Making a vegetable patch

PeteW

Hello, now I've got a house with a garden I'm very much looking forward to growing my own fruit and veg, but really don't know where to start.

I've tried reading some articles and looking at some books but they all seem to miss out what in my case is the very first step - making a vegetable patch from an area of turf - what can I do with the grass?

Cheers

Pete

flissh

Not sure. It probably depends on how you are planning to construct your veg patch. Are you going to build raised beds? Or just mark out an area and use that. I will be converting a lawn to a veg patch when we move into our new home, (I hope). I plan to have slightly raised beds, only by about 4-6 inches, I was either going to 'turn' the top layer, ie dig, turn clump upsidedown, burying the grass, then import organic matter and maybe some topsoil to top-up the bed. Or I was considering skimming off the grass, compost it, then top up my raised beds as before. The drawback to this, I thought was I would need to buy in more to fill beds.
I think it also depends on the area, is it full of rubble, or previously high traffic, so compacted? If so It will require a good dig over, in which case I would just bury the grass as you dig.
Don't worry, a real gardener will come along soon and put you straight. :-)

nodwah

you can dig out the turf in a layer, cut into squares then stack the bits upside down somewhere out of sight and cover over with plastic or sacing or something. Eventually it will rot down to nice loam and meanwhile you can dig the space you've made.

Alternatively lift the turf as above, put to one side then dig a good spades depth down, fork over the bottom of the hole to break it up then put the turves in upside down and refill the plot with soil and fertiliser/manure/compost.

If you want to grow things like beans, you can fill the bottom of a trench with shredded newspaper and veg peelings too then put the soil on top and plant into that ( I tend to start growing peas and beans in pots inside the house as mice eat them outdoors - mind you the mouse got mine indoors last year too!)

Hope this makes sense!

rhiwfield

Agree with Nodwah,

You need to skim off the turf and dig over the plot and remove perennial weed roots.

The turf can be composted face down in a composter or covered with a tarp.

If its a raised bed the composted turf can be added later to fill up bed (with extra compost to make up height) or can be incorporated in the bed immediately if covered by say old compost bags which you can grow thru using slits.

Larumbelle

Hi Pete

I built raised beds straight over my turf, there's a thread here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1397903 that contains what I did, also some other advice on how to found raised beds. I don't really have any advice for growing straight into the ground, my heavy clay soil is so useless (and improving it is such a long process) that for now I'm just using beds.

PeteW

Well I was thinking about raised beds as I've got a bit of a bad back and it might reduce the bending-over factor slightly...

I've got quite a load of old skirting board in the loft and was thinking I could maybe use them to make the beds - haven't worked out exactly how though yet... bracketed and nailed to stakes at the corner I guess.

So if I go for raised beds I can just leave the turf as is, and dump new soil on top? The obvious question is where does the soil come from, but I'll have a read of your thread before I ask that one!

Cheers

Pete

Larumbelle

When you build raised beds they can be as simple or as complex as you want them to be; I guess a lot depends on your DIY skills and what fixings you have lying about. A lotty-keeping friend of mine gave me some that use hinges at the corner, the hinges are raised up slightly from the wood so that you can stack more than one on top (and so you can fold them flat). But for the ones I made myself, I just got some of those eye fixings (not sure what they're called, but they're like a big cup hook except the hook bit is extended to form a complete loop) and attatched them to each end of the planks, then drove canes in and hooked them over that. You can also build them by nailing the planks into blocks in the corners... wow, I sound really technical, don't I? Basically you can attach the planks to whatever 'thingies' you have around. :rotfl:

RAS

PeteW wrote: »

Well I was thinking about raised beds as I've got a bit of a bad back and it might reduce the bending-over factor slightly...

I've got quite a load of old skirting board in the loft and was thinking I could maybe use them to make the beds - haven't worked out exactly how though yet... bracketed and nailed to stakes at the corner I guess.

The easiest way I know is to get a load of srew eyes that are big enough to take a short piece of cane. Screw two eyes into each end of each board. Set two boards at a right angle and slip a cane through all four eyes. If the cane is long enough, you can push it into the ground to stabilise the corner.

Larumbelle

Screw eyes! That's what I meant! Cup-hook thingies... I'm pretty useless on Monday mornings, aren't I?! :rotfl: