My Shed is a Shed!

Radical, I know. My shed is not a garden room, it is not a garden workshop, I don’t air bn’b it, I don’t work in it. I tend seeds in it, I store my relatively newly restored deck chairs, I hang about with bulbs in it.

It is a potting shed. It’s full of pots and seed trays. I’ve just planted my seeds. It’s a place of hope and discovery.

The shed has been there since I moved to Kensal Green/Harlesden in 1995. It was delightfully ramshackle. A little bit of decadence at the end of the garden. I had a romantic ideal around it – it represented my very own crumbling palace. The green painted wood was falling off but I’d put a window box of daffodils on the ledge outside and think it was gorgeous.

Only gradually over the years, it became more and more crammed with stuff that my flat couldn’t take. I don’t have much storage. It became seedy instead of delightfully ramshackle. One of my favourite words, by the way.

The roof was leaking. The foxes sneaked in via a hole in the brickwork. The romantic aspects were failing.

Finally in 2022, I faced up to the fact that it needed a renovation. I thought about a flat pack new one. But this one had brick walls and was substantial. No, I’d go for a doing up. I eventually found a builder and his young lads. It took a long time. Several months. Builders are always doing several jobs. I had them tramping through my house a bit too much.

But hey, Jez, found some spectacular windows in a skip. That gave it a flavour of palace. Later they were painted gold. And I added a green glass Indian handle on the front door. I suggested shelves for the seed trays. It transformed. Before there had been a covered with crap work top. Now there were empty slatted shelves.

And all that stored rubbish – cupboards, carpets, old wood – went a skip. What a liberation!

I am very happy with my shed as a shed. This shed is a shed. Unlike Magritte’s pipe.

I am growing more seeds than ever. Often flowers for the garden because I enjoy their growth so much. Some vegetables like lettuces and courgettes that I put amongst the flowers in the beds.

It’s all happening now. I’ve just got out the seed trays and the new compost and there they all are in their little soil nests. In a couple of weeks, they will start sprouting and I will start more intensely tending. Going away will bring worries, I’ll get my neighbour to tend but it’s a bit of a risk as he’s not a seed man.

Oh and this week, I sent out a message to our street’s tomato growing group. Last year we started the group and had a tomato party in September. Bascially I noticed that Mike from over the road, had an allotment nearby and grew tomatoes. One day, he was selling seedlings in the road with his kids – the money was going to Shelter.

Later in the year, I bumped into to him and suggested that a few neighbours could grow tomatoes and see how it went. He could advise us perhaps.

And we did. And the idea was that everyone made a dish from their tomatoes and come round. I held it in my garden. There were Bloody Marys, Greek salads, Moroccan tarts and much more. And some cheating. Not quite enough tomatoes.

And the piece de resistance was the tomato competition judged by my ever-stalwart friend, Amanda (she who rescued me in the emergency passport getting in Paris). Unfortunately, she can’t eat tomatoes at the moment. A dietary thing. So she had to go by smell and my advice. Marcel, my Brazilian neighbour, triumphed.

And this year Abdel and Rachel at No 10 will host. The seedlings will be arriving soon and they will go in the wooden container outside the shed.

As the days get longer, I will be spending more and more time in my beloved shed.