20th Oct - Solid Foundations

The long awaited shed arrived by 8:30am and the weather was once again going to be fine for the weekend. The plan for the day was to lay the foundations for the shed.

Reports from other allotment users is that the section under the hedgerow gets very waterlogged and boggy. The two sensible precautions I decided to take was to not site my shed only a metre away from the hedge as originally decided but to leave a good 2 to 3 metres gap. Secondly, build the ground up as much as possible.

There is a natural sloping that we had already tried to step at the back so the plan was to increase this area. I’d made a bit of a start after work in the week until I couldn’t see. It was interesting to see my work in daylight. I’d shifted a lot of soil into a shed sized area that I’d created with string and canes but it wasn’t enough.

Between us we shovelled more soil into the area and then tampered it down. Doing this with clay soil is a bit like trying to solidify quicksand. It’s really squidgy and shifts around. The stomping feet method wasn’t enough, Si hit it with a mallet to some effect and then we settled on smashing the edge of a paving slab repeatedly. This started to work but it took some time and strength to cover the 7x 5 metre area.

Again I thought this exercise would take an hour or two, again Si referred to his spreadsheet and guestimated most of the day.

Once we felt satisfied that it was solid enough, it was time to place the plastic shed grid. A bit of tweaking of the size we started putting 3 squares together at a time and measured it up for size and level. Raking lumps and bumps out and patting in extra soil here and there, the grid was ready to be put in place with a weed sheet underneath. 6 bags of pea shingle got added to the grid and our work was done for the day.