[Closed] STW - Garderners and allotment users - Friday chat

Well - I'll be building fruit nets this weekend - otherwise we'll lose our gooseberries, raspberries and black currants to the fat pigeons. Hopefully we'll be getting some blueberries too.

That aside - our onions, potatoes and garlic are all doing well. We'll be planting out carrots, a variety of beans & peas, courgettes and cut-and-come-again greens later in the year. Not entirely sure what else yet - last year we wasted time with pumpkin, sweetcorn and kale that we won't be repeating this year.

yep got to get my 'tatties in this weekend.
Then plant on my Broccoli seedlings and sow carrots (I'm trying them in a tub this year), beetroot and beans.

woffle last year was a bad year for squash - even my butternut squash didn't perform. So it might be persevering with the pumpkins.

chillies, aubergines, spinach, coriander, loads of salad leaves and herbs growing at the mo in seed trays/pots

got landscaper coming next week to build raised beds in the front garden then we're off properly 🙂

gonna look like this soon:

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Carrot fly can't get much above a couple of foot, so highish sides on your raised beds should keep them down a bit. They're attracted to the smell of crushed seedlings when you thin them out, so either plant carefully so you don't need to thin out or dig them out rather than pinching.

A mixture of crushed garlic, water & a little washing up liquid sprayed on tasty stuff helps keep pests away.

Water in the morning, not in the evening to help keep slugs down.

No pics sadly, but going well so far - tatties are coming up, as is beetroot, broccoli, onions, shallots, garlic, peas and carrots - all from seed sown straight in so happy days 🙂

Now that's a proper front garden you going to have there MW.

I managed to get hold of some scaffolding planks this year for £3 each! Made up some raised beds, sold some too 😉

Planting wise, I have my tatties coming through, onions are looking good, not much else in at the moment apart from peas. My carrots are going in the bath this weekend 😉

Water in the morning, not in the evening to help keep slugs down.

Nice tip woody, lets keep them coming...

Got my tom plants coming on nicely on windowsill along with various herbs.

Looking to get a tub to put carrots in along with salad leaves.

Excellent thread....I will eneavour to take some pics in a bit....

But in the mean time....
we have several healthy looking tomato plants that will soon be going into grow bags.
Onions are doing well too in the propogator
Basil finally seems to be growing a bit (I think it needs to warm up a bit.
Parsley and coriander are starting to come up
Lettuce are a bit thin on the ground - only 4 or 5 sprouts so far. Bit disappointing.
Radishes are going mental - need to thin them out soon.
Spring onions are doing OK
Carrots are also going a bit potty in terms of quantity. Will have to thin out soon, but not sure ther is space!
Parsnips beginning to rear their ugly heads (erm, shoots)
Potatoes - leaves just started poking out.....

All systems go. Have one row left and can't decide whether to plany Sprouts or leave for thinning out purposes.....!
It's the first year we have done this so we have started small. It all seems to be going well though, so I can see that next yr (over the winter) I will be required to vastly increase the veg patch proportion of the garden!!

Oooou, I will contribute next week when my greenhouse arrives and i get planting.

mrmichaelwright - Fire the man who made that graphic.

Looks like MMW might have done the sketch himself - Google Sketchup? Liking the "Venn Diagram" beds though - what's going to go in the little square? 🙂

I've finally managed to put our greenhouse up, three years after dismantaling the thing and carting it over from some-one elses garden. (with their permission, obviously!)
We've got tomatoes, courgettes, radishes, and capsicums on the go in it, as well as other seedlings ready to plant out in the raised beds.

I don't know if we'll be growing potatoes this year 'cos we had problems with badgers digging them up last summer, and we had to harvest them early.

We'll be planting maize again though 'cos homegrown sweet corn is wicked!

We've had to cut down our two plum tress 'cos they got silver-leaf disease 🙁 We've planted a couple of apple trees in their place. The raspberry and blueberry beds are looking good. We had an almost constant supply of raspberries last year, they just kept on growing.

For reasons best known to herself my GF has started a new compost heap against the side of my wooden shed. Grrrr, I'll have to nip that one in the bud 'cos a couple of my precious bikes live on just the other side of the wall.

So concludes my exciting gardening news for the moment 😉

yeah i knocked that up myself, the hand drawn plans i did are far superior.

the little square has gone actually in favour of a 'notched' corner on one bed for the overlap. we were going to put Peas on a pyramid trellis in there but it will look a bit messy/be expensive as all the sleepers would need to be cut

back garden is looking great as well, this photo was taken last year and everything is looking a lot more established now, including the green algae on the decking 🙁

Nice bit of shore there 😉

yup. I can ride out of my garage, over the specially constructed bike wash area (top left), down the decking path, under the pergola and into the living room then out the front door without touching dirt

Should have also mentioned that we have a rather out of control pear tree that seems to yield quite well. Thing is, we don't eat enough of them and they mostly go to waste.
Should try this yr to pick more and give them to neighbours and stuff.
Or how hard is it to make pear cider?? Hmmmm.

Planted all my spuds now.
Our kitchen looks like a garden centre at the moment. Butternut squashes are looking very promising, courgettes are putting out some new shoots but a bit gangly still. Tomatoes seem a bit weedy but hopefully they can all spend this weekend out in the sunshine. Big pile of growbags ready for when they are bigger.

We sowed basil, spring onions and rocket into tubs last week but no action yet. We've got four (count 'em!) figs on our fig tree/bush this year - hopefully our first year we'll have fruit off it. Repotted the blueberry bush last weekend after reading they need ericaceous compost.

IIRC, Marigolds are good planted with carrots as then the carrot fly can't smell the carrots.

We've found the best slug/snail solution is to go out around dusk (especially if it's been raining) with a carrier bag and just harvest all the little buggers. Then you either dump them somewhere else (that neighbour you hate?) or jump on them and lob the carnage in the bin. Neighbours will think you're mad looking in bushes with a torch but it's helped our bedding plants massively the last couple of years.

put the pears out the front with a charity honesty box (locked)

We've got a mini-greenhouse full of beetroot and radish seedlings waiting to go out at the moment, with a couple of spare runner been seedlings just coming out on the lower trays. There's also a tray of rocket that's sprouting too.

Outside our spuds are now coming through properly and the transplanted runner beans are about six inches tall and getting bigger by the day. We've also got onions up in another bed and broad beans coming up in a third. Both of those beds have lettuces between the rows.

The only problem we have is the rhubarb coming out again. I thought the chickens had killed it, so we put their run over onto that bed. Now it's come back and is sprouting again, so I might have to move it to another bed.

We're also waiting to see if our allotment association has been able to get that 4 acre plot they wanted, then it's time to buy a lot of horse poo and sand.

Spuds went in on Wed.

Have been harvesting/thinning some lovely early lettuce (over wintered), My lamb's lettuce has already grown big and gone to flower, I dug it all up, and I have about four days worth of monster salads to look forward to.

Garlic (last Autumn) and onions (last Autumn also) both looking good. My carrots (also over wintered since October) are nearly big enough to eat.

I only planted my tomatoes last weekend but they are growing up now on the windowsill.

- And at long last, herbs! The Lovage and Fennel is finally big enough to pull great clumps off. Yum.

as the beds won't be ready for a couple of weeks, what should we be planting in trays (in the propagator) to plant out early mayish?

i'm thinking courgettes, peas, some salad leaves. anything else?

If your importing soil or using the 'natural' soil that came with the house i'd seriously consider getting a CLEA review of the chemicals in the soil before you grow anything to eat...

I love growing veg and talking bout it!

Broad beans doing nicely. Have planted spinach, no sign yet. Currently germinating my tom seeds in propogator, no sign yet. Have planted out garlic that I bought in the garden centre..... not sure how that's doing. Does anyone know if the clove with the shoots on it should be slightly above soil height? Mine aren't.

Mr MW, try tomatoes. I always do really well with them, apart from when it rains all summer 👿 They seems v easy to grow. Courgettes..... I just can't do them. Failure every time. I do grow everything in pots though maybe that's why.

tomatoes go in the back garden when we grow them but we have a habit of killing them.

hippy - only thing the soil that came with the house is good for is making pots/mud pies.

the back garden looked like the somme when we built the decking in the rain. hence paying someone to do the front, its not an experience i wish to repeat!

MrMW....might do a honesty box with the pears....have thought about it in previous yrs, then never got round to it.

As for getting stuff into seed trays, our basil is doing OK, as are the onions.
I think the radishes would have been better in a seed tray to start with, as perhaps would the lettuce we stuck straight in the ground.

Great idea, hope we can keep this going regularly.

Belatedly dug over one of my beds and mixed in loads of leafmold before digging holes, filling with our compost and sowing pumpkin and squash seeds yesterday.

Also prepared two more beds for sowing courgettes, beets, carrots and spinach when I get back from my hols.

Onions and garlic coming up nicely, overwintered ones quite big, newer ones peeping up good already after just a month.

we grow basil indoors, it does well in the kitchen. not a big fan of radishes but the wife is so may get some of them down, a bit of research shows we can put Peas, some Cabbages, salad leaves and courgettes in seed trays ready for transplanting so we are off to the garden centre in a mo.

Mr MW - how about some sweetcorn? Something like Minor/Minipop for baby corn.

how tall do they get, being the front garden we want to avoid anything too tall as it'll interrupt our snooping on the street.

Ah - 1.5-2m depending on how much sun & water they get.

The question is then if your importing soil - where is it coming from and whats in it?

If you saw half the soil validation test failures i do on imported soil i would be very careful about where my topsoil was coming from.

one_happy_hippy - How much does it cost to test your soil, what sort of kit/tests should you be doing?

Sorry, I don't have a clue when it comes to soil 😉

I managed to get a allotment last year after waiting nearly 2 years and know there has been a variety of soils from a number of sources been used on my plot.

There were three different piles of soil given to me from neighbouring plots who had some delivered.

Love the sharing/giving/helping attitude you get from other allotment holders, such a refreshing change in these modern days 😉

One last question, my local council tip do soil reconditioner for £1 per ton if you can collect!

Worth using or avoid?

Cheers

Great thread.

The fruit's looking promising this year - apples, loganberries, gooseberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, blueberries & raspberries. I've got the 1st & 2nd early spuds in the ground, and the winter little gem and rocket is still going well. Garlic has come up nicely, but onion seedlings are looking week.

Just finished the forced rhubarb which was delicious.

as to raised beds - have a lookie here for ready cut kits...
www.harrodhorticultural.com

Currently I'm torn between raised beds and new disk brakes

Ok, we've got garlic which seems to be going ok. Few lettuces under paccy bottle cloches. Spuds growing in sacks. My mushrooms seem to have given up the ghost. Not much happening on the chili front but my two rhubarbs plants are coming along nicely. I think the toms are just about to start and we've got a load of seeds for carrots and all sorts o' stuff to go in SOON!

It's my first year so not entirely sure whats going on, I've got potato's in and just coming through, butternut squash no sign of yet, carrots and parsnips and rubharb. And in the green house, purple sproting brocoli, courgettes, french beans, basil, leeks, onions, toms, beetroot, and I'm looking to put sweetcorn in.
I want to put in some perenials like asparagus and globe artichokes as well, its a big plot so thought go for it, i can always honesty box some of it,

Onions [growing]

Early Spuds just poking through.

Beetroot and Carrotts just gone in.

Tomatoes plants about 2 inches tall in the green house.

Eating rhubarb.

--
Other Stuff:

Strawberry plants looking good.
Raspberries and Blackberries plant looking good.

Apple and Pear trees blooming.

Minature woodland and nature reserve ... just mental as always.

Anyone in West Yorks? Maybe we could organise a geeky allotment ride, link them together in a big loop stylee! 🙂

Tatties in (Mimis and Swifts). Seedlings coming on: carrots, peas, broad beans, broccoli, sweet peppers, aubergines, hot peppers, rocket, sweetcorn, toms, and shallots (not seedlings, obv! 🙂 ). I'll probably do a couple of lines of beetroots with the kids on Sunday.

Edit: forgot the melons and courgettes.

All veg in containers this year; flower beds and herb garden doing well.

270L of compost delivered today and we're ready for planting on 🙂

http://landshare.channel4.com/ is an interesting idea.

woody - my board name says it all....... 8)
allotment visit via The Riverhead anyone??

I mentioned plans for this in a thread a while ago, finally, having been in MM Towers for 4 years we recently had the boys in to do the outside stuff.
View from back bedroom, formerly the courtyard area was a wasteland of builders materials etc....

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this is the bit above the courtyard, thought it was ours when we bought the place, turns out its not, its an allotment which we took on, about the same time we started proceedings against the conveyancing solicitor...... 🙄
The Courtyard Boys did the work clearing it for us and using the old patio to make raised beds....

[img]m4.static.flickr.com/3619/3450576262_98eac76b27.jpg[/img]

So, where do we start now (I know, I know, TIDY UP 😀 ) beyond that though initial thoughts are the beds need a good dig and a load of well rotted manure mixing in?? after that we're clueless...... any ideas and suggestions for resources - fora, boks, etc greatfully rec'd....
Oh, the other idea is top centre, left of and behind the tree, we did that over and put the spuds there, keeping the raised beds for for other goodies.
Cheers Chris

doh.....
try again, just mised the 'edit' cutoff........

allotment bit.....
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It's my second year growing fruit and veg....

This is how it's looking at the moment

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Potatoes have been in for 2-3 weeks. Leek seedlings have just started coming through. Strawberries are looking great (no flowers just yet though) and the Mixed Salad's coming along nicely

As you can see below the Herb Garden and the onions are looking great at the moment.

[IMG] [/IMG]

This year the produce list is as follows.....

Strawberries,
Lettuce (3 diffrerent varieties)
Cabbage (Round and Pointy)
Cauliflower
Brocolli
Carrots
Onions (Red and White)
Potatoes
Pumpkin
Courgette
Beetroot
Butternut Squash (hopefully)
Tomatoes
Peas
Runner beans

Plus Chives, Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Mint, lemon Balm and Rosemary

I love gardening I do !

Were you all frantically weeding before taking those pics to put up here?

😉

Some of them may shame me into getting out with the hoe and trowel a bit more often.

Marsdenman - Nice spread, but I can't help looking at that patio and thinking "he could get a few more beds in there easy".

on the subject of topsoil.
Rolawn now produce 1m bulk bags of fruit and veg topsoil.
should be available at your local builders merchants.
pricey though.

This great! We have just moved into a rented property with a huge allotment at the end of our lovely garden. We also have a small glasshouse. Last weekend I hired a rotavator and went over the allotment. To be honest we are way behind in getting the garden planted up. Hopefully will be off to the local garden centre to get my seeds. On the flower front, I am an ex- gardener, so I will still get all my flowers from my mate who still works for the company. So I have to prepare the beds and get some hanging basket brackets up. And get a new phornium for my front door. And a Japanese maple. So much to do, not enough time!!!

Broadbeans coming through 🙂

Reading with interest as we measured out the size our garden will be once the garage has been demolished and we will have room for decent veggie plot, hurrah!

cxi, how long did you have your fig before it fruited? I have one that was started off as a cutting about 5 years ago and am wondering how much longer I have to wait! GF laughs at it, it's still a stick really, but it's growing nicely. It's a long term project 😉

Came back from a week away to find the lettuces, broad beans, peas, onions and radishes are all through - no sign of carrots or potatoes yet.

Planted runner beans last weekend - we'll wait a little while before planting out the courgettes and tomatoes, pretty much all we have space for in the garden

If there's anyone in or around Aberystwyth I've got more Courgette and Pumpkin plants than I will have space for. If you want and my email is in profile..

Worst photo stitch ever! Thanks Canon. Empty beds are for veg and the space to the right is for the greenhouse which is on order.

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Been a good week this week, apart from frying some young Tomato plants on the window sill at home, not sure if they will make it poor little things, some look like they will make it though!

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Put out some excess trays of young peas and carrots next to my honesty box at my allotment and had a weird collection of things left for a trade, not sure what I am going to to with some of the wood, but the bins might come in handy, had a nice thank you letter from some kid who took some of the pea plants, bless.....

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Did make a herb tub from some of the wood though 😉

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How is everyone else getting on?

Put Butternut Squash and some herbs in pots last week, and generally tidied what bit I've got to plant in up.

Just about to build our first planter. Sounds like it's the time of year for Potatoes and we're big potato eaters so that will be going in first. What else is good for planting around now?

Carrots, Beetroots?

Cheers Jimster.

I've just completed the first bed border. I removed a 2x2 square of 600mm paving slabs to place it on and on seeing marsdenman's beds I'm wondering how to use them to make more beds 😀

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Can I just use multi-purpose compost from the garden centre? I've got 100L of peat moss too if that's any use.

Built a raised bed this afternoon from some decking planks lying behind the shed, just come in out of the afternoons sun. Great day in the garden.
My spuds are flying high, chives and coriander are coming nice, beetroot and toms are doing well.

Raised bed will get some carrots and onions I think, but not sure if I should wait till next year

Todays relatively shallow beds. Probably only 6 inches at the edge but can build the earth up inside.
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And where they sit. This triangle of patio is completely useless so planning to fill it with beds. Next plan will be to lift a 2x6 set of slabs to form a bed as seen in marsdenmans garden. There's still plenty of spare slabs for other beds here and there too.
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anyone in/near manchester know a good (and cheap/free!) source of reclaimed timber/planks for making raised beds with?

A pictorial update of how my Veggie patch is progressing.....

[b]Strawberries flowering nicely.... should be a nice fruity May/June[/b]

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[b]Potatoes have now come through[/b]

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[b]Courgettes are out (a bit ambitious, but i've got reserves if the frost gets 'em[/b]

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[b]White onions are doing well, and the runner beans are in behind them !![/b]

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[b]Peas are away and climbing[/b]

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[b]First time I've grown rocket and it's looking good atm[/b]

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[b]Cauliflowers are coming along, but may need to move[/b]

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[b]Carrots are through and need thinning out. Thought I'd grow them in pots as the grounds very stoney here in Mid Wales[/b]

[IMG] [/IMG]

Well, our 30ft glass house is taking shape.

We filled it with 18 bags of composted farm yard manure (guy up the road has a business composting farmyard manure, selling the worms to fishermen and compost to gardeners. Soil looks great now.

Toms are planted, the cherry toms are still in pots. cayenne, jalapeño and red devil chillies are still in pot and will be going into the ground soon. broad beans and French beans are ready to go in. Cabbage are popping up. Lettuce and rocket are doing well, nearly ready. Courgettes and chicory still to be sown but that won't be until June. Usual herb patches of coriander, basil and lemon grass are starting to germinate.

Partly inspired by this thread and partly by a visit to a friends, I spent Saturday digging over the garden and putting some spare wood to good use.

The outcome was this:

[img] [/img]

Today I planted them up. The nearer one has rocket and radishes. The far one has courgette, beetroot and cabbage.

I'm hoping the spot I've chosen is not too shady and before long there will be some nice veg to eat.

an update on my side of things

Landscaper has been let down by his contractor and can no longer undertake our work 🙁

so

today i have hired a van, bought 32 railway sleepers, cleared 10 square meters of 3" deep gravel, removed plastic lining and completed raised bed 1 of 4.

The trouble I now have is that the wood yard have given me the wrong size of shorter sleeper, the narrower end of my 8ft by 4ft beds is 10mm lower than the long side. I was thinking of buying some 10mm treated timber and using it to pad out the short bits and then was going to put a row of decking around the top. not only will this serve to cover up the error I think it will make the beds a pleasant place to perch and chat to the neighbours. what do you think?

on the plus side, baby corn, courgettes spinach, radishes, salad leaves, aubergines and chillies are all doing very well 🙂

mrmichaelwright - I'd leave it, its got a sort of penrose stairs thing going on. any fiddling will just look like you are fiddling. Good job BTW.

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thanks, a trip to the osteopath may be in order tomorrow 😥

Mrs NBT wants raised beds: is it essential to uyse treated timber or can I get away with scrap wood, at least to start with?

Don't worry about it, get some scaffolding boards or, as above, railway sleepers. These have the depth/rigidity to hold their shape when moisture becomes an issue.

PS. Fibreoard/woodchip/MDF are the exception to this. Get something with a grain.

you can line them with marine ply if you want to use scrap wood. It won't rot so easily. don't use old brown railway sleepers, they are poisonous. new sleepers are expensive. 12x8ft and 20x4ft for our garden would have been £520 delivered.

might give the local scaffolders a ring tomorrow I think, in the short term just plain wood will do - I;m getting hassle to get the thing built, and will no doubt get more hassle when I have to rebuild it, but the point is to save money by growing our own food, not to spend more than we'd save on buying wood...
cheers for the advice

I acquired 5 4M scaffold planks from a mate who was doing a scaffolding job down the road. These have now been made into 3 sides of a 3.6M x 1.2M bed. I've left 1 side open to barrow in the top soil then will close it up. Even managed to offload the stack of paving slabs onto martyntr in exchange for some part-grown plants hopefully. Pictures tonight.

Scaffold planks seem to last quite well in our UK weather too, well our neighbouring plot holder has some that are 5 years old and he never bothered treating them.

Mine cost me £3 a plank, finding decent soil at a good price was harder though 😉

My messy plot 😉

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Spuds are now poking up in their tubs and finally we have life in the spring onion pot.

I'll be out on snail patrol tonight as they've started eating my bedding plants. Grrr!

Spuds coming up nicely
Carrots beginning to appear
Rocket sprouting
Onions doing really well
Toms starting to appear (we were late with these)
Strawberries - looking promising
Courgettes going in this weekend
Vines (got two over a pergola) look they are going to be mighty good this year
Herbs doing well
Garlic - absolutely not sign of 'em at all!

Probably going to get some 'troughs' to put slad leaves, radishes, etc in to dot around the place

been a busy couple of days:

6 tonnes of organic topsoil arriving on tuesday 🙂

soil is in 🙂

truck driver managed to get most of it straight in the beds, i only had to shovel 2 tonnes of it myself.

it's lovely soil after our solid clay, was nice and warm so i guess the organic content is good.

pics to follow.

Nice work, those beds look top notch.

I grow veg in my front garden too, onions and garlic - with a few daffs mixed to keep the missus happy.

MMW out of interest how much did it cost you for the soil, was it from a national or local firm?

decent top soil from my local supplier costs me £35 a ton, that is, if I pick it up myself.

There we go.

Ski - best place we could find was local but does nationwide delivery. we didn't know it was local at the time! top service. ordered saturday 10am and rocked up today.

http://www.gardentopsoildirect.co.uk/

My allotment is a hideous windswept thing covered with scratty bed-invading grass, which resembles a gulag where vegetables go to die. That said, it currently has rhubarb, the dregs of last year's leeks and chard ready to pick, plus onions, beans, sweet peas, and a lone courgette. I have a load of spuds in the shed that I really need to get planted!

I've got more chard, beetroot, carrots and parsnips growing in the cold frame and I'm going to try a bit of companion planting this year (marigolds, tagetes and heliotropes) to deter the flea beetles and aphids.

Xherbivore, if you're looking for free wood, try scouting out the local skips for floorboards or similar.