The potting shed

pickledtink

***bump***

Nile

Hmmmmmmm, this place needs a bit of a tidy up and I'll shortly be doing some weeding...........of threads like this one:D ............thanks to the MSE Team listening to the members request for a Gardening board.

Gardening board news!:j

Regards

Nile

annie123

Hope all you in the potting shed will be there.

Wasn't sure how my idea would go down, really pleased there are so many of us interested in it and so much support.

I will have to make more use of the suggestions board!!

It should make it much easier rather than looking accross several boards.

Happy gardening

kiwichick

Hi All,

I'm hoping you're superior knowledge is going to be able to lead me in the right direction here.

I am a novice veg grower, this will be my first year. I seem to have gotten a little carried away and spent around £25 on many many different seeds without yet having beds to grow them in .

I have a 150ft long by 21ft wide south facing rear garden. I was hoping to grow the veg near the end of the garden as hubbie thinks its a waste of space (IDIOT!!!!!!) and doesnt want to have to look at them all the time :mad:. We all know how silly he's going to feel in thte months to come when the £25 spent on seeds turns into hundreds of ££££ worth of lovely fresh veg .

I have erected a shed at the bottom of the garden and have 2 x 700 litre compost bins (thanks to the council subsidy) which I am now worried will shade my veg.

Can anyone give me some advice on where to place my beds? Do they need to run north/south or east/west?? I was planning on 4 so I can rotate crops properly. I dont know what a sensible size is?? Maybe 1.5mt x 3mt?? Is that too big???

Also, my soil is a heavy clay that the previous owners rotavated each year so Iam assuming there is a pan. I would like to have raised beds to counter this. What is the best thing to make the sidings out of and how high to they need to be?? I had thought of railerway sleepers and requested some on freecycle but then a friendly fellow freecycler emailed to tell me that they are awful as the creasote poisnons the veg - EEEKKK!!!!

Sorry for this long and rambling post,
Any help you can give is hugely appreciated (I want to wipe that smug smile of hubbies face by making a success out of this)!

xx
Allison.

angelavdavis

kiwichick wrote:

Hi All,

I have a 150ft long by 21ft wide south facing rear garden. I was hoping to grow the veg near the end of the garden as hubbie thinks its a waste of space (IDIOT!!!!!!) and doesnt want to have to look at them all the time :mad:. We all know how silly he's going to feel in thte months to come when the £25 spent on seeds turns into hundreds of ££££ worth of lovely fresh veg .

I have erected a shed at the bottom of the garden and have 2 x 700 litre compost bins (thanks to the council subsidy) which I am now worried will shade my veg.

You sounds like you have plenty of room for everything to me. Consider placing a trellis across the garden, leaving a 1 metre wide entrance in the middle (in line with the path between the raised beds so you can move easily between) so you have an entrance into the veg garden if hubby thinks its like to be an eyesore (which is nonsense but hey!) A cheaper alternative is to dig a long bed across the garden width (about 0.75m), leaving an undug piece in the centre so you can access the veg garden and then put up bean poles in wigwams and use to grow your runner beans along, so it acts as a barrier between veg area and the rest of the garden, but is functional and cheap too!

kiwichick wrote:

Can anyone give me some advice on where to place my beds? Do they need to run north/south or east/west?? I was planning on 4 so I can rotate crops properly. I dont know what a sensible size is?? Maybe 1.5mt x 3mt?? Is that too big???

Also, my soil is a heavy clay that the previous owners rotavated each year so Iam assuming there is a pan. I would like to have raised beds to counter this. What is the best thing to make the sidings out of and how high to they need to be?? I had thought of railerway sleepers and requested some on freecycle but then a friendly fellow freecycler emailed to tell me that they are awful as the creasote poisnons the veg - EEEKKK!!!!

As you are starting off, I would build 4 x 1.5m square beds and set them out into a small courtyard style (I have done this - view http://groups.msn.com/AngelasPhotographicEmporium/gardenproject2005.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1663 for more info). The main reason for suggesting this is that it looks good and the beds won't be too large - as a novice you don't want to take too much on and you can always build two more later if you need more growing area (of want to for example, have one bed for herbs only and one bed for strawberries and raspberries). You don't have to make them quite as high as mine - mine are like this because I have real problems with tree roots just below the surface so all the root area is in the raised beds. I recommend getting hold of some old floor boards as they are already pressure treated and you can then just paint them with wood preservative of your chosen colour. If you use water based wood preservative, it will be fine. Cut the floor boards to 1.5m lengths. You basically use four 1.5x1.5" wood posts to make the uprights that are positioned on each corner. Allow the wood posts to be 6 inches longer at one end than you intend to make the beds height and then cut these into a point. When the boards are screwed at the ends to each upright post, you can then hammer the 6 inch lengths into the ground to fix the beds down. This picture shows the construction of the beds (you can see the post positioned inside the bed at the corners, the slats are screwed into this.

http://groups.msn.com/AngelasPhotographicEmporium/gardenproject2005.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1667

If you are thinking of growing potatoes, I recommend you do this in a dustbin as they take up a lot of room and will mean you have a bed tied up just for them (whereas other plants mature faster so the bed can be used twice in a year at least). Drill lots of holes in the bottom 3 inches and fill with gravel/pebbles up to the 3 inch level then top with garden compost (soil goes too hard when it dries. Top up to a four inch level, place your seed potatoes on top and then top with two inches. As the potato leave grow, top up the soil level gently - just covering the leaves. Do this three times until the dustbin is two thirds full and then leave the plants until the foliage begins to die off, you can then tip out the bin and reveal the potatoes. Another member grows hers in car tyres but I haven't been as successful http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=338436

As far as filling the raised beds, the following site is a good guide:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/faqs.php?id=152

The other thing I would recommend, as you have splashed out this year on so many seeds, is to see if anyone on freecycle is willing to swap seeds/plants that you might have over for something else as the seeds are unlikely to keep for next year. Make a note this year of any veg that were particularly successful, and any that weren't so you don't make the same mistakes last year.

kiwichick wrote:

Sorry for this long and rambling post,
Any help you can give is hugely appreciated (I want to wipe that smug smile of hubbies face by making a success out of this)!

xx
Allison.

Hope that answers the questions - good luck!

Nile

Hello pickledtink

Time for a change of scene.............to the 'Greenfingered' board.:D

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere(please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]abuse@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].


Regards

Nile