Anderson Shelter Restoration: Day 5, 6 & 7

On Friday, I arrived at the garden to find that the hole had been dug for the Anderson shelter! 

To my surprise, it is almost perfectly rectangular, and should make locating the shelter in position much easier.

A local business (details to be disclosed at a later date) donated a mini digger and the manpower to dig the 3 foot-deep hole, which measures 6'6'' x 4'6". This has saved us an enormous amount of time and effort, and we very much appreciate it.

 

During the rest of the day, we painted silver top coat on some of the previously restored and undercoated sections of the shelter, filled sand bags in preparation for installing the shelter, planted some more potatoes in some spare sand bags and moved a raised bed to make room for the German fighter aircraft wreckage that should be delivered at the end of the month. 

Luckily, I had lots of help during the day, which turned out to be very productive!

 

 

'Winston' potatoes planted in sand bags.

On Saturday, we continued restoration work on the next two side panels of the shelter. This involved wire brushing, angle-grinding and rust-proofing. 

 

These two panels are probably the best of the 5 we had left to do, and only required minor repair work, although this still took most of Sunday to complete!

Once treated, we began repairing holes using wire gauze and chemical metal. in some cases, this meant reforming corners of the panels which had rusted away. 

This was a little fiddly, but the job turned out well in the end. Once filled / moulded, these repairs then required sanding in order to produce a surface which could then be painted. 

 

 

 

As a bit of light relief, I decided to put some period anti-blast tape on the greenhouse to match the potting shed! Looks quite good!

As well as preparing the next 2 side panels for painting, we also did some more planting on Sunday. In the largest bed, we decided to sow some root vegetables rather than opting for potatoes as we have for the past 2 years. This is what we planted in the bed:

• Swede (Gowrie)
• Shallots (Golden Gourmet)
• Garlic (Picardy White)
• Carrots (Early Nantes 5)
• Parsnip (F1 Gladiator)
• Turnip (Purple Top Milan) 
• Beetroot (Detroit 2 - Crimson Globe)

After a busy day, I finished off by weeding and tidying the herb garden, which is looking surprisingly healthy after very little attention over the winter months. A very productive 3 days!