Seems a long time since I dug over all these beds and paths to dig out the bindweed.
But so far the hard work seems to be paying off. Yes, it keeps coming up but I have a walk around once a day and pick it to keep on top of it and it's so much less than it was before.
It's really making me happy to see the garden being so fruitful and already looking so green and lush.
My garden beds are looking pretty tidy, with only a few left to seriously weed out before planting.
But there are some big areas of my veg garden that still need a lot of work. This bottom corner is one of them. This area used to be really wet until we drained the field around it, so while it was wet I put in some raised beds (2015 can you believe!). This worked a little bit but in the end they got neglected and the nettles have claimed them as their own.
So now seems the ideal time to take back control and gain a bit more growing space.
Some serious digging and pulling went into clearing this area! I had three barrows full of nettle and dock roots by the end. But with a little path down it I've now gained two more 10ft beds to grow some veggies on.
This is great news as I'm already running out of space and trying to figure out where things could go!
Have you tackled a neglected garden area lately? How did you do it? Plain elbow grease or a better way? Wish I could have got the digger in here to deal with this instead of my spade!
I'm going to show you all a picture of what was my soft fruit garden and you have to promise not to laugh!
ARGH! You promised!
This is my not so little corner of shame in my veg garden. It's a real shame because the veg garden, with it's 32 even beds and cordon apple trees down the side is looking pretty good these days, then as you get to the bottom you see this overgrown mess.
I love getting as much out of my garden as I possibly can and although it is fairly large as vegetable gardens go I still try to increase my production.
This year many of my beds are already on their second crop, by double cropping like this I can probably get around 50 crops out of the 32 beds in my main garden, some crops on the other hand need to be in a for a long time and I have some I'm growing out for seed and that takes much longer.
Yesterday was a great example of this, I'd finished harvesting my first bed of kohlrabi and straight away I amended the soil and sowed five rows of carrots in it's place.
Here's a video of me talking about how I'm trying to get more from some of my beds by double or even triple cropping them in a season.
Normal yearly crop rotation rules have to go out of the window when you do this though.
I've posted before about my chicken run row covers, my modular sized beds (10ft by 30") mean that I can make something for one bed and it will fit all of them.
The chickens have left the veg garden for the next few seasons and the chicken run turns into a row cover.
Full bed cloche
I ordered some proper cloche cover off the internet and although it wasn't as cheap as builders plastic it should last a few years. Cutting it up to fit the cloches wasn't easy as it was pretty windy when I chose to do it. My three year old held the tape measure for me and we managed to cut them to size, it was amazing really, as without her help I wouldn't have been able to do it!
Currently all the covers are held on with spring clamps (like the type that market stall owners use), this means if I want to ventilate then I can lift the plastic up and hold it in place with a clamp.
I've got four cloches like this made up so I'm hoping it will extend my growing season for earlier and later crops as well as helping some that enjoy a little extra heat in the summer (tomatoes and peppers).
The one above has my early carrots (Paris Market) under it and I'll put one over my early potatoes, one over my beets and one over some salad.
I'm really looking forward to using these this year and seeing how they work out.
Anyone else make their own crop protection to extend the season?
The greenhouses are used for starting seeds and transplants earlier in the year then for tomatoes, chillies and cucumbers later in the year. The left hand side of the garden also has 30 something cordon apple trees as a fence between the garden and the field.
All beds are 10ft by 30" or 3m by 750mm
The way I'm setting out the "main garden" means that on many plots I'll be able to get two crops out of some beds. Things like squashes won't go in until late may/early June, so I might get some baby leaf salad in there first and then things like garlic that are harvested quite early will have a crop following them, like beetroot or carrots.
Having 32 beds and many plant families should make rotation easier in future, although some of the main crops you always want to grow more of. Having a few beds of annual herbs and lettuce in here should make rotation more flexible as well.
I will be growing some of these through plastic, the idea is to not leave the soil bare and try to make it manageable for one man with some small people helpers to keep on top of!
The second garden has it's beds laid out double, so each one is 20ft x 30" (6m x 750mm) and will contain crops that require less input from me. That means things that can be harvested in one go, like winter squash, quinoa for grain and winter brassicas that don't need much attention during the summer when I'm really busy, like purple sprouting, cabbages and sprouts, hopefully no watering will be needed up there either!
There are other areas that I will be planting up around the place. The area below my young fruit trees will end up with something in there (currently a small patch of Chinese artichokes that I forgot to harvest and try!) and I have some raised beds at the end of the main garden covered in weeds, so I might clear them out at some point to plant something. There is also two beds at the top, one is full of day lilies and the other is going to be planted with globe artichokes.
My key aims are to record what I do this year so I have a record of area planted and yield gained as well as the days it took from planting to harvest (days to maturity). But to eat as much as we want and to try and sell the surplus. I'm also making a real effort with seed saving as I have been given some seeds to try to preserve so areas or beds will be set aside for that later in the year.
I'm hoping a more systematic approach will bring food self sufficiency that little bit closer but I'm sure it will all go to pot in a few months and I'll have weeds round my eyeballs and a glut of things I can't preserve!
What do you think?
Do you like my veg plan or is it too formulaic for you?
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?
With a small patch of land it's best not to pigeon hole yourself and you need to do a bit of everything to make it work, but it's easy to concentrate on one way more than another. There are many sub divisions to them all as well and they all blur together (agroforestry, permaculture, etc).
I always assumed that when I had a patch of land I'd be going down the traditional agriculture route, after all it's the way I brought up - on a mixed farm. I thought I'd get stock straight away, but I've concentrated on other things first, mainly the horticultural side of things.
This was driven home the other day when I had a friend walk round the homestead and she remarked on how much I had achieved in three years, whereas a phone call with my dad earlier that day he remarked that I hadn't done much with the land yet. Two different points of view but my father is very much of the traditional agricultural mindset, and my three fields have only really been cropped for hay so he has a point, the trees and the garden he sees as a sideline.
It's obvious when I think about it now, with a much smaller acreage than a farm any smallholding lends itself much better to horticulture than agriculture. Generally what I do is far more labour intensive and on a much smaller scale than what a farmer would do, but my returns can be much higher in food produced. I watched a video the other day where it said that an experienced gardener can produce five times the weight of vegetables than a farmer growing a cereal crop, I've no idea if this figure is correct or not but it sounds about right, even when I think about the weight of my squash harvest from two 4ftx10ft beds last year and compare that to the amount of wheat I would have got from the same space.
So today (Saturday) I'm continuing with my horticultural endeavours and I'm ploughing another patch of land to grow more vegetables and a small tree nursery (and maybe a small patch of grain as an experiment). I'm hoping to try to make this little patch earn it's keep by growing fruit trees I've grafted myself for sale and some more patches of beans and squashes that I might try to sell.
I am planning on getting stock this year, but, for me at least, horticulture is taking priority over agriculture at the moment.
Which way do you think you lean when it comes to what you do with your patch, no matter how big or small? Would you go in a completely different direction to me?
A few years ago I was on a days course and I got talking to a guy about self sufficiency and my property, "5 acres!" he said "you can easily be self sufficient on that." I politely walked away.
I know it can be done, but anyone who thinks its easy has never grown more than a lettuce from a B&Q plug plant.
As many of you know it's not just growing the food, it's having the infrastructure in place to do it. The fertility in the soil needs to be built up over years, you need to have a supply of seeds that you know will grow well in your area, produce your own fertiliser and you need to be able to harvest, process and store all your produce, let alone all the other bits of equipment you need to store to do all these things.
The paths I added last year to divide the garden into beds
My "new" greenhouse added last year.
I'm slowly getting more and more set up each year. Last year I felt like I got the garden into a more manageable position by laying lots of paths and erecting my new greenhouse, I put up fences all around the smallholding and generally kept on top of things.
This year it's already making a big difference as I'm using the greenhouse loads and I've got veg beds ready to plant when the time comes instead of messing around trying to lay paths first and remove lots of weeds left from the previous year.
We did start from scratch here so it's going to take a while to get into a position where it doesn't feel like I'm chasing my tail. We only had a couple of old, useless tin sheds when we moved here and no veg garden or perennial plants or fruit trees, so although it gave us the advantage of having a blank canvas, it also meant that we had little to work with and anything we wanted we had to buy, build or erect.
So each year I try to knock something off my list (and in turn my workload) and add something back on. This year's big garden infrastructure projects are going to be a garden/food storage shed, that's going to be frost free and rodent proof, and another nursery garden area to grow on my grafted fruit trees.
So my question is how long did it take you to get everything set up and running smoothly in your garden? And what big infrastructure projects have you got lined up for it this year?
Over the Christmas break I started to try to tidy up the bottom of the veg garden.
The messy bottom end of the veg garden.
It's located below my fruit tree nursery and it sits wet for a lot of the year. My plan is to dig a small drain by hand to hopefully move some of the water on and then to raise the growing area. I grew some of my artichokes down here last year in my cheap raised beds and they grew really well so I thought I'd up the scale this time. Lots more pallet collars needed - luckily I get them for free!
The very wet area at the bottom. standing water
Raised beds added. Chicken shown for scale...
This should tidy up the bottom and provide some new growing areas.
So I've now got nine 4ft by 3ft raised beds 16 inches high at the bottom of the garden. I'm planing on using them for plants that don't quite work with my usual rotation so lots of unusal veg like Oca, ground apples and the like, it also lets me tailor the conditions to them a little more as well. I might dedicate one bed to some more flowers and one to things like leeks that we never seem to have enough of, there might be more raised beds going in yet!
I've lined the bottom of the bases with cardboard, now all I've got to do is fill them! It took ten barrowfuls of soil to fill one (I've got a big pile of spare top soil) so I've got a bit more work to do yet, I also need to find some muck to to add in as well.
Hopefully I'll get started on my large raised bed for asparagus in the next couple of weeks as well, but I've also got lots of work on as well so I'm already getting short of time!
Anyone else been increasing their growing area this winter?
Next year I'm going to increase my growing area in the veg garden again. The bottom area is very wet and holds quite a bit of water. The plan is to install lots of cheap (free) raised beds using pallet collars stacked two high.
These worked brilliantly this year for growing my Jerusalem artichokes in, so the back fence will be lined with them giving me around ten 4ft x 3ft raised beds to house some of my more "unusual" crops and as a way of increasing a few of our staples like leeks.
When I picked this spot for the garden I didn't realise how wet it got down the bottom, it was the obvious place though and once I get round to putting a drain below it it should be much better, but until then it's raised beds for the last 30ft of veg garden (the rest is fine as it all slopes that way).
These pallet collars are no good for one of my winter projects though, as I have a crop planned that will out live them by several times over - Asparagus. I've been looking at all the types of raised beds I could build and I have my usual problem of wanting to have my cake and eat it to.
I want it to cost very little and I want it to last for ages! Is that too much to ask? It's going to be 20ft long by 4ft wide and about 18 inches high, so hopefully enough to give us a good spring feeding in a few years time.
My old garden raised beds made with half round rails
Half round rails - I did this at our last garden but I know they won;t last that long, in this wet spot I'd give them 5 years tops!
Some rather brilliantly made compost bins at my friends fathers garden using railway sleepers and galvanised steels concreted in to hold them in place
Sleepers and metal posts - sleepers are expensive, old ones have lots of creosote that will leak into the ground and new ones won't last!
Friends fathers garden - Slabs used on edge to hold back soil
Concrete slabs - difficult to install and will be difficult to get hight, would probably need a small footing as well, making it very permanent.
Friends fathers garden - Blocks laid to form a large raised area to the garden
Blocks - A good solution except for the need for footings and if they were to lie in the wet all winter heavy frosts might destroy them (although I can get frost proof blocks).
At the moment I'm thinking of building the raised beds out of corrugated galvanised sheeting with a wooden top and frame to hold it in place. The frame will be easy to replace when it rots and the sheeting should last as long as the asparagus crops for.
Cardboard mulching, lasagne gardening, call it what you will but I'm doing anything to keep the weeds down.
Our milder winters over the last few years mean that some of the weeds can grow steadily on and then with the first taste of spring they grow like mad and I'm back to digging over beds to remove suborn weeds instead of getting on with planting and other nice jobs!
Beginning to cover the dormant veg beds with cardboard.
This year I've been trying everything I can. From using my chickens (which worked really well and I'll do that next year) to using old carpet as a mulch (falls apart and is now a pain to get rid of - I know you told me so!).
This autumn I've been covering beds with cardboard. I've been doing it just before it's going to rain, as once it's wet it seems to stay in place regardless of the wind. I've had a good supply of good sized pieces from different people and I've been doing it for a few months now and it seems to be working. The weeds are dying off and it should rot down fairly quickly ready for planting in the the spring, It saves buying any black plastic, which would be my other option, and is a good way of recycling.
Anyone else using cardboard as a mulch over winter?
One of the great things about blogs is the gentle reminders you get from reading everyone else's. A lot the UK blogs I follow are planting their garlic about now. I'm never normally this early but I had a spare hour the other morning and a clear spot in the garden, so I decided to get them in.
I broke up three of the biggest bulbs I harvested this year and then picked out the fattest cloves. I forked over the plot and dug out the last remaining weeds, added some blood, fish and bone and then planted them about 6 inches apart.
Hopefully planting them this early will give me some big cloves next year, if I can stop the birds from pulling them out every day! My mum is off to Malvern show today (without me - I'm too busy) so I've asked her to buy me some Elephant Garlic to experiment with in the same plot, although I need to do a bit of research on it, as last time it was a flop.
Who else has got their garlic in? Anyone else grown Elephant garlic and had much success with it? - I think you have to grow it for two years to get a good harvest off it.
I finally managed to draw up a "proper" planting plan for the veg garden this year (not including the soft fruit garden) and then the baby took a bite out of it! Never mind, I'm not doing it again!
I'm working on a 6 year rotation using the groups: potatoes, alliums, roots, legumes, curbits & brassicas.
Each has two 4ftx10ft beds and the whole system moves clockwise two plots at a time each year. So as an example the roots will follow the legumes each time.
The herbs and salad beds at the top stay put and the strawberries will get moved every three years onto a fresh plot. There's also one plot to grow any "random veg" that I come across and want to experiment with (and my leeks as I haven't room in the allium beds this year).
In amongst the veg will be plenty of flowers to encourage the bees and down the right hand side of the garden there is small 2ft by 2ft gaps for flowers at the end of each path.
I will also be adding more perennial veg in the future, but further down the garden in raised beds as it lies wet past these annual veg beds, and I'll complete my line of cordon apple trees with some of the trees from grafts I did this year.
What crop rotation do you use (if any) and do you stick to it religiously like I do? Also do most people go to the bother of drawing it all out or just keep it in their head?
After my post about about having to divide the veg patch to conquer it I thought I'd give you all an update an to say I followed the general consensus to make it into beds.
A picture taken on the 12th of April
I've done this with more slabs. I brought new ones and then I've been given another 15 second hand since, with more to hopefully follow (be good for the new greenhouse floor as well when I get it up).
Picture taken yesterday - Starting to look better!
This has meant that I've now divided the veg garden into 16 different beds to work on a 6 year rotation (more about that in another post). One is already given over to herbs and another will probably be left as a sandpit/toy playing area bed for the children. For once it really feels as though I might be able to get on top of the garden this year and not loose the war to the weeds (although the soft fruit garden is another matter!).
I also like the look of it now it's all divided up, it looks like a backbone with ribs from a distance.
How is everyone else coping with the weeds this year? It seems we're having to fight the war a couple of months earlier this year in the UK.
