I think that the production of compost has to be one of the nearest things to magic that exists in the world.

I was lucky enough that upon moving into my house, nine months ago, the previous owners left two almost empty compost bins behind in the garden. Ever since then I've been adding my raw vegetable scraps, tea bags, coffee and the odd bit of paper and cardboard too. One of the bins had filled up by late last year, and except for a bit of turning with a fork, I've left it be since. This week, I opened it up to see what was going on inside.

And wow, all those onion peel scraps and carrot heads have completely dissapeared. There wasn't a single tea bag in sight. Instead - and to be honest I wasn't really expecting the whole thing to work - was some rather good looking brown compost, all evenly mixed up!

Until now I've been buying compost to add to the soil in my vegetable patch but this was an opportunity too good to waste. So this evening, taking advantage of the ever increasing hours of daylight, I knocked together a compost sieve out of some old wood and a bit of mesh (instructions here), and started sieving the compost out into the wheelbarrow.

The result... lovely fine warm compost.

Considering that this stuff costs a fair bit of money at the garden centre, this is a rather cool way of getting it for free I think!

So, I've got some tomatoes growing nicely, but they're taking up rather a large area of my breakfast room right now. I'm also starting off a few runner beans indoors. I'm running out of room!

This weekend then, I decided to have a go at building a small lean-to greenhouse in which to grow them. These things can cost quite a bit of money (as much as £400) if you buy them ready-made, which I don't have spare right now. Plus, I always quite liked the idea of being able to build something like this myself. People always say that the more effort you put into growing your food, the better it tastes!

I feel quite pleased with myself.

This weekend, in search of a nice day off from my university work, I decided to have a go at a bit of DIY.

The problem: I now have a bike, and nowhere really to keep it. So far, I've just been bringing it into the house, but this both takes up space, and brings mud in. The solution: a bike shelter for my back garden.

Now, I'm no woodworking genius or anything (hated CDT at school) but this seemed like a project worth having a bash at. So, a trip to the DIY shop and three or four hours later, and I have this little bike shelter round the back. Nice.

And here's how I made it...