I have a relatively small garden so I need to manage the space effectively so I can have more plants.  Over the past year I have been reading up on how to make the most of the small gardens and have always wanted to implement unusual  methods of expanding your garden relatively.

I have always wanted a potting bench with shelves to stand in front on my days off work and blissfully let the time pass away.  I have also needed a new compost bin so I hot upon the idea of combining the 2.   When it comes to DIY I am not practical and TBH I have not got the time or patience at the moment so imagine my delight when I found the lad that runs the car wash in my home town I sometimes take my car to is a qualified joiner (chippy) and has a woodwork shop in the unit he rents.   He mixes the car washing with making bespoke woodwork projects mostly for gardens.   These mostly consist of log stores.

I always knew where I wanted to put the compost bin in the garden and how I wanted the combined potting bin to work, I went  to see him with the plans in my head and we sat down and talked about it.    I told him I wanted a the width to be slim as I will need to walk past the bin to get to my water butts but to compensate I wanted the length to be long.   I waned it to be just above waist height with a detachable tray so I could pot plants.  It needed to be detachable as with all compost bins I would be putting the compostable material in from the top.   I also wanted a hatch at the bottom to access the compost but this had to be able to be closed easily and secured to keep the mess to a minimum.    I then wanted 2 shelves above it so I could place small plant pots their so the plants  could catch the sun facing.   he drew up the plans and we agreed the price and paid a deposit.

This was a few weeks ago and he has now completed and delivered it and to say I am happy with it is an understatement.   It’s better than I thought it was going to be and I can’t wait to start using it.  I am going to spend most of today planting up some Dahlia Tubers in pots and planting some dianthus seeds.

I will be using this unit to the max.

Bring on the longer days!