Operation Greenhouse

This is my greenhouse as it looked earlier in the week. I inherited it with the allotment, and this photo does not quite do it justice. The waist-high grass and weeds shown here hide an impressive collection of plant pots, bin bags with dubious contents, some interesting wildlife (I’ll come back to that), and enough glass to rebuild Crystal Palace. 

Renovating the greenhouse has long been on my To Do list, and since the allotment has been the only legal way to get us all out of the house since March, the items on that list are being ticked off at an unprecedented rate. This week I reached a point where there were several jobs at a roughly equal priority level and I had to choose which to tackle next. Some of the beds still to be dug probably should have slightly taken the lead but the great looming wreck of a greenhouse is rather hard to ignore and it was becoming a bit depressing. So on Thursday, when I had completely finished the last job, I made a start. Starting from the door with a pair of elderly shears, secateurs and a lot of brute force, I started clearing away the accumulated thicket and debris. I soon ran into a problem: the bigger the cleared space, the more inviting the boys found the structure, which they had previously ignored completely. When I uncovered a large window frame with its remaining glass arranged fetchingly in great jagged shards, I decided we should probably go home, as in these situations Ben currently has all the self-preservation instinct of a squirrel on crack*. 

And so it was that late yesterday afternoon saw me back at the plot, blissfully alone, hacking away at grass, hauling out junk, prising off the remaining glazing clips, rescuing suicidal slow worms and doing my best not to sever an artery. I had brought the car down to load ready for a trip to the recycling centre the following morning, a thermos of tea was giving out encouraging vibes from the picnic table, and I was armed with my toughest gloves. 

The bin bags turned out to contain manure, which I have a vague recollection of putting in there several years ago, only for time and weeds to catch up with me until they were out of both sight and mind. Underneath lurked several slow worms which, I have learned in the last few weeks, have a habit of hiding in silly places where I am likely to unwittingly decapitate them with my shears. I removed these to the other side of the plot, to the mild horror of my African plot neighbours, who were cheering me on from the sidelines. They pointed out that where they come from, if you see something that looks like a snake you scarper first and think second. They were rather more amused by the frogs - 5 in total, but I would swear there were really just two that kept coming back to check on my progress. 

I knew I would be dealing with lots of glass, so I had a Cunning Plan. A tarp was spread out on the grass and the Window Frame of Doom placed on it. Each subsequent shard was added to it, followed by the large collection of broken panes I have been storing safely out of the way on a shelf at the back of the shed. When I was sure I had all the glass, I carefully wrapped it up in the tarp and lifted it into the wheelbarrow... except I didn’t. I had forgotten, you see, that glass is HEAVY. When I tried to pick it up, there was a nasty crunching-cracking sound (from the glass, not me) and it weighed far more than I was willing to handle on my own. Plan B was put in place: A second tarp was layed out and the glass transferred a bit at a time to that. Then the first tarp was taken to the car and the glass transferred a few bits at a time using the wheelbarrow. What a faff! By the time I got down to it, the window frame had taken pity on me and obligingly parted company with several more of its shards, which was rather less helpful than it thought. I am deeply impressed that I managed not to slip, trip, or otherwise end up fertilising the vegetables with my own life blood (a little extreme even for the keenest allotmenteer). 

That done, I made more journeys with loads of unrecyclable junk dug up, uncovered and generally discovered around the plot - rusty buckets give off inviting tetanus vibes, ancient hanging baskets, and long-buried carpet that would make even Miss Haversham raise an eyebrow. I haven’t got all of it, by any means, but another trip next weekend may do it, if I haven’t caught something revolting in the process. Driving back home with that lot in the car made me want to jump straight in the shower!

By the time I ran out of daylight, the greenhouse looked like this. 

All the bits of frame are there, so it just needs a couple of nuts and bolts to bring the stray pieces back together. Rather than getting new glass, I will be using polycarbonate panels, which are cheaper and allow ricocheting children to bounce off instead of crashing straight through the sheet glass. It will also be less satisfying for passing baby vandals, as the public footpath is just the right distance for a nice stone-throwing challenge. All together, the cost of renovating the greenhouse will cost less than half what a new equivalent would set me back, even before we factor in the cost of removing the existing frame. It’s getting exciting now! 

With so much work being put into it, the greenhouse is developing a personality (or maybe it already had one and I am just discovering it) and I suspect it will soon require a name. Suggestions, please - nothing too sensible. It is definitely male. The shed, on the other hand, is female, though not the pink frilly type (just as well, really). She’s looking a bit apprehensive as I keep eyeing her speculatively. 

As I left the plot, I glanced away from the setting sun into the communal water trough. There, silhouetted against the bottom, were four newts, two of which appeared to be doing their best to increase the number to five. Well, it was a nice evening. I left them to get on with it. 

*Not my phrase but too good not to use.