Allotments 4 All

For the past two days I have driven past a skip on the way to work, it had a plastic table and large rectangular fibreglass pond (6'x3'x2'). Today I was clearing some of the new ground at the plot and thought of an ideal way to use the pond for collecting/storing rain water. So I decided to leave early and go to the owners of the skip to ask for the stuff in side.

The skip was gone :'( , I'm GUTTED

Neil

well....next time when you feel you fingers itching...trust them...give away.. ::) ;D

There is a skip right outside our font door that started off with some lovely pieces of solid wood in it, but by the time I had found out whose skip it was, it was filled with earth and rubbish and rubble and I just can't get at the wood even though I now have permission. I should have just grabbed it.

I its outside someones house its fair game imho.
building sites are different,I asked at a local builing site for some blue pipe I had seen in the skip,they were so grateful I had asked that they sorted me out some more they were going to chuck.

I ask some pallets from a building site..they let me take few and as I gave chaps a jar of honey to their tea room...I was allowed to take then as many as I wanted... ;D

I think taking things from skips is recycling at it's best.
There should be a sign on every skip telling folk to help themselves,they'd have less to put in that big hole called "away" as in thrown away  >:(

It's so hard driving past a skip without wanting to stop and have a look through. A few months ago someone was having their roof replaced and there was a skip full of roofing battons, at the time i didn't have a car to put them in, now i want to make trellis and it would of been ideal.

Neil

It costs good money to get rid of a skipful of "rubbish". Most people are only too happy for you to help yourself. (But - being an upstanding honest citizen - I can never do it without asking....)

But we get regular supplies for the site of pallets from the builders' yard next door, and of shredded bark from a local tree surgeon, plus a lorry-load of old scaffold-boards for the price of delivery (which we recouped by selling the surplus to members). And when a retirement home was built nearby, we saw a whole pile of builders' fencing; not only did my wife manage to get it at a knock-down price, but a couple of weeks back we got another small load free of charge! We've managed to reinforce the rather ancient hedge along the front of the site and still got a few spare!

Always make friends with your local tradesmen! Even the extra water tanks we're putting in are "rescued" ex-domestic ones!

I haven't plucked up the courage to ask for the wooden pallet thats outside one of the houses close to me, builders are renovating it. ::) :-[
I did however get to grab a few bricks for the garden from the other builders who are renovating another house around the corner. :D
..and there's a whole glass pane in a frame I could use in the garden outside of another house..
:-[

I got skirting board from a neighbour's garden (I did ask first), and we also got lots of plastic fascia board from a skip- both of these have have made brilliant edgings for our paths.

Adrian and I were walking back from the allotment on Sunday and spotted 4 fence posts in a skip. Owner there and hey presto off to get the car to take them up the allotment.......

Raspberry restraint here we come  :)

I love that feeling of getting something for nothing- think it 's in the genes- my parents made do and mended, being of that generation that grew up in the 20s and 30s.

Cultivating tradesmen is fun too...#
I have 40 18"sq slabs delivered gratis tomorrow, the only downer Is he wabnts to unload them @7:00am, glad I live on site....  :)

When ever I spot anything I think may be of use by the time I pluck up the courage to ask it has gone.

My OH  though will come home with all sorts of things, he works for a building company, and you would be amazed at the things they throw away that are very useful. (most of the time)

I have a mail sorting rack that has made a good cage for the strawberries holes small enough for the bees to get in and out but too small for the birds to pinch my strawberries.    

I often go on a skip raid find very usefull things like builders buckets, wheel barrows, timber, scafold netting, a couple of months ago there was a police raid in the village next to where I live and as I walked through there I seen a skip fill of pots of compost. Big pots, they where about 12" in diameter so I phoned a mate and we took most of them. It seemed the raid was due to a "hash" factory in a local house. as they say "every little helps" 

My OH used to have an office overlooking the company skip.  Our garage is still full of rubbiish he rescued.

Yay got the wooden pallet this morning, I saw one of the builders and asked, the two other builders came out and after a chat, one of them carried it up to my front door for me.  ;D