SO EXCITED!! I have a new garden!! Please help me get it sorted!

r.a.i.n.b.o.w

Hi all,

I've just aquired a garden through Age Concern's Garden Partners scheme (very similar to Landshare, but the garden owners are OAPs). I'm SO excited, been trying to get a bit of land for years. Have managed to grow tomatoes in my high rise flat, but space is limited for much else.

ANYWAY. Pics of the garden are at the bottom of this message. There is 20 sq mtrs of earth, plus room for pots. It's south-facing. The only things the owner wants to keep are her rose bushes, to the left of pic 1. There's also some sort of tree or bush in pic 2, not sure if she wants to keep that (am meeting with the owner next week to discuss). As you can see, there's an air raid shelter, which has a small window on the left hand side.

I would like to grow veggies and small soft fruits, with flowers to encourage wildlife and pollination while looking lovely at the same time.

I need to chop back that ivy on the back wall, and scrub up the walls - what should I use to get them clean? Just a hose and brush?

I need to weed the concreted area - would it be ok to use chemicals on this as I won't be planting there?

I need to weed the earth and dig it over - what should I be doing to keep the weeds back and get the ground into tip-top condition for planting in spring?

I plan to get some trellis and hanging baskets up to maximise growing space.

I need to get a nice edging instead of those bricks - fence or stone or something. Any suggestions?

The food I plan to grow is:

potatoes
carrots
parsnips
cabbage (for winter 2011 harvest)
rocket, spinach, other salad leaves
tomatoes
beetroot
green beans
purple sprouting broccoli
babycorn
mange tout
chard
herbs
strawberries
raspberries
blueberries

I just don't know where to start with my planning! I don't know where to put any of these. I'm thinking spuds can go in bags, salad leaves & herbs in troughs, the green beans along the back? Planning is the bit I need the biggest help with! Any advice?

Also, I was thinking about utilising the roof of the shelter for some cascading plants or something *nice*, but until I see it, check it's stability, and find out if they have a ladder(!), it's not in my plans.

Thanks all!:j

alanobrien

Looks like you may have a bit of clearing up to do first. You might want to think about drawing the area to scale and figuring out what to put where. Check which way is South ! find somewhere you can get water or better still connect a water butt to the down pipe and dont forget to plant some bright flowers as well, it will brighten up the area no end.....and most of all have fun !

foxgloves

Wow! That's a lot of work, but how exciting. My advice would be to get yourself down to the library and borrow lots of books on gardening basics, plus design & growing food. This will make sure that you don't set your sights too high for the first year & that you choose crops which will flourish in your type of environment/soil, etc. Good luck with it, seeing your pictures makes me want a big project to get my teeth into!

angelavdavis

How lovely. Any idea what the tree is?

I would personally reuse the bricks but put them on an angle - I did this in an old house when I dug up tonnes of bricks and the effect looked really good (I didn't cement mine in though).

See example here.

I would then weed the garden, using a fork to loosen soil over any long rooted weeds, then turn the soil over, incorporating manure into the soil as you go.

The walls will clean up with a wire brush and some elbow grease. Although, once you remove the ivy, the sun is more likely to get to it and dry up the algae (and I personally like weathered walls). Alternatively, if the house owner is Ok, you could paint the walls with a lighter colour which would introduce more light into the garden to help the plants grow better. To clean the concrete up, I would use either a pressure washer, or a hose and hard broom - perhaps with some paving cleaner or stardrops added to the water. It looks like it is a build up of algae.

Instead of trellis, if the walls are sound, to keep costs down, you could use stretched wires and vine eyes. You can then train fruit trees or other climbers such as runner beans over these (you will need vertical wires as well as horizontal for the beans). Info is here

For the patio weeds, to keep the chemicals down to a minimum, I would personally use a small spray containing pathclear and a collar made out of a plastic drink bottle with the top and bottom cut off, and position the collar over any weeds and then spot spray. I have inadvertedly stepped in wet pathclear and then walked on the grass - killing it as I went, so make sure you start at the far end of the patio away from the house, and then work backwards. When done, go and have a cup of tea or call it a night to stop you being tempted to walk over the beds and cause yourself problems.

As Alan says, suss out where the sunny spots are and plan your planting accordingly. I suspect you might be limited with the walls on all day sun, but recommend you use wall-based hanging baskets or planters to grow strawberries or baby tomatoes where they will get the sun and hopefully stay away from the slugs and snails! Great idea about using the roof of the structure if it is strong enough. You could put grobags up there, although access to water and harvest could be tricky.

I would invest in a small vinyl covered greenhouse to get your seeds started - you can put the greenhouse in the shelter under the lean to. Usually people don't recommend them, but yours will be so sheltered that it is definitely worth doing. It can then be taken down when you need to make space for pots in the summer.

Buy a soil testing kit to establish what sort of soil you have - blueberries grow very well in pots.

I would personally grow potatoes in the ground rather than pots when given the chance - you will get better crops and will need a lot of compost to grow them in pots - for earthing up. Is there room for a small compost heap?

Over winter once the ground is cleared, you can plant bare rooted fruit bushes (trained up the walls), cabbage (if you start the seedlings off now). You don't mention where you are in the UK, but if you are further south, you can invest in a cloche and plant spinach, salad leaves and rocket now. You can also plant mange tout style peas and broad beans now for spring harvesting.

I would definitely grow herbs in planters. Group them together in a corner for a nice effect.

Brocolli needs a long growing time and takes up a lot of space as the plants can easily grow up to 2 foot high, so don't plant too many. spinach and salad leaves can be inter-planted between other crops that take longer to grow - such as carrots and brocolli.

I generally start a lot of plants such as beetroots off in pots then plant them out, planting new seedlings as I harvest the ripe beetroots. I have managed to get 18 good sized beetroots out of two strips of soil - both less than 2 ft long this way and there are more to come.

Plant plants such as poached egg plants, Calendula, Borage and other insect attractors to help increase the pollinators into the garden.

You might want to look at square foot gardening - just google to find out more information. It is specifically designed for getting the most out of small spaces.

wssla00

I would first work on clearing it, then start thinking about the planning of the garden. You could maybe try a no dig garden and lasagne plant (if you google lasagne gardening it will give you some ideas). You could use raised beds and make walk ways round the garden. That way the older person you are working with can also help out a little if she/he feels they want to and won't have to worry about getting through the planting etc.
I would also think about a flower bed. It brightens things up but also is great for cut flowers. I think this is a brilliant idea and it would be lovely if they rolled it out over the country. Just imagine next year when the area is all sorted and the two of you can take tea in the garden looking at your hard work

r.a.i.n.b.o.w

alanobrien wrote: »

Looks like you may have a bit of clearing up to do first. You might want to think about drawing the area to scale and figuring out what to put where. Check which way is South ! find somewhere you can get water or better still connect a water butt to the down pipe and dont forget to plant some bright flowers as well, it will brighten up the area no end.....and most of all have fun !

Oh yeah, I forgot to say it's south-facing

markandkate

You can grow tayberries or logan berries and black berries and train them up the walls. They will just grow every year. The blueberries will need to be grown in pots as they need ericaceous compost so I would get lots of very large pots and use them to plant the blue berries and also the herbs then you should be able to forget about them. You can also grow potatoes in sacks or bins.

Once you have cleared the plots of weeds set aside an area for fruit and you can plant some bushes with strawberries on the ground underneath the fruit bushes or trees.

markandkate

Follow on from yesterday. You do need to decide where your beds are going to be and using the bricks to make distinct areas is a good idea. It will enable you to control the type of soil that you may need to grow certain crops eg some love/hate lime. It will also help with what you plant in each area. some crops such as parsnips and leeks will be in the ground for a long time and can be harvested all over the winter but you will find that most of a large veg plot will be empty and you will want to cclear it. With this system you can can clear the plots as they become finished It wil also give you paths to walk around particualry in the winter when it is muddy.

I only grow about 4/5 different types of summer leaves and then just pull a few off each time I want some. Even when the plant has gone to seed it is still fine to eat the leaves.

There is no law that says you have to grow plants from seed. You will find that you can usually buy tomato and cabbage/sprout plants from most car boots sales and if you do not have a greenhouse you will end up having plants all over the house. I have also given away and acquired plants off free cycle as most people who grow from seed end up with too many plants.

I know it sounds obvious but only grow what you like and are going to use I know plenty of people with freezers full of fruit and veg that have been there for ages. I have made the decision this year that I am not going to plant funner beans any more. I really like them but are not keen on them when frozen and in the summer when they are ready we do not eat cooked dinners with beans etc. I have made chutney out of them but as plenty of people I know are growing them I know I can scrounge a few.

Finally instead of grwoing all summer raspberries grow a mixture of autumn ones as well. Mine have just come into fruit and will continue into October so I am eating fresh raspberries at the moment.

SailorSam

I've just made some raised beds, some of the soil i got from a neighbour was fine but some a bit heavy with clay, to improve it for next year but also to try and stop the weeds taking over i've planted green manure, it's been in less than 2 weeks and already showing growth. Maybe look into that to control weeds this winter.