I must admit sub zero temperatures do put me off venturing outdoors for very long. I love the heat and even when we’re having one of our rare UK heatwaves you won’t hear me complaining, unlike now when I can’t seem to stop moaning about just how cold it is! However even the plummeting temperatures haven’t stopped me working in the garden over the Easter weekend.
It’s been therapeutic, after a few rather late nights out catching up with old friends and seeing old faces it’s been good to go out into the cold air and get to work. I’ve managed to finish building my two raised beds and after heaving them down the garden (I must remember next time to build them in situ!) I’ve positioned them and started filling them with soil. I’m digging out the footings for the green house which is sited right next to the raised beds so I can just throw what I’m digging out straight into the beds.
The greenhouse I’ve gone for is 12′ x 8′ and I’m going to use a perimeter concrete footing for it to stand on. The reason for this over slabs is that I then have soil that I can plant directly into. Also I think I would struggle to manage laying slabs on my own but mixing concrete will be fine and I’m hoping as long as I’m quick and tamp it down it will find it’s own level……that’s the theory anyway! So having marked it out which has required me to drag trigonometry from the deep recesses of my brain, checked the measurements, checked them again, I’m now digging a little trench 10-15cm deep and about 17cm wide. Fingers crossed my Maths GCSE doesn’t fail me and the greenhouse will sit perfectly in the middle of the base.
Any advice on this subject would be very welcome as it’s a complete first for me!
Aqualung