[Rangerkris]

hi all i build play grounds all over england please stop and ask for pallets we often have leftover mesh as well   a lot of the pallets are 12ft long  its  a wast to put them in a skip so just ask it could be me ok thanks bob     

We have a play officer in our park and we get all sorts come up through him hahahahha.

[N.WalesIdealist]

for years now I've read in Gardening books and seen in articles that Garden Centres will often give away old pots they don't use any more.

Well to my experience I've never known anything like this to happen until I went to Jackson's of Trelawnyd, my local garden centre, and they had pallets fixed together to make a crate full of old plastic pots and module trays and buckets and all sorts of things with a big sign saying help yourself!

I was a very happy fella, walking out with about 20 wuids wortth (if bought new) of free pots and a packets £2.40 seeds!

[Rangerkris]

Also got work going on in our play area today and they were fitting some terram under the wood chip so i asked for some and got about 15 m x 4m  will help cover the plot for the winter.

[troubrs]

I was at my allotment the other day when the council chaps turned up with small bulldozers etc. They were clearing vacated plots. Sadly by the time I twigged what was going on & asked if I could have a scavenge I had missed the load of hose and netting & massive posts with metal spikes they had already ripped out. However I did get myself about 30 good long canes, a plastic trough, a nice big wooden trough & some heavy pieces of wood to hold down my netting. I asked which plots they still had to do & managed to dig up a lovely feed of self seeded new potatoes from another plot - the council guys even helped me dig them out!
It's a shame the council allotment manager didn't e-mail us all a week or so before with the plot numbers, there were crushed compost bins, water butts, sheds, greenhouses & all sorts in the huge pile of rubbish they now have to remove!

[Paul Plots]

I was at my allotment the other day when the council chaps turned up with small bulldozers etc. They were clearing vacated plots. Sadly by the time I twigged what was going on & asked if I could have a scavenge I had missed the load of hose and netting & massive posts with metal spikes they had already ripped out. However I did get myself about 30 good long canes, a plastic trough, a nice big wooden trough & some heavy pieces of wood to hold down my netting. I asked which plots they still had to do & managed to dig up a lovely feed of self seeded new potatoes from another plot - the council guys even helped me dig them out!
It's a shame the council allotment manager didn't e-mail us all a week or so before with the plot numbers, there were crushed compost bins, water butts, sheds, greenhouses & all sorts in the huge pile of rubbish they now have to remove!

What a waste  As you say... many other plot holders would have been pleased to make use of some of that... so much for recycling. 

[BirminghamRyan]

I was at my allotment the other day when the council chaps turned up with small bulldozers etc. They were clearing vacated plots. Sadly by the time I twigged what was going on & asked if I could have a scavenge I had missed the load of hose and netting & massive posts with metal spikes they had already ripped out. However I did get myself about 30 good long canes, a plastic trough, a nice big wooden trough & some heavy pieces of wood to hold down my netting. I asked which plots they still had to do & managed to dig up a lovely feed of self seeded new potatoes from another plot - the council guys even helped me dig them out!
It's a shame the council allotment manager didn't e-mail us all a week or so before with the plot numbers, there were crushed compost bins, water butts, sheds, greenhouses & all sorts in the huge pile of rubbish they now have to remove!

Which council is that? we get nothing of the sort from ours... OTOH if a plot is vacated and the former occupant doesn't want the shed and contents we take them and sell them for funds for the association (The contents, not the shed) which is good, but means that over time the site has developed a collection of alarmingly leaning rickety shacks. Eventually someone pulls one down, and we end up with a pile of wood which the council won't send a skip for (The association is loath to hire one because they're expensive, and the minute one arrives several skiploads of junk magically appear in and around it), and we can't have bonfires most of the year, even when it is allowed, someone sees it and calls the fire brigade, allotments officers, and ward councillor 

[mumofstig]

calls the fire brigade, allotments officers, and ward councillor 

who should tell the 'someone' who complains.....that bonfires are allowed! but not to let them get out of hand of course
A leaflet drop may be the answer so everyone know what's what

[troubrs]

I was at my allotment the other day when the council chaps turned up with small bulldozers etc. They were clearing vacated plots. Sadly by the time I twigged what was going on & asked if I could have a scavenge I had missed the load of hose and netting & massive posts with metal spikes they had already ripped out. However I did get myself about 30 good long canes, a plastic trough, a nice big wooden trough & some heavy pieces of wood to hold down my netting. I asked which plots they still had to do & managed to dig up a lovely feed of self seeded new potatoes from another plot - the council guys even helped me dig them out!
It's a shame the council allotment manager didn't e-mail us all a week or so before with the plot numbers, there were crushed compost bins, water butts, sheds, greenhouses & all sorts in the huge pile of rubbish they now have to remove!

Which council is that? we get nothing of the sort from ours... OTOH if a plot is vacated and the former occupant doesn't want the shed and contents we take them and sell them for funds for the association (The contents, not the shed) which is good, but means that over time the site has developed a collection of alarmingly leaning rickety shacks. Eventually someone pulls one down, and we end up with a pile of wood which the council won't send a skip for (The association is loath to hire one because they're expensive, and the minute one arrives several skiploads of junk magically appear in and around it), and we can't have bonfires most of the year, even when it is allowed, someone sees it and calls the fire brigade, allotments officers, and ward councillor 

Chelmsford Borough Council! they've moved all the stuff now, it was 2 lorry loads! problem is it was on the car park & there's loads of broken glass there now! We're not allowed fires at all!

[Tenhens]

In march I was driving past a building site, and there was a large pile of blue house bricks and a skip filled with building blocks, I stoped and asked the formen if they were needed, he said come back tomorrow with your trailer and you can have what you want,so we made 3 trips and took around 80 building blocks and around 400 blue house bricks, what we have made into raised boarders and a pathway in the garden, the formen told me it was cheaper to give them away then to pay for the skip to be emptied.

[Thephoenix572]

A mate of mine has a road sweeping business and is selling 200 litre plastic barrels which had contained cider he's selling them for £15 each. He will sell to me and deliver for £10 each and deliver also. They do great for my Christmas potatoes after I've them in half and put some holes in the bottom

[WendysLot]

I went on Freecycle and got 3 offers of plant pots and seed trays!  Well worth checking this site out.

[gillian62]

My husband was visiting his mum on Monday in a residential home.  Next door they have been building some communal housing.  He noticed that their skip had about 10 long lengths of blue pipe.  He asked them for it, and got it for me - great to make another large brassica bed on my new 1/2 plot. 

We asked them about 6 months ago when they started their work about wood chippings as they were cutting down trees and got about 4 car boot fuls for the chicken area at home.  We bought them some tins of sweets as a thank you.

They have now finished work on this project but it has certainly be useful to use to ask politely and thank them too.