Grandma's undies

My grandparents never owned a washing machine and had probably never imagined a clothes dryer. As a child I remember tea towels and nappies would be boiled (separately) in the copper and my grandfather would do the rest of the weekly wash in the bath tub.

We lived in a very damp part of the Home Counties. In summer the washing was hung on ropes with hand carved wooden pegs we bought from the gypsies who visited each year and propped with long  forked sticks. In the winter, the washing was hung on a clothes pulley above the kitchen which boasted an electric oven and an open fireplace and was the warmest room in the house. The pulley loaded with wet washing was hauled up into the air, resting near the ceiling where it dried in record time.

When I first moved here, I was delighted with the fact that my Raeburn wood stove in the kitchen and high ceilings meant I could have a pulley of my own. It was cheaply constructed from timber off cuts of 630cm of 40mm x 20mm timber salvaged from old garden chairs and 7 x 180mm lengths of 10mm dowel. A chain was attached with screws at each end and used to hang the builders twine that was then threaded through two small pulleys attached to the ceiling. The cord is knotted to prevent it from coming away and is hitched onto a firmly secured hook set into solid timber.

Please take care that the cord and all other cords are kept out of reach of children. I recently found our ancient poodle with it round his neck, walking around in very confused circle. If he had managed to pull the cord off the hook, the weight of the washing would have strangled him. 

I can put a full load from my washing machine up in the rafters in the evening and most of it is totally dry by morning. My visitors, the ones that notice it, are hugely entertained by it but most people don’t notice it. I do try to remove the underwear from it each morning and to not load it up when I am cooking anything with a strong smell. The dogs may love me smelling of lamb roast but it’s not a great perfume for supposedly clean clothes!

This simple solution to clothes drying uses the heat from the stove, which also heats our hot water (and the house) and there is no tripping over clothes horses or rushing in and out as the rain comes and goes. Spread with a towel, it dries my felting. In summer it can dry herbs and chillies in bunches or lay on fly wire. When not full of washing, it airs the bathroom towels. My ten year old grandson insists he’d like to sleep on it!

Can your clothes dryer do all that and not cost you an extra cent on your power bill?

http://www.nirala-naturally.com/

Brightening Wash Day Blues

I know this idea has come up before, but with so many of us consigned to a 1/4 acre or less suburban block these days, ideas for turning small spaces into productive spaces are necessary when we want to turn our hand to being a little more self-sufficient.

It is amazing what can be achieved by using wasted spaces, such as beneath the clothesline.With the growth of apartment living, and the suburban backyard shrinking, a lot of people find they no longer can use a clothesline to dry their clothes, but for those of us who still have the rotary hoist in the back, that space beneath it can be made useful.

I remember reading how in the past "ladies of the house" would grow lavender bushes next to the clothesline for draping handkerchiefs and "smalls" over to impart a lovely fragrance while they dried. Apparently it was also planted where the bed sheets could brush against the lavender while they were on the line, giving them a natural insect repellence during storage.

Mark a line about 1.5 metres out from the clothesline pole, giving you a garden diameter of 3 metres. Remember to leave an opening to walk through to get to your line! You can plant the lavender any way you like - if the soil is easy enough to dig, go straight in! If it's rocky or hard, you may want to raise a bed. Place the plants just in from your marked line. Unless your area is damp and shady, you should be able to find a lavender to suit almost any climate.

Directly around the pole, you can also add another bed about 50 centimetres out from the pole all the way around, to give a smaller bed with a diameter of 1 metre. This is a neat little bed that can be reached over easily, and it can be used to plant any number of different plants; I've seen both sweet peas and climbing beans trained up a climbing frame around the pole, with nasturtiums planted beneath. My neighbour at my old place had cherry tomatoes, but I decided to plant rosemary in mine.

I didn't think I would ever miss a clothesline! There ought to be enough distance between the two beds to walk between, and to hang long things, which will still brush against the plants in a breeze.If you're allergic to bees, it may pay you to choose plants that are not quite so attractive to them, or you could prune your lavender hedge more regularly so that it doesn't come into flower, but you can still enjoy the fragrant foliage.

There's also no reason to stick to just lavender either. Many of the scented-leaf pelargonium are suited, and they come in such scents as lemon, lime, citronella, rose, cinnamon, nutmeg, apple and violet! Curry plant is also wonderfully scented (Helichrysum italicum). If your clothesline is shaded, why not try some mint? Suitably restrained of course.

Don't feel limited to the hedging idea, either. Some of the magnificent groundcover thymes would be fabulous.Place an old table or bench near your garden "entrance" to hold a basket of laundry, and a painted terracotta pot to hold the pegs. Hanging the wash isn't anyone favourite task, but if it's got to be done - which it has :P - why not make it as pleasant as possible?

You may even want to sit a while, once the job is done :
Kerry Monteith

Thank you so much for this article Kerry and if anyone creates a garden such as this one we'd really love a photo please.