Scrap wood gardening helpers

I'm loving being able to get out into the garden lately. The weather is cold but as long as that ruddy awful wind stays at bay then I'll be outside renovating the garden.
At the moment I'm building a stone wall in front of a new fence so that I can then back fill it and fill it with scented plants. I can't wait for it to be finished but as is always the way with me it won't be totally complete until we've gotten around to finishing the length of the fence and subsequently the rest of the stone wall.

This is the sort of wall I lurve but am too lazy to get the hang of all that cement work

Stone Art

So this is more the look I'm going for

Retaining wall

I'm managing to get a lot of it done with what is there though and am getting quite a workout with the stone collecting and earth moving - both jobs entail walking back and forth a looooong way.
Won't be a professional finish but hey, I'm doing it all myself and am chuffed with it so far!

I've also been wanting to  build a compost holder for my polytunnel for a while now - ever since I first saw Monty Dons wooden ones on Gardeners World - but just never got round to it, so I decided to just get on with it this week - it took a couple of hours only and used up scrap wood leftover from a computer table. I figured the Melamine finish would help protect the wood somewhat.

Here's Montys potting shed with those seedmix containers

Heres what I started with:

A heap o Melamine with metal bits all over.

Once I'd got rid of all the metal parts I cut a base and then decided what height I wanted the back edge and the front rim and cut 2 sides to those dimensions. I have to say at this point that I did this entire project with no tape measure - despite hubby being a builder and despite the fact that I should have loads of my own I could not find one tape measure anywhere, I think we have a tape measure elf thief!
My measuring consisted of using bits of wood for marking and edges of wood for straight lines, soooo not the way to go!

This is the base and sides complete

Next I marked the back sizes on a piece of wood and cut it with my Jigsaw.
Same goes for the front.

I added the strips to the top of the side edges purely because the edges were raw and not protected.
That's it done and here it is in it's final position.

Now I can make my own mix of compost in bulk much more easily than just adding the ingredients to the staging and mixing, which always meant quite a loss of the black stuff!
So easy to make too which is always good because I like to see results the day I start a project - I'm just so impatient!


 

Linked to:

'Fingerprints on the fridge'
'A world of crafts' 
'Cherished Bliss' 
'Project queen'