Oakland Gardens Deals Of The Week

 

This week’s deals are live at Oakland Gardens! We’ve added some great new offers this week, including our 2m x 20m garden fleece, strong woven bird netting, 50 x 3 litre deep plant pots and 4 x 45cm black saucers. The 45cm saucers are a perfect fit for our 50 litre pots, making them a handy add-on if you’re stocking up on larger pots for the garden, greenhouse or allotment. We’re also still running a few of our most popular offers, including the 15 x 30 litre plant pots, 35cm saucers to go with them, and the 300 x 30-inch split canes. Discounts are applied automatically at checkout, so there’s no code needed. Just add your items from the weekly deals page and the savings will be taken off for you.

 

Stock up on our 50 x 3 litre deep plant pots, a great choice for roses, shrubs, climbers, young plants and general potting-on jobs around the garden. Their deeper shape gives roots more room to establish, while the sturdy plastic design and drainage base make them a reliable option for regular use through the season.

 

4 x 50 Litre Heavy-Duty Plant Pots — now only £30! These large 50 litre heavy-duty plant pots are perfect for growing bigger plants, shrubs, small trees, vegetables and patio displays. Strong, practical and built for regular garden use, they’re ideal for giving roots plenty of room to grow. This week’s offer brings the pack down from £38.95 to just £30, with the discount automatically applied at checkout. Plus, you’ll get free UK delivery. Offer ends Sunday 24th May

 

 

4 x 45cm Black Saucers These 45cm black saucers are a great match for our 50 litre plant pots, fitting perfectly underneath to help catch excess water and keep patios, greenhouse benches, decking and growing areas cleaner. They’re made from sturdy plastic and work well as a simple water reservoir, helping plants draw moisture back up when needed while reducing mess from watering.

 

2m x 20m Garden Fleece Protect your plants with our 2m x 20m 18gsm garden fleece, ideal for covering rows, beds, shrubs, young plants and delicate crops through changing weather. It helps shield plants from frost, wind and hail while still allowing light, air and moisture through, so your plants stay protected without being smothered. A handy choice for gardeners wanting quick, lightweight coverage across larger areas.

 

 

 

15 x 35cm Black Saucers Our 15 x 35cm black saucers are ideal for pairing with 30 litre plant pots, fitting neatly underneath to help catch excess water and keep patios, greenhouse benches, decking and growing areas cleaner. They’re a simple but handy addition when watering, helping create a small reservoir so plants can draw moisture back up when needed. A great choice if you’re potting up in bulk or refreshing larger containers for the season.

 

Oakland Gardens 🌱 Growing with you every season

Worm Tower Caps

This morning I harvested a load of long coach bolts from my mans shed, and using my trusty soldering iron melted a hole in the middle of the bottom of the 100mm (4")  Plastic Pots

This configuration gives the capping pots a nice handle to lift them off and back on when filling the worm towers, but better still adds weight to the plastic pot to prevent them just being blown off the top of the worm towers.

They look like Church hand bells, and I think they are quite cool, but there again I'm 68 and an allotmenteer so my concept of cool is shaded and questionable these days.  

My sister Elaine brought me two tugs of grass from her back garden that was freshly cut this morning, and my son-in - law brought two sacks of a week or two old grass. I did hear my neighbour Sid cutting his grass and I will likely be offered that when he sees me over the fence in the next coupe of days. 

More scaffold boards are coming Monday 15th June to enable me to complete the next two rows of beds.

This link will take you to my journal and will show all things worm towers related.

Giving Up Plot 1A

Up to now this was my kingdom that I named "Avalon". A very kind plot neighbours Adamos & Sarah who lived in the flats behind my two plots, used to take annual photographs from their 4th floor flat balcony for me. 

That stopped when they migrated back to Lithuania to buy a plot of land and build an off grid homestead. Tragically Adamos who was a thrill seeker & stuntman died whilst ice diving in a river in 2025 leaving behind Sarah and their three young children.  

I originally took on the left side of these two plots (Plot 1A) in 2012 and worked it and got it completed and recovered from nature and the bindweed from 2012 to 2017. In 2015 I got an additional half plot at Spencer Road Allotment, but then managed to negotiate a free car park install by the contractor building the Parchment Close estate in 2016 and in October 2017 I took on Plot 1 and gave up Spencer Road allotment in 2018.  

Click this link for the full History Of Mill Green Allotments

Here is a photograph taken because it had snowed in 2022, from before the Climbing Frame Greenhouse (CFG) and the All Gold Raspberry boundary beds were formed along the main path, but one can see that the four 600mm wide by 2.4m raspberry beds had been constructed.  

Here is a photograph from 15th July 2022 where one can see the infrastructure getting in however the top right corner had yet to be formed. The raspberry beds had not yet been constructed and the Climbing Frame greenhouse had not been formed in the corner framed by the path between the path between plot 1 and Plot 2 and the boundary beds on the main path didn't happen until 

I originally took on the left side of these two plots (Plot 1A) in 2012 and worked it and got it completed and recovered from nature and the bindweed from 2012 to 2015. In 2017 I got Plot 1 

Plot 1, what's shown in the photograph above is not up to date? 

I tried buying a cheap drone that didn't work. I tried to get someone with a drone to take aerial shots for me and they let me down so you don't see the Infrastructure changes on Plot 1 that I have made since getting my cancer and autoimmune disease that made me officially registered as "disabled". The raised beds I have been installing since 2024 as I'm no longer able to get down on my hands and knees to weed and sow at ground level. 

Getting back to the point of thus blog, there are things I need to remove or transfer from Plot 1A onto Plot 1 before I give the plot up on the last day of September 2026. 

It is with great sadness that I am giving up plot 1, but I have to be realistic in my capabilities and reduce my plot footprint and let someone who has the time to work plot 1A take it on.

Here is my To Do List for the next four months, once I can drive and walk again! before the 1st October 2026 

Grapevines - Take cuttings and try to propagate to grow on plot 1

HotBin Wormery - Empty and move to plot 1  

Leaf Cages - move cages and contents to plot 1

Compost Bins - empty and use for filling raised beds and possibly move a few Daleks onto plot 1 

Greenhouse - I was thinking of possibly moving to plot 1 but because of having to step in and out of it, which is now difficult and dangerous I decided to donate it to Wally as he is a mate and could do with replacing his tired polytunnel that need a new skin every couple of years. 

Garden Table & Bench - The Table my be useful on plot 1, however the bench is ole and I would not trust sitting on it these days.  

Comfrey Bocking 14 Bed - I need to take root cutting and form a new comfrey bed on plot 1 

Comfrey Pipes (two  number) - Possibly leave one for the new tenant and move one onto plot 1 . 

Netting & Hoops - Remove enough materials for me to use on Plot 1 and on my new home allotment plot of raised beds I'm currently building. Leave the remainder for the new tenant  

Weed Membrane Sheets - Remove what's required and leave some for new tenants 

Paving Blocks for holding down netting etc. - Move to plot 1 

Paving Slabs - Remove so that all paths on Plot 1 are paved and take excess home for the back garden allotment.  

Tall Boy Store - Remove from plot 1A onto Plot 1 or possibly to the Back Garden Allotment (BGA), I have a sentry box vertical store I made from the original 8ft x 6ft timber shed that I bought in 1992 that has seen better days. 

Shed - Remove contents and distribute else where.  

Bindweed - Trim back and remove as much as possible so not too bad for new tenant

Work still Needed On Plot 1 - Complete transforming the framed beds into raised beds

And finally, fore fill my duties as the Mill Green Allotment Site Rep and show my beloved Plot 1A to the next person on the waiting list, and hope they are going to be a nice neighbour and fit well into the great community we have going on at Mill Green Allotment.

Getting Ready For Scaffold Boards To Arrive

Last night Kelly and I slid the store from in front of the ratatan bench to the plastic bench at the back of the patio, so that when the scaffold boards arrive they can be stacked on the 3 timbers that are currently being supported 

So the 

5ft  x 6 number 

4ft x 24 number 

3ft x 16 number 

Scaffold boards will be spread along the three bearers like the two 4ft boards either end, in the photograph above  

Current state of play of the back garden allotment 

View up the first row 

View up the Second row 

The nine timber decking tiles bought over the weekend from B&Q

The New Keter Store It Out Max 1200L Polypropylene Garden storage - Grey currently selling for £136

It will go where the old bench store is that has a broken lid / seat.

UPDATE 

Due to mass congestion of traffic my scaffolding board delivery will now take place on Monday 15th and not late this afternoon. No worries, I'm not so mobile at the moment anyway. 

TEMU Garden Sale

Temu Website

Typical searches are:-

Oakland Gardens & Greenfingers Charity

  

Regular readers of manvslg.uk will recall that I was blown away to find out that we had won a Runners Up Prize in the 2026 Allotment Competition that Oakland Gardens have run in the £500 category allotments with 40 plots or less that ended on the 30th May 2026. 

I didn't know there was going to be a Runners Up Winner in each category. Now here is the thing, if we had won the first prize with 19 plot holders we would have had £26.31 each to spend, as it is with the £100 Runner-Up Win it equates to £5.26 voucher credit each.

We discussed the Oakland Gardens win on out allotment Whats App group and have decided that we would like to donate our £100 voucher to the Greenfingers Charity.

The charity aims to provide all life-limited children, their families, and carers, within their hospice, emotional support through the power and pleasure of nature.

They create beautiful, well-designed outdoor spaces for children to enjoy with their family, friends and siblings, whether through play and fun, or therapeutic rest and relaxation. 

Greenfingers Charity is driven by the belief that time spent outdoors, away from the bedside, can offer children and families under considerable stress a vital opportunity to embrace the benefits of being in the fresh air and engaging with the natural environment.

They are committed to creating specially designed, stimulating garden spaces that can bring many benefits to children with life-limiting conditions. Whilst many people may take for granted the simple pleasure of being able to enjoy a garden, for these children, their siblings and their families, the chance to spend time together outdoors and away from the bedside is precious.

I contacted Lee Ward of Oakland Gardens and they were more than happy for us to donate the £100 voucher to the Greenfingers Charity. 

I spoke to Linda Petrons the Director of Fundraising & Communications at the Greenfingers Charity about our donation, and the likelihood is that they will use it to get items to raffle at their forthcoming Summer Charity Event. 

I did suggest to Oakland Gardens that they may also like to donate some goods for the Greenfingers Charity Summer Event to help them raise funds.  

I do recommend that you sign up for the Oakland Gardens Newsletter so you receive notifications on news and special offers. 

This Link shows all posts featuring Oakland Gardens on manvslug.uk

This Link shows all posts featuring The Greenfingers Charity on manvslug.uk 

The Kindness Of Plot Neighbours

 

It's not always been the case, in the past we had a couple of plot holders who caused lots of trouble and fell out with many of the other plot holders. In my time as the Mill Green Site Rep (2012 - today) I have seen a lot of plot holders come and go. 

The ones that don't realise just how much work is involved in keeping on top of things and the amount of hours need to be sunk into ones plot. 

I always think of John, Wally and myself as bit like the three old blokes in The Last Of The Summer Wine, I'm not quite sure which one of us is Compo but I have my suspicions. 

Wally very kindly popped to my home and picked up Runner Beans, Climbing French Beans and Dwarf French beans, and has cleared the bindweed off the fencing of the climbing framed greenhouse. He has weeded the beds in the CFG, and sown the beans for me, so that I will have something to harvest when I finally get back to the plot. 

Wally also sent me these photographs that show potatoes growing in the raised beds, that John planted for me as I didn't get time to plant them in buckets as intended before I became ill.  I had hydrated the coir blocks and was about to mix with compost and soil but that didn't happen. 

John weeded the beds, they had mares tail and bindweed in them despite all the removal of weed roots I had done when constructing them.

Other plot holders have helped me to lift bags of compost as I have arthritis in all my joints following the cancer treatment in late 2023 and a hernia from lifting my wife who had lupus before she passed away in January 2023.

We have a great bunch of plot holders on Mill green who are willing to help each other out, we share any glut of young plants and any harvest later in the season. 

The girls got a no-cult for long grass, and I had a push mower that I got off Freecycle and don't use, so I gave it to the girls so they could cut their grass. I'm a Ryobi man so I use a battery strimmer.   

I can no longer manage two half plots, so that's why I'm giving up plot 1A and the end of this growing years (September) I have already found a home for my green house on plot 1A.

I need to find out if I can transplant my grape vines from plot 1A to Plot 1 or take cuttings. 

Vein Viewer / Finder

 

I had and appointment at the SDEC unit at St Helier Hospital this morning for them to look at my leg and to take blood and look at my infection markers. During the blood taking process they used this Vein Viewer / Finder as I told them that during my weeks stay they had put so many cannula's in my hands and the veins were so small that they failed and had to find another in, that both hands were mullered, bruised and tender to touch. 

My question was WTF had they not used this during my stay rather than try multiple unsuccessful attempts and caused so much damage to my hands? 

It appears it's a matter of cost "They are expensive, and we don't have many and not each ward has got one" The cost appears to be about £1,500 ish. These are not new they have been around for 10 years. IMHO Every ward where they fit cannula's should have access to one of these machines.

A vein viewer / finder is a medical device that uses infrared or LED transillumination to project a real-time map of blood vessels onto the skin. It helps healthcare professionals and phlebotomists successfully locate veins for IVs and blood draws on the first attempt, reducing patient pain and procedure time

These devices are particularly helpful for patients with difficult venous access, such as infants, the elderly, obese individuals, and those with dark skin tones.

Types of Vein Finders

• Infrared Projectors: Advanced devices (like the AccuVein or VeinViewer) project a digital image of veins directly onto the skin. They often feature multiple colour modes and brightness levels to adjust for different skin tones and room lighting
• Transillumination Flashlights: Handheld LED or UV devices that are pressed directly against the skin to illuminate superficial veins. They are highly portable, more affordable, and frequently used in smaller clinics or homecare settings.

More Scaffold Boards For Raised Beds

 

Now that I'm building raised beds and a mini allotment in my back garden, I need additional boards to complete the build. I sent my list over to David at Rugged London and he gave me a good price that I'm happy with. I explained that at the moment I can't walk very well and he offered to walk the boards through the house and stack them in the back garden. 

Once again, I'm very happy with the companies communication and service. The boards are coming Friday and I will blog about the quality of what I receive. I look forward to giving Rugged London another 5 star rating. If you are interested in obtaining scaffold boards for your own projects contact:-

David from Rugged London can be contacted on 0203 1501248 

or mobile 07804 444409 email David@ruggedlondon.co.uk

Web Page ruggedlondon.co.uk

9am to 5pm Monday to Friday

I read the Trustpilot reviews before I contacted David & Rugged London for my original order with them back in November 2025

They were most complementary of the company & of David and his staff.  

The reclaimed un-sanded boards retail at about £2 per foot, but if you provided David with a schedule of numbers and length you required he will give you a price including delivery. You can even get a 10% discount on your first order by signing up for the company newsletter.  

David then sent me a monzo payment link for payment for the boards, and we arranged for the delivery at my home address on Friday, and David will advise me of the ETA in the morning.

Use this link to read all posts featuring Rugged London  

B&Q Are Bloody Useless & A Waste Of Space!

Regular Visitors to manvslug.co.uk will know that I finally had to bite the bullet and get replacement timber decking tiles as the originals were downright dangerous and my daughter fell through one tile. 

They were a good brand and pressure treated and had anti-slip lines in them, but alas that style is no longer available. The concrete patio area under the timber decking is all over the place and the falls come towards the building and the first thing I did when I bought the property in 1991 was to install an acco drain parallel to the external rear wall to collect the remove the water. 

It had been saturating the external leaf of brickwork and there was a tide mark where capillary action had taken the moisture up the brickwork. 

I made small concrete mole hills of support at the corners and a mid- points of the original decking tiles and levelled the top. The water that flows down the garden path and off the decking tiles, travels via the concrete patio under the level decking into the acco and off via the surface water drainage system. 

These are the only 500mm x 500mm decking tiles I could find they are not treated or anti-slip.       

I need 82 tiles to replace all the old decking tiles, which equates to a cost of £492. 

I could have ordered them for delivery but at least 50% of them would be of inferior quality with splits or too many knots in, so I would rather go and select the best of the bunch.

There are four branches within easy reach of home, but only two hold stock of the items. 

I have laid some and needed another 48 tiles to complete the project. Now here is the rub and what's basically pissed me off. 

Stack available as of Sunday morning. 

My daughter and her partner went to get as many decking tiles as possible. as I needed another 48 Tiles. 

They went through those on the rack and selected the best which amounted to 9 tiles, They spied another load of the same tiles, however the banding was still on them and they could not be picked through. As we can see Sunday morning they report 89 available.

I apologise for this term for the B&Q staff, but the "Arseholes", would not take the banding off the next lot of tiles for my daughter to get the remaining 39 tiles I need.

They informed her that "they want to sell those still open on the rack before they let anyone have access to more"!. Cleary we were not going to purchase the shitty ones. It was also raining and perhaps they were afraid of getting wet as the tiles are stored outside? 

Doh, I'm sure with them having 89 in stock, we would have been able to get the additional 39 tiles we needed, and they would have taken another £234, in addition to the £54 for the nine we got from the open pack. 

Shame I was not there as I would have bought a Stanley knife and taken the banding off myself.   

   

So B&Q Head office, the helpfulness of your staff is non existent, you have pissed off a regular customer, and yes I have informed everyone on here how poor your customer service is at your Croydon Branch, and If I could go and get them from anyone else other than B&Q I would.  

Now I will have to visit another one or two times, and hope I find more friendly staff if there is a bundle there that needs the banding on them removed, or just take a pen knife with me, and do it myself.