The Veg Plot.

[garynortheast]

With some help from Eleri the week before last, I got the next of my raised beds built.



I spent about three days sieving soil into it and finally yesterday I planted my second early and maincrop spuds in it.

Rain stopped play outside in the afternoon so it was back into the potting shed to get some more tool hangers on the wall.



I have some more tools to stow yet but they're too heavy to hang up, so I have an alternative plan for them....

Been sowing seeds in pots and trays; my mini greenhouse is filling rapidly. Quite a bit of stuff is coming through already. Lettuces, rainbow chard, sweet peas, cosmos, sunflowers, and Red Russian Kale are all showing, as are the first of the spuds I planted in one of the raised beds about 2 or 3 weeks ago. Just waiting for the tomatoes to make an appearance now.

I had another trip to a nearby sawmill this afternoon for another rummage through their scrap timber pile. It's all larch, and what they deem as scrap certainly isn't scrap to me! I came away with most of this pile for a tenner. There's a lot more timber there than it appears from the picture. Some of the longer boards and planks here are more than 3 metres in length. Perfect for raised beds, and I shall be building my workshop with more of this stuff later this summer, especially some of those very wide boards.



The weather forecast is pretty atrocious for tomorrow, so probably not a lot of gardening going to be happening, although if I get a 15 minute break in the weather I will zip out and plant the two or three pots of snowdrops I bought in the green, under the edge of my newly planted hedge.

[Sir Trev]

I'm guessing some of those rather nice looking boards are uneven thickness-wise or are part sapwood, but certainly too nice for scrap! I'd say you have a bargain there - wish I had somewhere like that near me, that's for sure.

[TamSV]

Some nice tidy tool storage there


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[garynortheast]

Thanks Tam. I hate having to rummage in piles of tools for what I need!

[TamSV]

Aye nothing worse than a 10 minute job and it takes 20 minutes to find your tools!


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[TamSV]

The back of the shed door can be a handy place for a few bits and pieces.





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[garynortheast]

An update on progress. Every time I look at the garden I find myself thinking about how much I have still to do. I made myself feel better by looking back at some of the earlier pictures!

These three beds are functioning as intended now. The two nearest beds are full of garlic and onions. The furthest bed has spuds in it, which are through and almost ready to be covered up again. I'm going to experiment and cover them with straw to see how well they do.
The sticks at the front of the first bed are Elder cuttings.



Two more beds. The one on the back right has Charlottes (2nd early spuds) at the end nearest the camera, and Sunset (maincrop spuds) at the furthest end. There's a row of red onions planted in a line between the two spud crops.
The bed on the back left is for runner and climbing French beans. I have one more ridge of poles to put in before the beans go in the bed. I've just sowed beans in cardboard tubes, and they'll get planted out at the end of this month.
The bed in the foreground is still being filled with sieved soil, although that's come to a halt until the rain stops as I can't riddle wet soil.
I've made use of the breeze blocks and planted nasturtiums, radishes, spring onions, and lettuce in them.



The area to the right of the new bed and slabs is covered in about three or four inches of sand, which I'll remove and bag until I find another use for it. The bit furthest right is where I'm going to build a 9' x 12' workshop. The original idea was to build it with pallets, but a local sawmill has an endless supply of really useful larch in all sorts of sizes, in what they call their scrap pile. It's ludicrously cheap to buy and good enough to build a very nice workshop. A project for later in the year.
All the stuff on the terraced area will be used this year for various projects, and I'll relay the terrace itself, using a mix of slabs, bricks, and shingle.
The piles of stones and gravel is what I have riddled out of the soil so far, along with pounds and pounds of plastic, including hundreds of teabags.



The front garden is coming on too. I planted a mixed, native species hedge all the way around the front and sides. It's all come into leaf bar just two of the whips which haven't done anything yet. I'll leave them for a few more weeks and then replace them this autumn if they show no signs of life.
I've planted snowdrops, crocuses, wood anemones, feverfew, celandines, and a few other bits, under the eaves of the hedge. The compost/mulch around the hedge is the recycled contents of some horrible, rotting wooden planters that were here when I moved in.





A good use for breeze blocks. Nasturtiums and aubretia on the low wall between me and my neighbour.



Most of this lot are various fruit bushes grown from cuttings and waiting for a home in the front and back gardens. Once I've moved them, I'm going to build a big wooden planter/raised bed type of thing to grow stuff that likes a bit of sun and warmth. The front of the bungalow gets sunshine pretty much all day and it gets very warm. Chllies, cucumbers, tomatoes and the like should do well there.



Here's the most recent addition to the front garden. I'm really pleased with it. There will be no fish in here; it's purely a wildlife pond. The area behind it has been cleared, had sand raked into the soil in an effort to reduce fertility, and sowed with a wildflower meadow mix. It'll probably take two or three years to get properly established, but it should look great once it does, and will provide a brilliant area for pollinators and wildlife.

[Sir Trev]

You've been a busy bunny Gary. Considering you've only been there five minutes you've done so much. Any other ponds nearby? Couple of our neighbours have them which is probably where the frogs and newts we have in ours came from. If you'd like some I can bring you some pond snails next time I'm "passing" - I bought five last year to help keep the detritus and gunge down in the water and we now have dozens of them!!

I see your neighbour has a Money Puzzle Tree. I know they look amazing but I've never seen the point of a tree that birds cannot use....

[admin]

Looking good Gary.

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[garynortheast]

Originally Posted by Sir Trev

You've been a busy bunny Gary. Considering you've only been there five minutes you've done so much. Any other ponds nearby? Couple of our neighbours have them which is probably where the frogs and newts we have in ours came from. If you'd like some I can bring you some pond snails next time I'm "passing" - I bought five last year to help keep the detritus and gunge down in the water and we now have dozens of them!!

I see your neighbour has a Money Puzzle Tree. I know they look amazing but I've never seen the point of a tree that birds cannot use....

Originally Posted by admin

Looking good Gary.

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Thanks chaps.

Tevor, I'm going to let the pond settle for a bit now, with the new plants having just gone in today. I'll see what turns up of its own accord this summer, but I might take you up on the snails offer this autumn if none have migrated here.

I'm not a fan of the Chilean Pine tree either, and I have warned him about just how fast they grow and how big they get.....