Roaming Zebra

Most of the Bank Holiday weekend just gone was spent building a deck in the garden. It was pretty much finished at the weekend, but I’ve only just got around to preparing the photos for upload!

We did have a pretty small patio area in the garden, which was mostly made up of cracked concrete with weeds breaking through so we decided it was time to do something about it. Given that I didn’t really want to lay paving slabs as that would require levelling the ground underneath properly first (and our house is at the top of a hill so the garden drops at the one side), I thought it would be easier to build a timber deck. Having worked at the Edinburgh Fringe festival for several seasons a few years ago, mostly during build weeks, working for a venue management company, I have quite a bit of experience of building substantial timber constructions (things like Church halls into temporary theatres with raised seating areas, stages ….). … which means I also suspect I might have slightly over-engineered the under frame of the deck!

All the timber was ordered from a local timber supply company (despite being called Lawnswood Fencing, they also supply a lot of exterior grade timber), and they can generally deliver pretty quickly. They are also quite a bit cheaper than the major DIY shops. Other stuff, like coated exterior decking screws came from Screwfix Direct (or rather the local trade counter). The only problem with going to the trade counter was that I was tempted into buying a new cordless drill/driver. Though I think that was a good investment given it has a lot more torque than my old one and a spare battery – which came in handy.

Noggins have been added for strength and as support for the deck being on uneaven concrete

The frame of the deck is built from 6″x2″ treated timber, with all cut ends coated with an exterior wood preserver. I spent a while looking at what size timber to use for this, and ended up deciding on the 6″x2″ based on other people’s recommendation on the Internet. I think if it wasn’t slightly raised at one side due to the garden being on a slope, I might have gone for a smaller grade timber. The photos shows the extra “noggin” bracing which I fitted to help stop movement of the deck, these bits are also dropped right to the underneath concrete level to act as weight support and to help stop any deck-bounce. The long timbers are spaced with maximum centres of 400mm. This then gives plenty of points where the top decking timber can be screwed in place.

The frame was nailed together using 4″ galvanised nails, and then fixed to the patio wall using ~15cm frame fixers. Note this isn’t the house wall – the patio area is further down the garden. Fitting at the house level would have meant considering damp proof courses, and ensuring the deck is below that level!

Underneath the timber frame is a heavy-duty anti-weed fabric. Its different from the normal landscape fabric as it isn’t intended to be planted through, basically its a plastic woven fabric, allowing water through, but not light. The one I bought was from Screwfix, its guaranteed UV stable in the UK for 5 years – given its under the deck its not going to get much light onto it anyway, so it should be good for a while.

The frame was actually part built away from its final location, then lifted into place before fitting the noggins – basically I needed space around it to work, but then didn’t want to have to try to move the complete timber frame given the weight. Once in place I checked it was sqaure (measure diagonally across both ways – the size should be the same if it is sqaure) before dropping the front supporting legs into the ground and adding Postfix (normally used for fence posts – it takes about 10 mins to set sufficiently that you can continue working).

The deck is almost complete!

Fitting the surface of the deck was probably the easiest part to do, though it was a killer for the knees! I’d designed the deck to be the width of the decking timber – i.e. no need to cut every deck board. The depth was also designed to be 24 boards long, with ~5mm gap between each one. That’s fine on paper, but of course timber is a natural product so you have to work around twisting, warping etc… Basically we layed the whole surface out, then shuffled the boards to get even gaps between them. I then fixed the one edge to stop movement and working in blocks of ~4 deck boards fixing the whole length of the 4 boards before moving on to the next batch of boards. When moving along, I fixed the centre point of the boards first – some boards needed pulling slightly to get them back straight.

Once the top was on, its mostly just finished off work – fitting the front and side with extra decking timber to cover the underneath frame for aesthetic reasons.

The deck lighting pictures has now been recessed into the deck – I didn’t have, and couldn’t get the correct sized hole-saw, so I ended up drawing round the lights, drilling some strategically placed holes and then using a jigsaw to cut the correct sized hole out. The lights are solar powered LED ones, so they don’t need wiring up and of course turn themselves on at appropriate levels of darkness.

All that is left for me to do now is to finish the front vertical covering – I was 1 deck board short. That’ll probably have to wait for the weekend when I can go to the timber yard to get another piece of wood. Then I need to sort the steps down from the upper bit of the garden – its only really 1 step now, but its falling to bits (cracked concrete and bricks). I think I might build a timber step down which will match the decking.

We’re also pondering if we need a handrail on 1 side of the deck – its about a 30cm, drop at the front corner, but then there’s a bench in the way …

Allotment Picked Raspberries

Its been a while since I’ve posted anything on here. Mostly because I haven’t really had a lot of time, and I haven’t had much allotment news to post!

We’ve done a varying amount of harvesting, often ending up with some huge courgettes which we have no idea what to do with (some of the biggest have been going straight onto the compost heap!)…

We’ve now dug up all the remaining spuds, which have had varying success – there’s been quite a lot with little slug holes in (in the King Edward at any rate). Maybe some sort of nematode will be needed next year to help stop that! Have planted up my Maris Peer Christmas potatoes, which are coming through nicely now, though a couple have leaves which have died off – not sure if that is a bit of blight got them (they are very low ground level at the moment), or if its lack of water or maybe just wrong conditions. Anyway, I cut the leaves off and disposed of them…. think I’ll earth the plants up to help discourage blight for the next week or so!

The raspberries have done really well, which is good as we didn’t plant them on the plot and the previous plot holder apparently removed them all! As a bonus, the birds don’t seem to have gone for them!

Still not picked any of the sweetcorn, though I think some of it may now be ready for trying… The mini-tomato plants at the allotment seem to have produced a lot of fruit, though it seems to be bursting as it ripens. At first I thought it might have been birds, pecking them, but after netting the fruit, its still happening.

The bottom of the plot seems to have been invaded by weeds again and I spent a while last night pulling some of the worst ones out and getting rid of them.

Back at the greenhouse we’ve got another couple of melons set in the greenhouse – the first one to set seems to have stopped growing, not sure if that was a lack of water, or the weather went dull and cloudy and wet for a while. I’ve just got the first of my greenhouse tomatoes starting to ripen, I suspect general wet and cloudyness has contributed to the late starting to ripen of the plants.