Sams gardening mission 2007 (Updated)

sammy_kaye18

hi all

this is my garden

As you can see its not huge and quite frankly the cats next door use it as a giant toilet. im in a block of four flats - 2 upstairs, 2 downstairs so i have a somewhat communal garden but this is classed as 'my patch' by the council. Anyway as you can see we did attempt laying grass seed last year but it was wrecked by the cats and our pooch , and the lovely welsh weather hasnt helped it much. Also in the picture you cant see is off to the left of the picture there is a small patio'd area which we have sort of gained (it is technically upstairs' garden but he is a single bloke who never uses it) so we have commondeered it - which i am thinking of keeping some containers on and my sons sandpit when he is outside so he has somewhere to sit and play

The small walled bit at the end of the garden is the only bit that gets a fair bit of sun all day and (you cant see in the pictures) but i have these over fence hangers on the fence that can hold 6 pots between them (2 each)

Anyway my plans for it this year are,
- to lay membrane down and put gravel over the top of it - except the little walled section at the bottom of the garden
- plant some flowers in that little walled section for a bit of colour in the garden.
- put up a few hanging baskets on the side of the flat for a bit of added colour.
- paint the window ledges as they are a horrid red colour and the paint is old worn and chipping away.
- plant some herbs in the over fence hangers.
- plant carrots in a container somewhere.
- get some sort of planter near the door (the door is in like a recess and can look plain and ugly at times)

anyway that was my thinking - any better ideas will be greatfulyl appreciated though and im going to hopefully manage that this year - i want a nice garden that my little boy can play in and enjoy himself this year without worrying he'll tread in something of hurt himself.

I'll keep this thread updated with my progress and pictures

troll35

First but quick suggestion. If you are going to use gravel make sure you go for 20mm gravel. Any smaller and the cats will use it as a litter tray as we found out to our cost in our front garden. The pole for the washing line could be useful for growing beans up.

troll35

Hello again....Thought you would have had lots of replies by now.
What is that rocky patch to the left of the gate? Is it a former rockery or just dumped debris? If it's builders rubble then you may find that the grassed area covers even more bricks/stones etc.
I only have a small raised bed for growing veg (3m x 1m) and last summer I also had 8 square tubs and 5 window box type tubs and we grew quite a lot of veggies. (oh forgot my front porch had 5 tomato plants and 4 pepper plants in it in pots) If I can do it so can you;)
I would recommend looking on freecycle. There will almost certainly be someone with some spare seeds near you if you ask. Also freecycle is a good source of pallets which can be converted into tubs and planters for free if you have some basic DIY skills.
I'm still planning my planting for this year but so far in my raised bed we have some raspberry canes and a blackcurrant bush which are permanent and we are steadily munching our way through the sprouts that are still happily growing. When the sprouts come out I will mainly be planting peas and beans in the bed. In the window box tubs I have strawberries in 2, and in the remaining 3 I will be planting carrots (chanteney) in 2 and lettuce in 1. In the square tubs I will have courgettes, spring onions, chard, parsnips and probably other things as well.
That's all for now.

Good Luck with your garden:beer:

chewy62

I think your ideas are great! I too worry about our garden being a death trap for the kids as we have a dog and a cat and I'm never sure where they leave their "presents!"
I am going to make sure I lift the poos on a daily basis. I think half filled bottles of water sre meant to keep cats away.9don't know how!?):rolleyes:
I am a newbie to veg growing too, so don't want to shell out too much money in case it doesn't work out, so am rying to do things as cheaply as poss. Your carrot container idea sounds good, what about peas growing up the fence?
I have bought seeds already and can't wait to get started, just need some beds to plant them in!
Managed to get a good few tomatoes grown last year, they tasted beautiful so I've bought some seeds.
I'm sure your garden will look great as long as the cats stay away!:rotfl:

arkonite_babe

My garden project will be in a similar vein this year, to get it in some way presentable for planting anything!!! Oh and doggy proofed as well, as he loves to dig, especially things he shouldn't :eek:


I shall watch this thread with interest to see how things progress

sammy_kaye18

The littel rocky patch off to the left is a small rockery adn it is sort fo cared for by me and my neighbour downstairs - as we both have young children - er 2 girls (4 and 2) adn my Ben is 3 so we maintain it so they dont hurt themselves.

Our garden when we moved in was originalyl just a big sandpit - construction worker had lived in the council flat before and intended to patio the lot but got bored and moved before he finished it so we were left wiht lots of sand. Anyway we removed all the sand adn cat mess, and put down compost/soil instead to plant the grass seed in - which you can see was not very successful.

So im thinking of buying membrane and weed killer as soon as its in wilkinsons and putting that down to get it started and then ill get the gravel when i can borrow my MILs car.

Plus im putting an add on freecycle for seeds that are free to a good home so ill see if that is fruitful or not - my nan and my dad are both keen gardeners so im sure they'll have a few seedlings that i can rehome for them.

Tubs wise i belong to another gardening site (jeez an old soul in a young body huh!) so im asking there for advice on plant types/which variety of seeds to grow.

My familys main veg consumption is carrots, onions, swede and brocolli but i dont want to try anything too adventurous for my first time growing so maybe i might try to grow carrots and possibly ill get a few tomato plants so i can use them in soups/casseroles and pasta dishes.

Also i dont like the idea of lots of chemicals on the plants so can anyone tell me if they have been successful in growing veg without using chemicals??

culpepper

Sam if you could get some wood or similar edging,you could make a raised garden which would give more crops for the same area. Ive seen loads on gardening blogs. They look to be about 6 to eight inches above the normal ground level. Filled with compost and earth. There is a book called square foot gardening which has very economical use of small garden areas for veg crops.
The shadier bit would be good for lettuce.Runner beans can grow up a teepee arrangement of canes.

troll35

I don't use any chemicals in my garden and had success with just about everything except cauliflowers. They got eaten to death by cabbage white caterpillars. I did my best to squash all the eggs and the caterpillars (made me cringe every time) but it made no difference overall. I should have netted them but didn't know.
You really need a reasonable depth of soil for most veg to grow successfully. I also put a good few dollops of well rotted manure in the bottom of my tubs.

arkonite_babe

This site:
http://www.greengardener.co.uk/index.htm
seems to be good in terms of "green" pest control. They also have wormeries and compost accesories. I haven't used them, yet!

loumac

Hey Sammy,

My garden looked pretty much the same as yours 3 years ago and I'm in the same situation (flats with shared grounds). We put membrane down and then woodchip which was fairly cheap from B&Q and is nice and bouncy for the children and my cats (for whatever reason) never poo in it!

I had half for my veg and over the past 2 years have successfully grown: peas, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, radish. In pots on the patio I've managed tomatoes, peppers and chillis.

You could cover half for Ben to play on and place a few pots for him to dig and plant something simple and then turn the other half into a raised bed for your root veg.

Cats also hate pepper and curry powder (anything strong smelling).

For slugs you can bury a small dish in the ground with some beer in. Or broken egg shells as they can't crawl on them!

Boiled rhubarb apparently (though not tried it yet - but I've acquired an allotment this year and want to be organic) apparently puts off black fly.

I've also heard you should plant carrots and onions together as the smell of each puts off the other ones pests. (Does that make sense?) Or chives amongst carrots is meant to help.

Hmmm...... hope that helps. I've been rotovating my allotment all morning so am feeling very greenfingered and can't wait for my veg.

:j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T :j :T

angelavdavis

I don't use chemicals at all.

I suggest you cover cabbages and other brassicas with white fleece to protect from the dreaded cabbage white. I actually used very fine pea netting, but the b*****rs still got in and I found myself with the unenviable task of picking off nasty little green catapillars before they ate my lovely veg and squashing them _pale_ .

I lay beer traps for slugs (have to empty out every day) and also put the top bit of water bottles (with the lid taken off) onto new plants to give them a fighting chance against any tee-total slugs/snails. Once the plants are bigger, they stand a chance to survive an attack.

I recommend covering your beds/newly planted containers with something to stop the cats. I have two cats which love to plant their bottoms in the soft compost I have just planted my seeds in! I cover mine with pea netting - not pretty but it does the job most of the time. See http://groups.msn.com/AngelasPhotographicEmporium/gardenproject2005.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1666. Generally, once the plants have started growing the cats don't venture - but I leave mine on all the time as my cats see it as a challenge to find the tiniest patch to leave their presents in.

Boiled rhubarb (leaves which are actually poisonous) juice is good as mentioned is good to chase greenfly away.

Plant poached egg plants and marigolds around the edges of your borders - just sprinkle seed along the edge - they encourage the right insects and discourage the bad uns and look pretty too.

As mentioned, companion planting is good too (eg chives/carrots).

Plant runner beans up your fence at the back of the flower border. Screw some "eye loops" into the fence - top middle and bottom of height and put some string running through these and tied top and bottom along the width. Plant two beans per string. These should scramble up within a short time.

One word of warning about gravel - by all means use it, but use the slightly larger stuff as any small gravel will only be used as cat litter and you may end up with an even worse problem. Any little presents left should obviously be collected and disposed of, with a spray of a strong disinfectant from a spray bottle to remove any dangers.

Hope that helps!