From neglected corner to my favorite part of the garden

There are parts of the garden you proudly photograph.

And then there are parts you carefully crop out of every pic.

My potting station was very firmly in the second category.

For quite some time, this corner beside the house had technically been my potting area. I say technically, because in reality it had slowly evolved into something between a storage area, timber yard, plant nursery and general dumping ground.

My brand new - Hand made set-up!

There was an old table.

There were pots.

There were trays.

There were pieces of wood.

There were buckets containing things I had probably put there because I was absolutely, definitely going to deal with them later.

Later never came.

And because I am apparently incapable of walking past a packet of seeds without thinking I could grow that, there were also seedlings. Lots and lots of seedlings.

Something had to be done.

The potting station that wasn't really a potting station

The funny thing is that I used this area all the time.

Every seed I sowed eventually came through here. Plants were potted on here. Seed trays accumulated here. Compost bags were opened here.

But there was never enough proper workspace.

If I wanted to pot something, I first had to move six other things.

If I needed a pot, the correct size would inevitably be at the bottom of a stack of 47 other pots.

If I needed my secateurs, they were wherever I had put them down approximately three minutes earlier.

Usually directly in front of me.

It worked.

Sort of.

But it certainly wasn't a pleasant place to work.

And considering how much time I spend sowing seeds, taking cuttings, potting things on and generally interfering with plants that were probably doing perfectly well without my assistance, I decided the area deserved better.

Am I really posting this, for the world to see!?!

Naturally, this meant building something

My solution to most garden problems seems to involve buying timber.

So I built a proper potting bench.

Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. Just a big, solid wooden workbench against the wall with enough room for me to actually work.

And because apparently I am incapable of stopping once I have a drill in my hand, the project grew.

The bench needed storage underneath.

Then the wall above it looked rather empty.

Obviously, that meant building a large wooden slatted tool wall.

Almost done!

Suddenly my trowels, secateurs, gloves, hand fork and other tools could hang directly above the bench instead of participating in their usual game of hide-and-seek.

I even gave the worktop a warm finish, which instantly made the whole thing look less

like man has screwed some timber to a wall and more like an intentional garden workspace.

Progress!

Everything finally has somewhere to live

This might be the part I enjoy most.

Pots now have somewhere to go. Trays have somewhere to go. Tools have somewhere to go.

Seedlings have proper shelves.

Feels like I need more space? ;)

There is space underneath the bench for all those gardening bits and pieces that somehow multiply when nobody is looking.

I also built a separate wooden plant stand beside the potting bench, with mesh shelves.

That has been brilliant.

I can keep trays and pots together, water everything easily and allow excess water to drain straight through instead of having seedlings sitting in puddles.

And, naturally, approximately five minutes after finishing it, I filled the entire thing with plants.

Of course I did.

Empty gardening furniture is apparently offensive to me.

From dumping ground to seedling headquarters

Looking at the before and after photographs is slightly ridiculous.

The old version looks like someone emptied the contents of a garden shed against the side of the house and then fled the country.

The new version actually looks like somewhere I want to spend time.

There are seedlings everywhere, but now it feels like productive chaos rather than actual chaos.

And yes, there is a difference.

At least that's what I'm telling myself.

At the moment, the station is absolutely packed because I'm getting plants ready for the next growing season. There are young brassicas, trays of seedlings, herbs, flowers and various other experiments occupying almost every available surface.

I've reached the point where I occasionally look around and think:

Perhaps I have enough plants.

Then I sow another tray.

It has become my favorite part of the garden

This is the part I wasn't expecting.

I built the potting station because I needed somewhere practical to work.

Instead, it has become one of my favorite places in the entire garden.

I love coming out in the morning and checking everything.

What germinated overnight?

What needs watering?

What needs potting on?

What has inexplicably died despite receiving exactly the same treatment as the 23 perfectly healthy plants sitting beside it?

There is always something happening here.

A vegetable bed can look more or less the same for several days, but the potting station constantly changes. Seed trays become seedlings. Seedlings move into pots. Pots leave for the garden. Empty spaces immediately get filled with something new.

It's basically a small plant factory.

A plant factory with absolutely no production planning whatsoever.

The best garden projects aren't always the biggest

I've built raised beds. I've built trellises. I've created new growing areas and changed large parts of the garden over the years.

But this relatively simple project has probably made a bigger difference to my everyday gardening than many of the larger ones.

It hasn't given me more land.

It hasn't magically made the garden more productive.

It certainly hasn't cured my inability to stop sowing seeds.

What it has done is make all those little gardening jobs easier and much more enjoyable.

Instead of searching for tools, I can see them.

Instead of balancing pots on whatever surface happens to be available, I have a proper workbench.

Instead of seedlings being scattered around wherever I can squeeze them in, I have a dedicated area for them.

And instead of avoiding this slightly embarrassing corner of the garden, I now find myself deliberately walking over to it just to have a look.

It gave me the push I needed for finally tackling the front garden, too.

Although I may already need an extension...

There is, however, one slight problem.

When I built all this, I looked at the amount of space and thought:

I'll never fill that.

This was extremely optimistic. The shelves are full. The bench is full.

The plant stand is full. There is now an additional table in front of the bench.

There are pots on the ground. Apparently the only thing creating more growing space achieves is giving me permission to grow more things.

So perhaps the potting station isn't finished after all.

Perhaps it needs another shelf. Maybe another plant stand.

Possibly some additional storage. I mean, there's still some wall left...

This is how it starts.

But for now, I'm calling it finished.

My neglected little dumping ground has become a proper working part of the garden and somehow, without me really planning it, one of my favorite places to be.

Not bad for some timber, a few screws and an alarming number of plant pots.