The Carrot Tops Allotment Blog!

Quite a while back, a much used and beloved wheelbarrow rusted right through to the point where the wheel and the frame were the only parts that were fit for purpose.

I parked it up and parked up is where it stayed, until last week whereby I was able to make use of it, as part of the wildlife garden I’m making.

I want the area to be as low maintenance as possible, and the beds are rather large. With large beds, you have to consider how easy it is to stretch in and out of the bed, therefore I plan to fill the middle of the bed with permanent structures, that generally don’t need to be moved.

I started by setting up a small water butt in the middle as a source of water for the area. Leaves from the trees will fall into this and this will over time also make for a rich source of natural fertiliser. I sat the tank onto some cardboard, followed by a slab to raise it up slightly.

Around the edges of the tank, I placed some logs – a. to make it look nice and to b. provide further habitation for things.

In front of the tank, came the wheelbarrow itself which I lined with cardboard – to cover the rusted holes. I weighed down the cardboard with some thick twigs that had naturally rotted and fell off of the old oak trees from behind.

What came next is nothing short of composting gold dust! I fill the barrow with oak leaves that had fallen from overhead, followed by compost from the compost bin.

I did a similar thing before when preparing the raised beds for the strawberries and this is a real winner of a method, and so easy to do. The leaves will rot down on their own accord and produce some really fertile soil to grow in.

That bit underneath the wheelbarrow felt like empty space – that needed to be filled, so I cut down some spare logs that were laying around and stacked them accordingly to to create another small bug hotel, that will attract something beneficial (fingers crossed).

It is a wildlife area after all and I did enjoy making a bug hotel not so long before.

So there we have it, a wheelbarrow bed for wildflowers 🙂

I have a frame and a wheel left over – what would you do with these? I’d love to know in the comments below.