Sunday 13 March 2016

500 free bricks

Hello. Another glorious day, lets have more sun, yipeeee. My brick pile sort of grew, I had to build another one. I thought I was only going back for one more load, but surprise surprise, it turned into three. The grand total is 500 free bricks. Chuffin amazing isn't it, and if I haven't got enough I can go back for more. Blimey, I could build an extension to my house, ha ha. And on top of that, I had an email from a friend saying she had seen a pile of bricks in someone's front garden. Oh no, I think I have enough. 
Here we go then, start by removing the two dividing centre pallets and one at the front. I am trying not to make a mess with the compost spilling out all over the place. 
I filled all the containers with compost.


Rocky enjoying a spot of sunbathing keeping an eye on the proceedings. 

Now all the pallets are removed, I have started digging it over. I need to shrink this pile and tidy the edges before I start laying the bricks around it.
Here is the wood which now needs disposing of. It has been suggested that it could be placed at the bottom of the beds and compost laid on top of it. A good idea in theory but I am not going to do that. If I were to bury this my raised beds would be five feet high. It would need a lot of bricks which would need mortar to hold them together. My beds are only three bricks high and I am not using mortar, just laying them loose. Also, I would need to remove all of the compost before I put the wood in place, I don't have the room to do that and no where to put the compost. So, these will go to the Council dump and be put into the wood recycling bin. If anyone wants them for burning they are welcome to take them. I will ask around but if they are still here in a weeks time I will dump them. A lot of it is rotten and not even fit for burning.

Work will be resumed in the garden tomorrow after Crafty Club. Lots to do.

I found out today that Jo Brands One Hell of a Walk documentary will be on BBC 1 on Thursday night at 9pm. Have a look at it because I might be on it. There again, my bit might end up on the cutting room floor. I did three short interviews, so you never know, you might see my mush, but you might not.

That's all for tonight. Thanks for popping in. We'll catch up soon.
Toodle pip.

PS. I think I have just deleted a comment on the previous post. I am getting reader comments coming into the spam folder, and if I am not concentrating I accidentally delete them. Strange that I am getting hardly any spam these days. When I got tons of the stuff I went through every one of them to make sure I wasn't deleting a genuine comment. Now that isn't happening and I am not so careful with my checking. Sorry to the person who I zapped. I must slow down and not whiz through so quickly. The reader asked if I was putting mortar between the bricks, which I have already answered here. 

21 comments:

  1. Love seeing Rocky...your collection of bricks is wonderful...I'd have to go back for more...maybe a brick oven would be fun to build...

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  2. Sterling work m'dear, looking forward to the finished results.

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  3. Now I've got ideas for an outside brick bread oven lol

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  4. That's made me chuckle....the vision of your 5 feet high raised beds!! Good brick haul.

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  5. You are certainly going to be busy, hope it stays warm for you to work on your beds.
    Hazel c uk

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  6. Ilona, you have the energy of a youngster. Great day`s work there.
    Lovely pictures of Rocky supervising the job.
    x

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  7. Your load of wood and a few bricks would make a brilliant wildlife habitat Ilona. There you go another project for you :)

    Sue R

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  8. Yikes! You have quite the job to do!

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  9. What a wonderful day! JanF

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  10. What an amazing job to do...please be careful to not hurt yourself.

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  11. Lovely to get so many free bricks. I agree just three bricks high is plenty for a raised bed without mortar. I now have a vision of you gardening on a step ladder in a raised bed five foot high ;-)

    You could leave some of your wood in a corner of your garden for a wildlife habitat, and the rotten stuff would be best for this if there is anyone out there that wants the rest for burning.

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  12. I so love your brick planters....they will last forever...

    I wonder, do you have any problem with varmits (don't know what you might have there), digging around in your yard, (moles maybe), and digging under your plants, eating roots and plants?

    I have read a couple of blogs where folks did, and they put some type of heavy steal screen/mesh/grating on the bottom and up the sides of their raised beds. It prevented the varmit assault.

    It was I (or maybe others too), who suggested the bury the wood..I understand about keeping the height a certain height, etc.. A proper height will make future work much easier.

    Are you going to have these finished height so you can sort of lean over a bit, without much bending , to do your work? I would love some at such a height, easier by far on back. I have some wooden raised beds, but only about eight inches. When my wood rots, I will try to make/have them made a better height (and maybe I will bury my wood at the bottom..grin...I had one friend who said she dug down, put her old wood in hole and then put dirt on top)...Mine looks to be good for a long while, and besides, it would be good for me to wait until it could be re done with some more permanent like yours.

    Looking forward to seeing what you grown.

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  13. Brilliant that you've got all this for free. I think one of the problems in our society is people want stuff immediately and lack the patience to wait. Good luck with building your raised beds. Kristel

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  14. Wonderful. I once went to a building site to see if they had any broken slates to use as decorative mulch on my plant pots. I ended up with three barrow loads of good Spanish slates which I made in to cheese boards and house signs and table mats. They made unique presents. You never know what they are going to get rid of.

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    1. It's amazing what you can get free if you ask.

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  15. Cannot wait to see the finished beds. I used to have raised beds and loved it in my old house. How come you are not planting vegetables this year?

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    1. Hi Lana. I have a terrible slug problem here. In the past I have spent hours on collecting them up, but still they come. I am not prepared to put the time in to control them now, the slugs have won. Also I can buy vegetables cheap, it's not worth the time and effort for me to look after them. Also my compost is tired, it needs pepping up with fertilizer, I don't want to spend the money on it. Yes, I can get free hoss muck, but I can't be bothered.

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    2. I do agree about the vegetables. I have given up on them too. A great deal of effort even though they taste good. With watering, fertilising, keeping the slugs off etc it's a full time job and then they are all ready for harvesting and you have to give half away to stop them spoiling. I am lucky I have access to yellow sticker stuff and and while that lasts I won't be growing more vegetable. Fruit trees or bushes are good but even then you have to do battle with the birds.

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  16. Good luck with what you are doing this is proper recycling. Not like the industrial scale recycling that the council does dealing with the symptom an not the cause the day after recycling day there are bottles/ yogurt cartons/ egg boxes all over the place.
    Anyway looking forward to seeing your new project.
    Rocky looks so cute sunning himself :). X

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