Daisies in Bloom in the center of the garden
A shed of one’s own – what a wonderful thing. It’s only taken 66 years to get one!
I’m speaking of a garden shed. For all these years, I’ve used as my garden shed the walled-in space under the stairs to the 2nd floor of the garage, where the Husband’s studio resides. But I shared that narrow, steeply-roofed space with a heavy old pump left behind by a long-ago house mate, winter shovels, axes and hatchets, a few heavy metal tools I can’t identify but the Husband considers important, and from time to time, winter tires and wart furniture and stuff we didn’t know what else to do with.
If you picture what under-the-stairs space looks like, you’ll remember from all the Victorian novels you read as an adolescent that it’s dark, narrow, and the ceiling steeply descends into a very short space. At one end it’s not possible to stand up, and that’s where all the dark things live that jibber and slorp and eat the bad children locked under the stairs for bad behavior. For many years this shed had a door, but to save money we used an old indoor-door rather than an outdoor-door, so after a bit it swelled up, wouldn’t shut, warped, and eventually was replaced in winter by a tar, making it easier for the various mice and hornets and other critters who made homes in the shed in my flower pots and other gear, and allowed leaves and sticks and dirt to blow in and establish themselves in large piles in the corners.
Because it’s long and narrow, things got stored in it in the order in which they were no longer needed in the garden, and according to what could go flat, and what could fit under the short end. Thus, all the pots and cloches and the short bin of organic fertilizer, and such like wound up at the far short end, old window screens (useful for keeping cats out of the garden beds until seeds germinate) were stacked against one wall, with flattened tomato cages in a tangled pile against them, and the round tomato cages stacked towards the back but in front of the pots and cloches and all the stuff I need at the beginning of the season, and other pots and rolls of black paper and doodads piled on top of each other under the hanging shovels and rakes and other heavy things that would fall off regularly and hit me on my head as I bumped them with a shoulder while reaching for something I needed; and the potato bags and weeding bags hung on the wall just out of reach, and all the garden stuff that can’t stay out over winter piled in front of the door, followed by the wart furniture until I got smart enough to hual that down cellar to the space under those stairs. The shed by late fall was so full that the extra bags of MooDoo and mulch, needed for late-season garlic planting, had to be left to overwinter in the garden, rendering them less than useful and often full of interesting critters, by spring.
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The new shed next to the door to the under-stairs shed
And all winter, the tarp would flap in the wind, snow would blow in, critters would chew up what they could to make nests, and come spring when it was time to plant the cool-weather crops, I’d have to move everything near the door out of the shed so I could reach the stuff I needed. Over and over again. And I’d get smacked on the head by falling shovels and rakes, over and over again.
This spring I’d had it, and announced that something had to change if anyone wanted me to keep gardening, because I’m too old to risk getting knocked out and my arthritis hurts too much to move all that stuff over and over and over, fighting the tangles and tiny space all the time.
Fortunately, the Tall Guy was there when I threw my temper
tantrum, and he didn’t have a job for the summer. The Tall Guy, besides being
very tall and a retired organic farmer, is also a builder. And the Husband is a
wicked fine carpenter’s helper. And I’m collecting social security and still
working – I’ll never be able to afford to retire, so the garden’s important –
so I had enough money from a years’ worth of
social security to buy the materials, and the Tall Guy isn’t charging
for his time. I give him soup.
The Tall Guy and The Husband
First they had to clear out space and scrub brush, and then they built an open shed all along the back side of the barn for the Husband’s stuff. And we put out at the end of the driveway a riding mower that no longer works, and a big bean tower that didn’t work in my raised beds, and some decent studded snows for a car that died last fall, with FREE signs on them – all have new homes, the mower with a guy who fixes such things for a living. Other stuff went to the dump in the Tall Guy’s truck. Marie Kondo would be proud.
The new open shed and the unfinished shed of my own
Yesterday my new shed had its roof put on. They built it on
a cement pad that had been poured years and years ago and had been the place
the dead mower and the wheelbarrow and the grill and the really tall tomato
cages that wouldn’t fit under the stairs all lived. All I’m missing now is shelves and a door,
which will be built next, and hooks and holders for hanging stuff, like the garden
hoses, come late fall. I can stand up in it in every corner. There will be
space to turn around in. The shovels and rakes and winter shovels will stay in
the shed under the stairs, as will a few other things that are just too
unwieldy for the new shed – but I’ll be able to reach them in the right order,
now. I am in paradise.
I’m sure the mice will appreciate it this winter, too.
Putting the roof on!
Rasta supervising from the garden chair
For the blog, 19 June 2022: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com
Happy Solstice!
All photos Deb Marshall
