Winter is a long drawn out season with limited opportunity to do some real gardening. However, I don’t like just sit there and do nothing during these months. I like to do things that add value to my garden space and enhance my gardening season. Like the winter we built a compost system and wrapped a picket fence around it so it looked like a feature and not an eyesore. It is compost after all. You can check out that hair brained project >HERE<, >HERE< and >HERE<. After that mammoth effort, last year’s project was much simpler and I made some cloches to keep my seedlings in the garden safe and warm. You can check that out >HERE<.
So this year, when an idea came to me, I thought about it for a very long time before acting upon it, as – even while it was in my head, struck me as rather complex. I pondered it for many weeks, before sitting down to figure it all out. I tried to design it on pencil and paper, but I couldn’t make the 3D part work, I didn’t have the skills. So I did what a writer does best and opened a word document on my computer and using the INSERT SHAPE function I laid out my imaginary bits of wood. I created images from all angles and used different colours for the bits of wood with different functions.
Once it came together and all made sense, I made a paper model with lots of sticky tape so I could visualise if the 2D designs would work in 3D as I wasn’t quite sure how it would all stick together in the final stages. Once I was happy with this, I took the designs and worked out how much wood I needed and went to the lumber yard to place my order. They know me well there and so weren’t at all surprized when I had to call back and order a little bit more because I’d got a decimal point in the wrong place. Possibly better to have had not enough than too much. Imagine needing 25 metres and receiving 250 metres!
So with that hiccup easily fixed I got onto the building and construction stage and to be honest I don’t have great skill and ability here either, but I did my best and Hubby the Un-Gardener did his best. Bless him. And eventually after many blisters and a bandaid (not for me) the project was completed and looks awesome. I really can’t wait to use it this spring.
Builders and those with technical abilities may not want to watch, but I recorded my creative process to show you what I built for my garden this winter. I may not have great skill, but I have great vision. It’s probably not so much an instructional video – more of a comedy of errors, so grab some popcorn and enjoy!
Come again soon – spring is almost a week away, then we’ll be back to the proper gardening!
Sarah the Gardener : o)
Spoiler – Alert:
