Saturday Gardening Thread: A Place for Your Stuff Edition [Y-not & WeirdDave]

Good afternoon, gardening morons and moronettes, and welcome to your Saturday Gardening Thread. Today's shortened edition is brought to you by the Prepper Gnome:

Take it away, WeirdDave:

Here's the thing about gardening, it takes a lot of stuff. Rakes, shovels, hoes, fertilizer, pesticides, hand grenades, stand mixers....the list is practically endless. The question is, what should one do with that stuff when one isn't actually, you know, gardening? Obviously, you have to put it somewhere. Where else but a shed?

Sheds come in all sizes. Little Rubbermade huts are sheds, as are giant corrugated tin affairs. Wooden barn-style buildings are sheds, and so are aluminum prefabs. The point is, if you're going to be a gardener, sooner or later you're going to need a shed.

The most common type of shed is the wooden barn style shed. Look, I've got one myself:

You can get a shed like this from many different sources. The big box home stores will sell you a kit, you can but them pre-made from a variety of dealers, or you can get creative. I got creative. I bought this 6X8 shed off of Carigslist for $100. The previous owner had bought a new, bigger shed, and I was able to get a deal on his old one. Finding a deal on a used shed isn't the hard part, Craigslist is lousy with sheds. Buying a used shed isn't the hard part, all that takes is money. Getting the shed to your house is the hard part, they weigh hundreds of pounds each, not exactly something you can strap onto the roof rack of your Honda. What did I do? I looked in the phone book for a business that sells pre- built sheds, called them up and asked them for the name and number of the contractor who delivered their sheds. One phone call later and I had arraigned for the contractor to pick up my shed from it's old home, deliver it to my place and forklift it into my backyard. Cost me another $100. $200 and a little time invested, and I had a shed that cost well over $1000 new (The bottom trim needs replacing. One of these years I'll get around to replacing it).

Now that you have your shed, what's the next step? Why, fill it up with gardening stuff, of course!

It's important to organize your shed, so that you can easily access your gardening stuff. In my shed I have hand tools and gasoline to the left,

larger tools in a rack to the right,

and fertilizer, pesticides, pots, chicken wire, hand tools and potting soil on the shelves. Trimmers, hose and extension cords hang from hooks, and my big equipment (lawn mower, wheelbarrow, log splitter, chipper, tiller, keg tub, etc..) is in the middle.

And that's all it takes. A place for your garden stuff that's both attractive and functional.

And now from your co-hostess, Y-not:

This is my tool shed:

Seriously, I'm not proud of this fact, but we do not have a shed devoted to gardening supplies. We have some tools hanging on our garage wall, but just as many are stored like this or under the deck or next to the bed where we were using them. We can kinda sorta get away with it... sorta... because we don't get much rain here and the humidity is low. But that's just an excuse.

Do not be like me. Be like WeirdDave.

I apologize that the fascinating thread on mulch (oooh!) that I was working on did not get finished this week, so my contribution is very limited.

Here's a cool article about "Smart" gardens that change to suit your mood. It's a project out of the Computer Science Department at the University of Lincoln.

In keeping with WeirdDave's tool theme, here's a picture of a big tool:

And here's a song I like:

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

**Update: Can you name this fungus that has invaded moron's tsrblke's garden?

Do you know how to get rid of it?

How about this one that has infected Utah?

Follow me on Twitter at MoxieMom.

posted by Open Blogger at 01:00 PM

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