Grow Your Own Magazine

I'm digging out a new patch at the moment and keep digging up hundreds of old, large nails. Decided to do a soil test as there's so many I'm sure they must have affected the soil. All I can think is that it was a bonfire site for piles of wood which was full of nails.

Shine, you've missed an era... Catch them on UKTV Gold at the weekends for some real cheesey plots, and butt-kicking action! Makes me kringe now at how I used to really love watching it as a kid!

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

hehe will do, there's nothing like good old cheesy shows! i'll let u know how i get on xxx

I found a gin trap well rusted, fortunately! Also an old harness for a horse, hay fork (metal bit only), various wheel rims and other things that looked like they had once belonged to a very old small holding.

this could be a top tip for new alotment holders buy some roman coins off ebay bury them in your overgrown weeded alotment take photos digging them up and post of to the museum or time team they will be there with JCB's and leave a nice fine tilth for ya

Yes, and if your garden is what keeps you sane keep your mouth shut whatever you find or all those loonies will be right there

I'm not sure if this is under tresure but my next door neighbour a few years back found a victorian skeleton in their back garden scary

Hi ilex, welcome to the grapevine. I am not sure if I would call that treasurer either!

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[

I have to admit to owning two metal detectors (somewhere in the garage I think) These aren't the cheap toy detectors and were £600 when new. I used to do a lot of metal detecting and particularily liked the beaches where I found three gold rings! One was a mans 22carat gold sygnet ring worth quite a few bob. I have found loads of Georgian, Victorian and modern coins. Even a few Roman grots (2000yrs old)
Its an interesting hobby and it was only my lack of search sites that made me give it up. Once I get the lottie sorted I think I will give it another go. If anyone lives reasonably local and has lost anything valuable I will have a go at finding it if you like as I am always on the look out for new sites!

Can you bring it round our house Snadger as I lost the cotter pin out of a rotavator about 5 years ago

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ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Nic, The two key words were 'local' and 'valuable' Get a big magnet!!!

On second thoughts an item doesn't need to have monetary value it could have sentimental value!
Farmers have asked me to look for spanners or machinery parts they have lost as well, but never a cotter pin!

I even had one farmer ask if I could run the detector over the cows as he thought they had been eating barbed wire! Managed to get out of that one though!

Snadger that sounds a FAB hobby! I'm a fan of Time Team and love watching them digging somewhere up, much to the disgust of my OH who loves to take the p*** by saying "Oh, look we've found so and so, and here, by magic we've been able to totally rebuild the site....etc etc!". I'll have to have a look on ebay to see how much detectors are - not sure where I could search round here though! Dexterdog

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

I started of with a £40 second hand machine I bought from the local ad-mag.

My last one I bought off ebay, and had it shipped from California. Got a hell of a shock when I got stung for import duty before they would release it!

Fisher,C-Scope, Whites, Tesoro & Garrett are all good makes

Start off in your back garden, graduate to beaches, parks and stubble fields.

There are clubs all over the country who usually run weekend rallies

The path across the end of my plot also acts as a common path to the two plots after mine. In an effort to make an "edge" I decided to put a board along the sides of the path.

I only got down about 100mm when I hit something solid - being a bit of a time team anorak I scraped around to find a house brick, then another. Eventually I uncovered a brick path laid evenly and level but covered with years of top soil. Some of the soil had clay pipe fragements so it may have been covered for years. My neighbours thought I had gone mad laying such a good path.

On the subject of clay pipes - has anyone seen them glazed on the stem? I dig a lot up and they are all glazed.

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Digger-07

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right" Henry Ford.

That sounds super Digger! maybe you should contact the Time Team? or do they have any info on their website? DDL

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Appreciate the little things in life because one day you will realise they are the big things

my garden is full of rubbish underneath top soil. you name it its under there.

Welcome Billyboy!

That's a shmae about what's under your topsoil. Is your place a new build? They tnd to be the worst for poor soil

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

hi shortie no its not a new build its 1940s last owner buried loads of junk under the top soil

Oh... that was good of them.... not

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

yeah it really peed me off have to hire a digger or build raised beds lol

We find musket balls and china .When kids were small they really loved time team and one of the presenters used to have a plot here she didnt grow much we usde to joke she gardened with a trowl and when she found something she drew it like on the show!! I used to let the kids have a corner for the kids to dig a trench when they werent about I used to bury treasure china old pennies etc!!

I don't know about treasure, but I frequently curse the previous owners of my allotment, I keep finding slivers of glass, very dangerous, black plastic bags, yards of plastic string, old pea net, stuff like a watch, padlocks, bolts, a frying pan... it got so bad I had to ask the council to arrange collection. There must have been a building of some sort on the site, possibly a greenhouse and it also looks as if pallets were burned all over the place as I keep coming upon caches of bent nails.
Still there have been some useful things left behind, an old oil drum, a bottomless galvanised dustbin, loads of bricks, old pieces of terracotta pots, bits of old tile and some metal pipes which do sterling work holding down raised bed covers, But I do curse the glass and having to pick out hundreds of bits of plastic pots and bags from the earth I'm still only about a third of the way through cultivating the allotment - luckily have my tetanus injections up to date!
Sue

Where we used to live we had a bad uderground flood and when we had it investigated we were told that our house was built on an old slave camp and the spring that ran under our house had burst. We later found out that it had also been a plague pit. Fantastic, didn't have many a nights sleep in that house. Didn't find anything though, thank goodness!