There's quite a bit of season extension going on in my garden at the moment!
I'm trying everything to see if I can get some earlier crops, I've got hoops with net (for birds really), hoops with plastic, hoops with fleece and black plastic to warm the soil, I've been transplanting crops that I started in modules in the greenhouse as well to give me the best possible start outside.
While the boy sleeps I try to get some jobs done. A little two hour window sometimes exists, and i make sure I hit the ground running.
Lately the main job has been to convert what was my young tree nursery back into veg garden.
This has been quite an undertaking. The perennial weeds certainly took hold around my trees, growing organically it wasn't a concern for the trees but it's taken some time to get the roots out for veg production again. Nettle have a fair root system on them when they get going!
I think I've pulled out most of them though, I put some straw on each bed, divide them up with paving slabs and then put plastic on the top to stop nutrients washing away and anything growing until I want it to! Before i plant them properly I'll add some well rotted manure and other amendments depending on the crop.
I've still got a few beds to lay extra paths around and alter the size of further up the garden, but I feel that I'm getting there now. Not having the jungle of young trees at the bottom of the garden is already making it look tidier and hopefully I'll be able to start tackling the soft fruit garden as the weeds start growing again.
With these at the bottom of the garden it should give me thirty 10ft by 30" beds. enough to do some serious growing, increase our self sufficiency and hopefully sell some surplus.
Who else has let an area go too far with weeds then regretted it as you try to get it back into production again?
Sometimes you come up with an idea you're really proud of and this is one of them.
As many of you know I've been altering my veg beds to all be the same size, all 30" wide by 10ft long. The width is what has been recommend by many experienced market gardener, Jean Martin Fortier, Curtis Stone and Ellot Coleman to name a few.
Having changed around about 40% of my beds over to this already I can really see the advantages, being modular it means that every bit of plastic/weed matting I cut for mulch can be used for any bed, the same applies to netting to cover crops. I don't have to search through to find one that fits. Also with this width bed it means I can weed or harvest the whole bed from one side.
I was thinking that I should take it one step further and make up some frames that I could use as row covers. These frames could easily be moved over any crop that needed protection, without having to stake netting down or set up the hoops each time.
So I made this and my mind got working again. These frames could also be used for fleece or for clear plastic, making little poly tunnels to extend the growing season or grow more heat loving crops like tomatoes, peppers or chillies.
This really increases my undercover growing area and should mean that I get crops earlier and later than I do now, or I can protect crops much easier. With some spring clamps I can hold up the side when I come to weed or to ventilate my mini poly tunnels in the summer.
The frames were made easily with some treated 3x2 timber, and five lengths of blue alkathene pipe (cut to suit the size of netting I have which is 6ft in width). I inserted dowel into the bottom of each pipe so it wasn't squished when I screw it up. Netting is held down by clipping over some screws and washers but I'll also get some spring clamps.
Cheap and built with materials that are easy to get hold of. The netting I use is scaffold debris netting as I find it stretches really well (I do have finer netting but I don;t tend to use it that much).
Then I took it one step further again and decided to build a chicken coop to fit inside. This little coop is to house just two birds that can peck their way through all the bugs and weed seeds in a bed as well as finishing off what was left of a crop.
The idea behind this coop is that it is suspended on the two hoops to keep it from the ground, preventing rodents from taking up residents under it. Also it increases the lifespan of the coop as if it's not in contact with the ground then it won't rot as fast.
I made the coop very lightweight, out of left over roofing batten and left over uPVC fascia board that I used as cladding (I hate cladding in plastic but better than it going to the tip and it was a free!). I didn't fit a bottom to the coop meaning that their dropping fall straight to the ground, although half of the coop is taken up with a nest box (which they are already using). Hopefully the chickens won't mind this, but if the lack of a bottom affects them I can soon alter it.
As for fox proof the fox won't be able to dig under it as all my beds are surrounded by slabs but he could bite through the netting, although I think this is unlikely as my veg beds are quite near the house. Time will tell on this one!
I think I plan on making about four of these frames up to start with and I'll see how I get on with them. The chickens are already in the first one I made and really enjoying being put on a fresh bed and digging through it. I'm looking forward to getting some poly tunnel plastic and making my mini poly tunnels, should really increase what I can grow next year!
Please watch the video and let me know what you think of my new idea! Who would want some of these in their garden?
I haven't kept on top of them as much as I should have but they're growing well, a little too well really. I had a massive hack at them tonight and found all the tomatoes hidden under the leaves.
The plastic is working well though as there isn't a single weed in the whole bed.
I can already see improvements for this method of growing. firstly only grow them two wide per bed, on a 30" bed I think this would be about right. These are about five deep and it just gets a bit tangled. I just got greedy on how many I put in!
Also I think that rather than just shoving in my left over plants I should grow some specially for this type of growing. I'm thinking that maybe growing determinate type (bush) rather than the indeterminate (cordon type), that way when they get pruned they might not put quite so much energy into trying to regrow.
Hopefully they're be plenty ripening in the next few weeks.
Down at the bottom of the garden, there's a surprise waiting for you.
It's called weeds!
Not quite ground force but we can get a lot done between us!
The veg garden is looking pretty good at the moment but where the 16 beds ends it turns, rather abruptly, into a jungle of weeds. It's not something I'm proud of and it's certainly on my list of things to do!
On Sunday the girls and I decided to tackle a very small part of it. We dug out a strip for a new bed. Pulling out all the nettle and reed roots that had taken hold and made a big pile of them. This took some time, and for the girls a complete change of clothes - well it was rather muddy! Fair play to them though they stayed for ages and worked hard, we frequently had to stop and look at worms and bugs, but I didn't mind that!
Singing was optional!
I've decided to make these beds narrow than my others. The main garden has beds divided into 4ft strips, the idea being that you can reach the middle from both sides. The trouble with this is you find yourself stretching all the time. Narrowing the bed down to about 30" means I can reach to the other side crouched on one side of the path.
I laid the slabs on the bare earth so I now had a new 10ft by 30" bed marked out, with hopefully most of the perennial weeds removed. I then added a couple wheel barrow loads of well rotted sheep muck and mixed it in before covering the whole thing with weed membrane.
A few nights later ( a dry few minutes) I got the blow torch out again (like I did here) and burnt in holes for plant to be planted.
It's a bit of a mixed bed with some plants I'm experimenting with.
In it is some Vietnamese coriander, (which I bough again at Hellens Festival at the weekend as my other didn't make it through winter or go to seed last year), some quillqina (a mexican herb I'm trying to grow), some Peruvian Black mint (another herb I'm experimenting with), a giant Achocha (just to see how it does out of the greenhouse - this will need some support though!) and four chilli pepper plants (just to see how they perform outside as well.
Hopefully planting them in this way will give me some low effort herbs and flavourings, whilst keeping the weeds at bay and reclaiming some more of the veg garden.
I've started on another bed below this one last night in which I intend to plant my chickpeas in much the same way. I then think the area below that I will just cover over to suppress the weeds for a few months then sow a green manure for over the winter.
Anyone else growing though plastic? Anyone else have much luck with growing things that are traditionally greenhouse crops outside in a UK type climate, like chilli's?
