The Grow Your Own Garden at the Ideal Home Show

This was one of the garden room sets that I’ve already said I was keen on, and the keen amongst you will realise that that’s because of my penchant for growing my own, but also for the geometric print rug, which is reminiscent of the cushions in my conservatory, and made from recycled plastic straws. But there’s another reason and it’s mostly how four crates have been fastened together to create a good looking and functional table. I’m forever saying I need a small low height garden table, mostly for my gin and tonic, and while this isn’t exactly what I’m after (it’s a little on the large side) I do admire its design.

The garden focuses on sustainability as well as the grow your own element. It shows ways of using your garden space making use of the latest Gardena technology, as well as featuring sustainable designs with items from the decking to the furniture made from recycled plastic bottles, milk cartons and tyres.

Which means, that everything might not necessarily be what it seems.

As well as the funky crate table on castors, I’m also quite taken with the raised, slatted looking planter at the rear of the picture above. The vertical struts provide extra growing space, for what looks like herbs, as well as looking stylish. It’s a bit too tall to have alongside my greenhouse - it’d block too much light - but otherwise I think I’d be tempted to look into recreating these raised beds by made from sustainable British timber.

Even the classic shaped Adirondack chairs, another long term favourite, are made from recycled plastic bottles. Which makes a lot more sense - they’re by Polywood if you’re also interested.

There were plenty of herbs in this garden - as well as the rhubarb amongst the hydrangeas above in planters made from old car tyres - and herbs are no bad thing. They’re great for flavouring food and are a good substitute for salt, as that’s something else that we all more than likely need to cut down on.

The final thing that caught my eye was this planter full of unruly peas, who look as if they’re arguing with each other about climbing up the cane supports.

On closer inspection the container is a milk churn, which is another way to reuse an container and to introduce some charm to your garden at the same time. It’s one of those garden spaces that has plenty going on, and much of which you don’t spot on first look.

What do you think, are there elements you’d have in your garden?

The Cockroach: Made from waste

Usually at Grand Designs there’s something a bit left field, and often I find myself wandering around trying to work out where and what it is. Often though, it’s something you’re really not expecting, which was definitely true at last year’s show. I mean, even if you’d seen The Cockroach in the programme, without a further explanation you’d have been none the wiser, and may even have given it a wide berth, just in case it really was cockroaches.

I don’t expect you’d have been expecting, this I certainly wasn’t - and just in case - approached with care.

And while it was colourful, and fascinating, I didn’t need to worry.

It’s a solar powered, pedal powered vehicle for two which the board says is “capable of transporting two people in comfort over large distances” which I’m less sure about. It doesn’t scream comfort, or even something for long journeys to me, even if i wasn’t pedalling.

It’s very inventive though, and shocking too. Or perhaps less shocking really, which is shocking in itself isn’t it?

It’s made from waste collected across London including old bikes, for sale signs, mobility scooter batteries, pipes and leftovers from last year’s show. There’s even somewhere to store your provisions.

And with provisions, of course you need a kitchen…

There was a loo too, but it was mostly a pipe to a bucket, so definitely not one for the Loo Series.

While I’m not sure it will catch on as a vehicle, it’s clear what should catch on is how we deal with our waste responsibly.

A just in time handmade gift

In Monday’s post I mentioned the Christmas gift that almost wasn’t ready in time, and which only managed to be under the tree with some last minute sewing Christmas Eve evening. MOH was bemused my by last minute industriousness, even more so when he realised it was for him. I was keen to get it finished, so he stood a chance of working out what it was, and of course to get it finished and wrapped so it could be opened on Christmas Day.

It was a bit out of the norm you see, but I needn’t have worried as he got what they were for as soon as he opened them, phew.

They’re mats for the wheels of his bike, for when it’s wet and dark, and so the bike stays in our conservatory overnight. Up until now he’s been parking his bike on some newspaper, which while it serves a purpose and does a job, tends to hang about for a bit and so I thought something more aesthetically pleasing must exist. Then I realised it probably didn’t, but was something I could make.

The trouble was when I had time on my own in the house, usually his bike wasn’t there so what size? In the end I guessed and cut a leg of an old pair of jeans to be approximately 40cm x15cm - I knew I wanted something hardwearing, but I also wanted something softer for the newly varnished conservatory floor, so a leg of some old pyjamas were just the thing, and I had some batting somewhere I’m sure…

PYJAMAS AND JEANS REPURPOSED

But I also knew it’d need to be more than just two pads for MOH to know what it was for. With a flash of inspiration one night I hit on the idea of adding some lettering, but what: bike park, stay dry, clean floor, no mess, not newspaper and so on, but in the end I went with the simple instruction of “Park here.”

The original plan was to embroider both words, in script, and “here” looked to be the easier and more continuous to do, so I started with that using twine. I’d written the design onto the jeans (and you can still see it in both photos) and it wasn’t onerous to do, and there was lots of tracing where the flow of the letters should go with my fingers, I realised I wanted more of the pyjama fabric on show too.

TWINE EMBROIDERY

So a new plan was hatched for the “park” which involved using my die cutter to cut out the letters from fabric ironed onto interfacing, which I hoped would stop them fraying (we’ll have to see how that works out), then stitched onto the denim. I toyed with the placement and went with a more jaunty arrangement, as time wasn’t on my side, and I preferred to have them clearly not straight rather than trying to be straight and failing.

APPLIQUED LETTERING

I’m rather pleased with how they turned out, with more planning I think I’d have quilted them some more perhaps, and given them a wash to remove the red felt tip lettering, but there’s time for that.

What was more pleasing was that when he opened them, he knew what they were for and sweetly suggested I could make these and sell them, however as they often say on Dragon’s Den, I think this is solving a problem that not many people know they have, so I don’t expect there’s much demand for these. They were fun to make, and to give, and as well as their practical-ness they’ve also demonstrated to MOH that sometimes old fabric can be put to good use, and uses you might not have first thought of!

How were your handmade gifts received?