Monday 16 January 2012

The Business End



As you can see from above, when we moved into our new home it had a vegetable patch of sorts. I did grow a few things in the year that we moved in but unfortunately the tree got struck by lightening and it broke in two falling right into the near right bed flattening my potatoes. I hated having to do it but the tree was never going to recover so it would have to come out.

There were several things which were not ideal for a plot, the main one being shade. I was going to relocate the entire patch to a better suited corner of my garden but when the tree came down we decided to keep it. The beech hedges to the left were carefully dug out and replanted into the hedgerows where there were gaps. This not only increased my growing area considerably, it also reduced the likelihood of the patch sitting in a frost pocket as air would freely flow into the garden, and it cast far fewer shadows into the growing area.

I transplanted about thirty of the best raspberry canes from one of the raised beds and gave the rest to a neighbor. My wife helped me plant about twenty or so strawberry plants, a couple of black currants and goose berries into the left hand area where the beech hedge had been.

We inherited a couple of amazing clumps of rhubarb which were in the near left raised bed. These have been dug out and will get replanted where the remaining beech hedge at the rear is currently growing.

There is a small bay leaf which will be re homed into the herb patch and the Lovage has been moved into the back of some flower borders in the garden.

The plum tree in the near bed had no place in my plans. We already have a wonderful Victoria plum in the orchard, so it went along with the rose bush which was out of place. Both got the chop, were torched on bonfire night, and added to the compost pile.

The real menace was (and most likely still is) a large clump of horse radish. The area is was growing in had to be dug down half way to China and carefully sifted through to remove as much of the root as possible. I'm sure it will come back again next year so removing that will be an ongoing struggle for some time.

Another problem with the old design was the wasted space and compaction. I had four beds that measured ten feet by seven feet. I was having to step into them to seed rows or to hand weed and hoe. Something had to be done about that.

We got to work relocating most of the gravel onto our driveway, removing the old raised beds and clearing the ground to start from scratch.

No comments:

Post a Comment