Allotment Week: Beds and Woodchips

There has been a fresh delivery of woodchips this week. Once again the woodchip bay is brimming. It makes sense as the various arborists around the area do most of their work in the winter months. They don't have to worry so much about leaves, and they can clearly see what needs to be cut back. But then they have to get rid of the resulting mess. Which is why Allotments around the borough will gladly accept their rubbish, because to us it's like gold dust.

So I have a new extension to the plot, which is only small, but I reckon I could get 5 8ftx3ft beds in there. So first thing this morning I went to the local Wickes to pick up some boards to be made into beds. I grabbed 10 8ft boards, and 5 6ft boards. The 6ft's will be cut in half to make the end pieces. I done a post on how I construct my beds so I won't go over it again here.

But what I didn't reckon with is the cold. It played havoc with my drill's battery and I could only get 2 beds done before the power wasn't enough to drive a screw in anymore.

So I now have 8 6ft beds complete in the centre of the plot plus 4 6ft beds down alongside the main path (by the rhubarb and shed). I should have 5 8ft in the new section and 4 10ft beds at the very front. I'm not counting the Wife's flower bed which was last year's winter project.

Of course the big problem is that Wicke's (Merton) do not carry 10ft boards, so I'll have to go further afield to get them at some point n the future. But since the drill packed up, there wasn't a lot else to do other than saw up corner sections and trundle woodchip around the beds to fill them up and make nice happy mycellieum homes.

Yesterday I started levelling out the old mound area. The new section is very low, and obviously the mound is very high. So the new path which has to go in needs to run between the two, mis-matched levels. Not an easy job. But I eventually managed to get a levelled section and put a new path in.

I'm still missing a section between this path and the one I did on Tuesday. But I guess I can do that at the weekend.

But back to that pesky drill of mine. It's getting a little long in the tooth and the battery doesn't hold the charge so well. It was only a cheap'n'nasty non-brand drill anyway. So I'm contemplating getting something a little better. I've been looking at the Ryobi One+ range as they have a variety of power tools with a common power system.

Has anybody tried these?
Are they worth it?
What drawbacks have you found with them?