Breuer Bench

Inspired a couple of years ago by a blog post (http://www.designsponge.com/2009/07/before-after-martinas-bench-kellys-dining-room.html), I saved 2 cesca chair frames (that had previously busted caning) with the intention of building a bench. They sat in the garden for all that time, and I'm pleased to say have weathered 2 severe winters with barely a patch of rust.We have been in need of extra seating at our garden table, and I knew I wanted to make the bench work there. After pondering the different materials for the seat and back, I remembered we had leftover teak flooring from the living room, and decided this would be an excellent use of it.

So I had T chop me 5 equal pieces of the teak in the longest length we could (forgot how gross the teak smells when you cut it!), and we screwed them into the pre-existing holes in the frames. Because we wanted 3 pieces for the seat, but only had 2 holes where the caned seat frame used to sit, we used 2 smaller pieces of teak to screw the three lengths together.

We already had the teak & the frames, and both were pretty much free, so this project cost us deck screws - about $9.

Voila! A bouncy Cesca bench for two!

Lazy Veg Patch

Last year, we tried growing some veg in pots. A combination of forgetting to water, weeds and dastardly (but adorable!) little chipmunks made for not a great harvest.

This year, we decided it was time to build a raised bed. After much googling and indecision about what to use (cedar/trex?) we decided to go over to the old HD and grab some cinder block. The main reason being, there was no screwing/nailing required, and no worries about termites infesting the concrete blocks. Plus we could plant little strawberries in the holes!

It turns out a pallet will not fit in the back of the wee Ranger, so we had to load the 32 blocks in by hand with the help of the dudes in orange. Not too bad. However, carrying them from the car park to the garden was not as much fun for poor T, who suffered for it the next day. (I carried 2!) I was in charge of clearing the very weedy ground, laying out the landscaping fabric and stacking the blocks.

I was aiming for something about 2' wide, but due to extreme lack of proper planning we ended up about 3' which is a little deeper than I would like, given once the plants grow it will be a little tougher to reach the back. We decided to stack 2 high, to give enough depth for potatoes, and to stop Madra peeing on our food.

We filled this bad boy up with a mix of top soil and bumper crop, and planted red and white onions, potatoes, chives, spring onions, lettuce and carrots.

Next step will likely be to protect the top from the dastardly chipmunks with some pvc pipe and netting.

Fingers crossed we will soon be eating from our garden!