Planting Plans For One Person

Sylvan

You hold the halved pop bottles down with pegs made from pieces of wire coat hanger, with the end bent over. You only need one peg per bottle, though when the wind is particularly bad you still find the occasional bottle half a mile away. :rotfl: Early in the season I just cut the bottoms off the bottles and screwed tops on every night (or when the wind/cold was particularly bad).

If you can scrounge some old windows you can make beds with sides that are higher than the soil level and put the windows across them. That also keeps the rabbits, mice and deer off the plants, while they're young.
To keep the rabbits off older plants you'll need to pin 3ft high chicken wire round them, using garden canes.

At 1500 feet I got the boys to put up a trellis on the windward side and planted cheap rambling roses, clematis and honeysuckle which I wove through it. I also put up 6'6" high posts along the boundary perpendicular to that, with strong wires strung between them and grew sweetpeas there. The sweetpeas were horribly battered but the garden between them and the house (and east of the trellis) was wonderfully sheltered.

You could probably use that shelter netting stuff but it's more expensive than the plants were and you don't get the pretty, scented blooms that attract pollinating insects.
One of my neighbours created shelter by planting goat willow. It grows very fast but I think the roots travel quite a long way so it might cut into your growing space.

One of my friends who lives down at the 1,000ft level uses cheap tent pegs to hold down her fleece.

Onions are hardier than potatoes. I normally sow my seeds at Christmas and put them out round about Easter. If there's a leek club near you ask the old blokes what they do (that's what I did when I moved from an almost frost-free London garden to one perched on the edge of the fells). They'll be happy to give you advice and you'll know it's relevant to local conditions.

Last year I planted Early Nantes carrots in "Tesco Value" storage boxes, each with 8-10 holes made in the bottom by a hot poker, and kept them on the windowsill till early April. They were happy outside from then onwards.

If there's a bad frost forecast you can stick a sheet of glass over the box (or even newspaper).

If you've got thin, acid, sandy topsoil with giant rocks under the surface you'll definitely want raised beds. It's worth asking the local council if they sell their municipal compost. Ours was £8/ton.

mardatha

I have a bit of a windbreak of Broom , I dont have rabbits but I do have sheep with wandering habits in the back field
I had a bit of a mouse problem but got round that by making best pals with a huge ginger stray cat...
Think the glass resting on wood edges might be better than chasing half bottles all over the place.
The neighbours , the original country ones, all seem to go in for cabbages, leeks & sprouts but I haven't really asked too many of them.
Ok thanks all - that's great help xxx

Sylvan

Aye, pesky sheep! Do you find they even eat the broom?

Onions like similar conditions to leeks. You'll probably need to beef up your soil a bit for them.

If your son's willing (and you can get hold of some aged manure) get him to take out a spade-deep trench of soil at the end of each bed, fork over the ground below, put in plenty of manure and then turn the spade's depth over onto it (making another trench). He keeps doing that till he gets to the far end, at which point he uses the soil he took out of the first trench.

You could also give the soil a dusting of Fish, Blood and Bone (or something like Growmore if you don't want to be organic) before planting the onions.

ceridwen

mardatha wrote: »

I have a bit of a windbreak of Broom , I dont have rabbits but I do have sheep with wandering habits in the back field
I had a bit of a mouse problem but got round that by making best pals with a huge ginger stray cat...

:rotfl: :rotfl: Thats the spirit Mardatha - nowt if not resourceful - visions of Mardatha tin of catfood in hand "Here kitty - nice kitty - now you KNOW you're feeling hungry";)

ceridwen

Well....with thanks to JenniO (who has obviously grasped JUST how bad I am at maths and sent me a helpful email telling me this) - I will share her comment:

In a square foot:

- if the finished veg. is size of open hand - plant 2 caddy corner to each other (ie opposite corners) - so theres just 2 in square.

- If finished veg. is size of a fist, plant 4 - one coming out of each corner.

- If slightly smaller than a fist - plant 6.

If planting more than 6 of anything - expect small veg.

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Thanks again Jenni - who has obviously grasped JUST how poor my maths is (i.e. I can add/subtract/multiply simple figures and thats about that - I have been known to struggle in the supermarket when trying to work out price per gramme if things are in different type of measurements!).

Just struck me that I musta been given the choice at birth of either a normal level of maths ability OR virtually zilch maths ability, but a tiny bit of ability to "see how the wind blows" and I decided it was more important to have that tiny bit of "how the wind blows" ability:D I made the right choice;). Er - 2 + 2 = 5 doesnt it? LOL

Sylvan

ceridwen wrote: »

Er - 2 + 2 = 5 doesnt it? LOL

No, no - 2 + 2 = 0

RAS

Another simple way of making raised beds - if you have reasonably heavy straight timber like Sylvan is to screw two largish eyes into each end of the plank , fit them at right angles, line up the eyes and push a cane or strong stick through all four eyes to anchor the corner to the ground. This is completely demountable as well.

I use a similiar system with old windows to create temporary "cold frame." You do need two people to hold the windows if they are tall but you can get things like curcubits and chilles well away earlier in the season

Sylvan

How do you know about my heavy straight timber? Are you spying on me? :eek:

We're using 9"x2"x15'9" timber to make 4' wide, 18" high beds (but we've left the corner posts high enough to add a third row of planks, raising them to 27" ,when my back/neck deteriorate too far to bend at all). We used coach bolts to hold them together.

A week after filling the first one the slave labour noticed that it appeared to be bowing outwards:o. We had to empty it and bolt in cross pieces halfway along.:rotfl:

I've never had problems with carrot fly (perhaps my previous high-altitude gardens were all too windy for them?) but I was wondering whether 18" high beds will stymie them - or does the barrier actually have to be 18" above the plants?

mardatha

My neighbour mentioned carrot fly, but I can't remember if she was talking about here or her last house.
I dont think I can get thick heavy timber, be lucky to get any at all if I know my son...
Our sheep sneer at broomsticks but LOVE pansies.... One year I went over the whole back fence with chicken wire, planted some nice shrubs 6" away from it just to annoy the wee sods, stood back and smirked. Went inside, started dinner, looked out of the window...........
to see a huge cow calmly leaning over the fence eating them all. I was NOT thinking vegetarian thoughts !!!
I have thick heavy duty polythene in the loft, will def use that in some way.

Sylvan

:rotfl:I spent about a year wondering why the rose hedge I had planted along the south side of the fruit garden was only about half the size of the identical one planted at the same time along the west side. I thought perhaps the shelter from the wall was making the difference...

My neighbour had a strip of young trees on the steep hillside below the puny hedge, which she had protected with goat-proof barriers. One day I watched one of her goats, pull, push and squirm through her barrier, climb up to my fence, position herself precariously, on her hind legs, on the narrow drop-off and proceed to munch her way along 50ft of rosa rugosa, rowan, silver birch etc.

And when I shouted at her she thought I was just calling her! :rolleyes: