt happened.  Wish I'd left them in the builder's rubble sack thingy.  I've still got it so I think I might use it for compost.

Wardy