My sisters are mad

I’m the oldest, then there’s Sister C who doesn’t have a blog but does have an allotment. But hers is not just any old allotment, oh no! “The St Anns Allotments are the oldest and largest detached town gardens in Britain, possibly the world. Their unique history and heritage has been recognised and it is a Grade 2* listed site.”

The picture above is of her latest adventure in that listed land – A RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLE GREENHOUSE!!!! Her allotment neighbour (seen above) helped her make the timber “outline” and then with the help of anyone she has ever known she collected, and is still collecting, empty, lemonade, cola, ginger beer bottles. My baby sister, the writer, who has two allotments with her partner on the same site, explained how the bottles are used. She is suffering from what they call “White Hand” an affliction that falls upon you after a session of cutting the bottles with scissors. The repeated scissor-action drains the lifeblood from the bottle worker, turning it white! The base of each bottle is removed, with scissors. Then a V-shaped slot is cut on either side, near the top of the bottle after its location being carefully measured. A little V-wing is then able to pop out of each side of the bottle so that when the next layer of bottles is stacked it does not slip too far down. Clear as mud? I was given the gory statistics of how many bottles were in the roof and how many bottles were still needed to complete the project but I never was very good with numbers.

5 Responses to “My sisters are mad”

  1. Garden Shed Made of Disposable Bottles | Alt Dot Energy Says:

    […] out of bottles? This one was built of empty lemonade, cola and ginger beer bottles. Instructions at Crafty People, via […]

  2. Garden Shed Made of Disposable Bottles | Eco Friendly Mag Says:

    […] out of bottles? This one was built of empty lemonade, cola and ginger beer bottles. Instructions at Crafty People, via She… Source: TreeHugger Bookmark It […]

  3. Eloise O'Hare Says:

    Great to see the reusing of plastic bottles. I helped build a plastic bottle green house at the Children’s Livesey Museum on old Kent road in London for the CHildren to grow vegetables in. The local school kids helped fill in the most of the bottles in a two day workshop. They grew chilli’s, tomatos, ect in the greenhouse afterwards. We also put a door in wide enough for a wheelchair and made it half door to let out hot air, if it got to hot.
    The sustainable communities initiatives came down from Scotland to show us how to build it.
    A link here they produce a book that has the designs made simple to make the green house. http://www.sci-scotland.org.uk/index.shtml
    On my blog I have photos of the green house on my blog
    http://eloiseohare.blogspot.com/search/label/Green%20House

  4. Nicole Says:

    a picture tutorial would be nice so we can see exactly how it is constructed
    it looks great :o)

  5. Lucille R Myles Says:

    How many bottles would u need to build the green house?


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