Thursday 17 April 2014

Is Your Garden A Dumping Ground Too?

When we moved into our home the garden was a mixture between overgrown jungle that was once a lawn, and a gravel pit.  Not very useful for a family wanting to grow our own produce, nor very pleasant for the kids.

After a couple of years we had reverted the lawn area to a lawn, with a wide border containing a variety of veggies, fruit bushes and an apple tree.  There is a small herb garden in an old council recycling box, and we had cleared the gravel pit of the gravel and successfully grown a crop of potatoes and onions in it despite the poor clay-like nature of the soil.

Then we extended the house, this did not work well for the garden.  The builders made a mess of the lawn, we had to dig up the small patio area, the gravel previously stored at the side of the house was placed back at one end of the old gravel pit in some ikea bags (they have many many uses) and the old walls of the bathroom (waterproof shower boards) were added to the pile of gravel and patio slabs.  We are back at square one.

Now to the future.

We plan to restore out lawn and veg border.  The apple tree is still going strong, buds aplenty right now, the fruit bushes (raspberry, blackcurrant, redcurrant and goji berry) are all sprouting nicely, and the rhubarb is looking huge (that will come in handy for the homebrew, but that will be a different blog)

Then there is the ex-gravel pit.  We have word from a friend of the family that he wants the gravel, but he's having logistical issues.  The shower boards are going to be put to use in creating a water-tight, cavity walled, insulated two section compost box with removable divider and hinged lid.

Once the area is cleared the fun bit starts, laying out the vision for the garden.

The plan is to have the rectangular garden with square raised beds to each corner.  These beds will contain veggies of various kinds, and the walls of these will be made with cinder blocks

this will give us loads of small pots to plant herbs i around the veggies.
The cross made by adding the raised beds will be grassed, and a border of shrubs and flowers placed on the outer edge of the whole garden.  Inside the flower/shrub border will be a narrow line of home-made circular stepping stones, allowing access to the raised beds and also the flower/shrub beds.
We will post picture as things progress.

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