Why the feet you ask? I didn't want to horrify you with what the rest of me looked like after rooting around in the mud all day. Okay maybe not literally rooting, but at times i was on all fours digging like no body's business. Trust me the foot shot is the least offensive and if you just take a looksy at what humdinger (at least to me, but I'll consider your vote) these two little cottage woman hands made you'll understand.
An outdoor sink! Of course you say, everyone knows that you must have an outdoor sink right? I see you shaking your head with the "total dud" bubble floating above. Don't be hasty let me explain.
You know when you spend a long time in the garden carefully harvesting your bounty and realize that you need to wash your fresh tasty vegetables and you really don't like traipsing through the house to your kitchen sink with dirty vegetables and shoes and then clogging your kitchen sink with the dirt. So you kneel on the ground rinsing and sorting with the hose until your kneeling in a pool of muddy water and you can't get up from all that stooping and picking and rinsing? Let's pretend that you do okay? The answer of course the outdoor sink or more eloquently the washing station.
The original idea came from an old issue of Mother Earth News and when I laid eyes on it I knew at once this was at last my ticket to evolving into an upright Homosapien. I gleaned most of my supplies for the project from surplus items left over after the two remodels we did. Here's the low down.
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~ First let me divulge that the idea was hatched in my noggin last fall. I knew that the sink needed to be not to far from the garden and situated as near as possible to the compost so I could toss refuse into the pile as I cleaned. The area where I wanted to place the sink had a lot crab grass and I could have waited to start the project this Spring and just dug the stuff out, but with a little forethought I saved myself a bushel of tedious work by laying a bunch of cardboard (an awesome mulch and weed suppressing source) on top of the grass in Fall and let it Winter over. Now I had a completely flat and weed free area to start right in on the project.
Next I dug 2 shallow footings and put in a couple inches of gravel heeled in to form a heave free base for the recycled cinder block columns. I turned the center blocks around and found I liked the little architectural flair it gave the columns. Then I topped each column with recycled stepping stones to cover the large holes in the cinder blocks. I positioned the recycled enameled steel dual sink in the center and laid the found rack loosely on top for draining the veggies on. I laid more gravel to cover the entire soggy cardboard and topped that with an inch or so of fresh compost and seeded it. But I couldn't leave it alone because we also have a nice pile of homemade stepping stones we made from extra concrete from a pour a few years earlier. Ta Da, two nice stones to stand on when working at the station. That's it.
You like? I hope so.
3 comments:
oh, I like, like like! What a great and resourceful project. And those boots are the mark of a girl after my heart. So inspiring. Leaving the mud outside is such good thinking. thanks for the post.
Excellent idea! I've always wanted a washing station in the barn, but near the garden is a dandy spot too. That, my friend, represents a lotta work...well done! You are quite the creative cottage woman.
That's exactly what I need to put up !! Was searching for ideas and yours came up. Thanks for the visual : )
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