The Shed Base, the Gammon and the Great Cream-First Debate

 I had a quick pop down the allotments on Tuesday, and I’ll be honest, it didn’t take long. There wasn’t a lot to do, and what there was could wait. The weeds have given up for the year, the pumpkins are in, and the plot looked at me as if to say, “Go home, Simon, you’ve got better things to be doing.”

And I had. I’d got so much on at home that I could feel it piling up behind me, and work have been asking for extra hours because half the staff are off ill. So I did a bit of tidying, had a look at the dahlias, and came away again. It felt very odd, like popping into the pub and only having the one.

Because the real job that week was the shed base. And as with most of our big ideas, it started with a simple thought and finished with a mixer full of concrete.

Why the Shed Needs a Proper Base

Regular readers will remember we fixed the leaning shed a few weeks back. Well, we’ve  got another one on the way, and this time I wanted to do it right from the very start.

The spot where it’s going used to have a garage on it. The garage has long gone, but the concrete base is still there. Now, you’d think that would be a lovely ready-made floor, and in a way it is. But I didn’t want the shed sat straight down on the concrete. Wood on concrete is a recipe for rot. The damp gets trapped underneath, the timber never dries out, and in a few years you’ve got a soggy mess where your shed floor used to be. I’ve seen it happen to other people’s sheds, and I wasn’t going to have it happen to mine.

So the plan was to keep the wood up off the concrete, with air able to move underneath. I went for the 2 foot square support frames, the same as I did on the other shed we straightened up. They worked a treat last time, so I saw no reason to go changing a winning formula. When you’ve found something that works, stick with it. That’s one of my golden rules, along with “never trust a plasterer” and “always check the tin before you paint”.

Two Days of Measuring and Cutting

On Tuesday afternoon and again on Wednesday, me and Sara were out measuring and cutting wood. Two days in a row, in fact.

Now, there’s a thing about working with your wife on a job like this. We measure the same piece of wood and come up with two different answers. Sara says, “Measure twice, cut once.” I say, “I did measure twice.” Sara says, “Then why’s it an inch short?” And I say nothing, because there’s no good answer to that. Wood doesn’t grow back, whatever the shed people tell you.

But we got there. Sara held, I cut, we both argued, and by the end of the second day we had a pile of neatly cut timber and a garden that looked like a sawmill had exploded on it. She’s far better at it than she lets on. I’d say she’s the best apprentice I’ve ever had, but I’d never hear the end of it.

A Coat of Ducks Back

Once it was all cut, we painted every piece with Cuprinol Ducks Back. It’s a good bit of kit, and as the name suggests, it’s meant to make the water run off like it does off a duck. We gave every piece a good coat, getting right into the ends, because that’s where the damp creeps in.

And I have to say, they looked smashing. A frame of freshly painted wood sat on the ground, all neat and tidy, just waiting to be put to work. I stood there with a brush in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, feeling very pleased with myself, which is a dangerous state for me to be in. Something always goes wrong a few minutes later.

Simon’s Hard-Won Tip: Look After the Ends

Here’s something I learned the hard way, and it’s the tip of the week.

When you cut a piece of treated timber, the cut end is bare wood. The factory treatment only goes so deep, and the moment you’ve sawn through it, you’ve opened up the very bit that water loves to get into. Rot starts at the cut ends, nearly every time.

So paint every cut end, and don’t skimp. Give it a good soak, and a second coat once the first has dried. It takes ten minutes and it’s worth years of life. I learned it from an old garden gate I built years ago, which looked grand for about three winters and then went soft at the bottom like a wet biscuit. I’d painted all the faces and forgotten the ends. Never again.

And the same goes for anything that touches the ground, or sits close to it. Keep it painted, keep it off the damp, and let the air get round it. Wood only rots when it can’t dry out, so give it every chance to.

When the Concrete Isn’t Quite Right

Now, here’s where it got more interesting. When we laid the frames out on the old garage base, we noticed it had sunk a little on one side. Not a lot, but enough. Over the years the ground underneath had settled, and the base had tilted gently, the way an old man leans on a gate.

If we’d just built on it, the shed would have sat crooked, and I’d have spent the next ten years looking at it and wincing. So, with most daft ideas in this family, the answer was “let’s just make some more concrete.”

So me and Sara mixed up a batch and laid it on the low side, then sat the new base on top of it, checking with the spirit level every few minutes. Tap, tap, level. A bit more concrete, tap, tap. It’s a slow job, and a messy one, and Sara got a splash of it on her glasses, which she says she’ll never forgive me for. But we ended up with a new, level base for the shed to sit on.

Once it was finished, we stood back and had a good look at it. It looked good, and we were both very pleased with ourselves. We stood there for a good five minutes, just looking at a wooden base, like two people at an art gallery. If anyone had walked past, they’d have thought we’d lost the plot. But we don’t mind. A level base is a thing of beauty, and I won’t hear otherwise.

The Gammon Trick That’s Saved Us a Fortune

Now, onto something completely different, because that’s how my week goes.

After Sara had cooked a gammon joint, I was asked to slice. This is one of my jobs, and I take it seriously. I get out our electric meat slicer, and I slice it thin, as thin as I dare.the machine was a replacement for one we brought from Argos over twenty years ago.

Here’s the thing, though. It’s amazing how much you get from one of those uncooked gammon joints from the big supermarkets. By the time it’s been cooked and sliced, you’ve got enough ham for sandwiches for days. We’ve been doing this since our older daughters were little, and over the years we must have saved an absolute fortune on ham.

I saw this week that four slices of shop ham can cost up to three pounds. Four slices! I can eat four slices before I’ve got my coat off. I could hardly believe it. So if you’re buying packets of ham, have a go at doing your own. Sara boils it gently, lets it cool in its own water, and I do the slicing. It tastes better, there’s no mystery water in it, and it goes in the freezer in little bags. That’s the kind of thing Sara, the preserving queen, would be proud of, and she is.

Saturday Is Baking Day

And Saturday came round, as it always does, and that meant bread. I’m a self-taught baker, and I’ve baked the family’s bread every Saturday without fail. This week, it was 30 sandwich thins and 2 bloomers again, and then 12 Devonshire splits for the freezer.

The splits are Sara’s favourites. She’ll get them out when we have some cream and put homemade jam in them, and honestly, they’re delicious. A soft, slightly sweet roll, a spoonful of jam, a dollop of cream, and a cup of tea. You don’t need any more than that. They’re also very good at making the whole house smell like a bakery, which is a handy way of getting the family out of their bedrooms on a Saturday morning.

Simon’s Devonshire Splits (makes 12)

Ingredients

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 10g salt
• 40g caster sugar
• 7g sachet of fast-action yeast
• 50g soft butter
• About 300ml warm milk

To serve

• Homemade jam (Sara’s, naturally)
• Whipped or clotted cream
• Icing sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast in a big bowl. Keep the yeast and the salt on opposite sides, because the salt can put the yeast off.
2. Rub in the soft butter, then add most of the warm milk and mix to a soft dough. Add the rest if it needs it.
3. Knead for ten minutes, until smooth and stretchy. Put some music on, it helps.
4. Cover and leave somewhere warm for an hour, until doubled in size.
5. Divide into 12 pieces, shape into smooth round balls, and sit them on a lined tray with a bit of space between them.
6. Cover and leave for another 30 minutes.
7. Bake at 200°C (180°C fan) for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown.
8. Cool on a wire rack. Then split each one across the top, put in a spoonful of jam and a dollop of cream, and dust with icing sugar.

If you’re freezing them, do it before you fill them. Pop them in a bag once they’re properly cold. Then they’ll come out of the freezer and into the oven for five minutes, and they’re as good as new.

Now, there’s an argument about whether the jam goes on first or the cream. In Devon, they say cream first. In Cornwall, it’s jam first. In our house, Sara decides, and I’m told it’s jam first. I know better than to argue.

Over to You

So that was my week. A quick trip to the allotments, two days of measuring and cutting, a bit of concrete, a lot of slicing, and a houseful of bread.

Have you ever built a shed base, and how did you keep the damp out? Does anyone else slice their own gammon, and do you have a trick for getting it thin? And do you go cream first or jam first? Tell me in the comments, because I’d love to hear from you.

Happy growing, everyone. See you on the plot.