4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[redhotchick]

I grew vegetables straight into the soil last year and had a satisfying crop of beans, lettuces, courgettes and various other things. This year I decided to construct some raised beds.

After a few hiccups and delays they are nearly ready to go. Four beds each one measuring 1.2 by 2.4 metres. The soil is being delivered tomorrow so full scale planting should be possible next weekend. At last!

The timber cost in the region of £60 and the soil was £76! Which came as a bit of a shock to me!

Anyway, I'm still planning on putting onion and garlic sets in although I realise it is probably way too late and they will go to seed. Also leek and spring onion.

The next bed is planned to be carrots, fennel, parsnip and maybe celery.

The next bed beans, peas and courgettes. There's a lot of compost going into that bed.

The last bed lettuces and brassicas.

 

I've been dabbling with growing veg for a few years now. I'm not sure I get any better at it though! ha ha ha.

The next thing I want to learn is what to grow and when to sow to maintain a crop of some sort year round. In this respect my plan is "Brassicas" which I've never grown before and increased use of my greenhouse for extending the growing season.

 

Any comments or advice will be gratefully received.

[prudance]

Quite new to growing veg, but I do have raised beds. Have found that the spacings that are often recommended are a little excessive for a raised bed. Stick to the "thin to" spacing for planting. Ignore the distance to plant between rows. Just use the same distance as you do between plants along the row. Hope that makes sense. Basically, they're really easy to keep weed free without having to walk between rows so you don't need big spaces between the rows.

 

My suggestions for brassicas include:

- protect from hungry chickens and pidgeons!

- Prop up with a cane or large stick as they grow.

 

I learnt the hard way on both points!

 

good luck!

[Lesley]

Square Foot Gardening is really suitable for raised beds - closer spacing in small blocks.

google it if you've never heard of it.

 

We did have a discussion on it last year...or the year before - it is a really good way to interest children in gardening as you can grow a lot in a small space. I do have to call it Square 30 gardening for my grandchildren as I came very unstuck trying to explain a 'foot'

[redhotchick]

Thanks very much for that advice!

 

I've been looking at traditional spacings. I'll have a little rethink now! It's a very good point and something I had completely forgotten about.

 

Loads of wood pigeons visit my garden. Not to mention the chickens! I'm thinking of constructing a cage, this will protect against butterflies laying their eggs on the plants too.

 

Another trip to the timber merchant coming on I feel!

 

There's a chapter on "square foot" gardening in one of my books. I'll have another read. I'd forgotten about that too.

 

Using 2 buckets I have half emptied one of the bags of soil. I'm doing half an hour each night after work. It's tiring but surprising how quickly it does shift!

[Lesley]

I've bodged a cage using wooden trellis and enviromesh to keep the pigeons and butterflies of my brassicas. I have planted the plants closer together than normal because of the size of the trellis I used but we will just get smaller cauliflowers etc. I have new trellis and monster sized length of Enviromash (that i bought off Ebay) ready to make some more.

 

We stapled the mesh to the frame of trellis.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

That Enviromesh sounds interesting . Off to have a look at it . Do you have to keep raising it up as your plants grow ?

[Cinnamon]

One tip I would give is that when you place the bads down on the gound,make sure you can get a lawnmoer up between them,if its grassed, & make sure you can kneel comfortably between them too.

 

A couple of mine are too close & I have to balance the top of my foot on the bed behind to kneel, which is really uncomfortable

We learnt by our mistakes, & the 3 new ones he built for me a couple of months ago are perfect

[Aga n Chickens]

Hello

 

We had a total rethink about the garden last year when we prepared the ground for the Cube.

 

The raised beds went in first giving enough space between the patio to fit the cube and the mesh skirt.

 

Last year we sited the cube just too near the beds and were amazed at just how far a chicken neck can stretch through netting

 

This year we have hutched the cube 6 inches towards the patio and secured finer chicken proof mesh next to the beds.

 

Hopefully if the link works you will see that one bed is marked in to foot squares. All the outside squared have either garlic, spring onions, bunching onions, red onions, white onions and shallotts. The inner 4 squares have a different kind of carrot planted in each of them. My thinking is that the smell of the onions will keep the carrot fly away.

 

The open bed to the right is the nursery bed for the leeks and brasicas. The wall flower in there at the moment was a left over from last year that we had no room for so left it in for a bit of spring colour. When that gets pulled out we'll set sweet williams etc in that side of the bed for planting out later in the year.

 

Just behind the orange potato bag down the path on the left is a further raised bed waiting for the climbing french beans.

 

 

Will have to see if the picture works as this is the first time I've used photo bucket

 

Kind regards,

 

Christine

[chickencam]

I have 3 raised beds in my front garden, well away from the chickens, in which I grow mainly salad leaves, spring onions, radishes and herbs. We have built an enviromesh lid for each of them which are about 30cm high and stand on the wooden surround. This keeps off the cats and birds and butterflies.

 

We have found the cats using them as hammocks though Since then we have had a cane with a pot on the top in the centre to hold the enviromesh up in the middle.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

That sounds good . What did you build it with? Don't suppose you have a photo ?

 

I have 4 x 1m sq raised beds (Linkabord) so imagine it would be quite easy to rig some sort of cover up. I'm using the old Omlet run at present but that won't work once the plants start growing (assuming they do ).

[jakesmum]

ohh my favourite subject at the moment, i have 5 raised beds, we managed to get hold of some old fencing to make the sides and then filled in with top soil - which was £20 a ton and £35 delievery (£150 on mud shhhhhh) and now have carrots, p"Ooops, word censored!"ly, onion, pea's, beans, cabbage, broc's, sweet pea, more hebs, lettice, raddish - and i dont remember what else yet.

I'll have to take pictures soon though, yay raised beds are excellent

[chickencam]

We built our raised beds which are quite high (2ft) out of bits of wood that we got from a property developer friend. They are only untreated soft wood but we though we would give them a go because we had loads we used the rest on the log burner. They are the waste ends from roof trusses.

 

We made the frames for the lids out of 2x1 cheap treated timber from a DIY then stapled on the enviromesh. I will take some photos when I get a chance and post them. I will be up to my eyes in manure tomorrow big delivery coming to the allotment and rain is forecast Wish me luck

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I will take some photos when I get a chance and post them. I will be up to my eyes in manure tomorrow big delivery coming to the allotment and rain is forecast

 

I'd rather see photos of you up to your eyes in manure in the rain than your frames, to be honest .

[redhotchick]

One tip I would give is that when you place the bads down on the gound,make sure you can get a lawnmoer up between them,if its grassed, & make sure you can kneel comfortably between them too.

 

A couple of mine are too close & I have to balance the top of my foot on the bed behind to kneel, which is really uncomfortable

We learnt by our mistakes, & the 3 new ones he built for me a couple of months ago are perfect

 

Ah! too late! I had the lawnmower out this weekend and realised! I will have to strim it instead. It's not really grass, more weeds! You are right about the getting between them comfortably too, once the plants start growing up and bushy I may struggle! I think I left 400mm between each bed. I was trying to cram as much veg space in as possible without taking over the whole garden.

 

I will take some photos when I get a chance and post them. I will be up to my eyes in manure tomorrow big delivery coming to the allotment and rain is forecast

 

I'd rather see photos of you up to your eyes in manure in the rain than your frames, to be honest .

 

Ha ha ha, Me too!

Sorry Chickencam Good tip about looking on Ebay for enviromesh. Mice have chewed through some of mine

[chickencam]

You are all horrid

[Lesley]

One tip I would give is that when you place the bads down on the gound,make sure you can get a lawnmoer up between them,if its grassed, & make sure you can kneel comfortably between them too.

 

A couple of mine are too close & I have to balance the top of my foot on the bed behind to kneel, which is really uncomfortable

We learnt by our mistakes, & the 3 new ones he built for me a couple of months ago are perfect

 

Ah! too late! I had the lawnmower out this weekend and realised! I will have to strim it instead. It's not really grass, more weeds! You are right about the getting between them comfortably too, once the plants start growing up and bushy I may struggle! I think I left 400mm between each bed. I was trying to cram as much veg space in as possible without taking over the whole garden.

 

Been there - done that!

We ended up using the black sheet for pathways and then putting large'ish gravel down . Don't use pebbles - pebbles roll under your feet, you need irregular, sharp edged stuff which beds down to make a good pathway.

 

We've made raised beds in the polygreenhouse and the one criteria was that we would be able to get a wheelbarrow to the far end. All was fine but one of the beds shifted when filled with soil and we couldn't get a bracing piece in in time. That pathway is an inch narrower than the other so it is easier to take the wheelbarrow up one side than the other.

 

Chickencam - I do hope the weather is kind to you...........but if not, I hope there are photos

[Valkyrie]

Another idea I saw for spacing - I tend to plant diagonally to squeeze in as much as possible - was that pea netting strung out across the bed made it easier to keep a uniform diagonal system going, or a trellis - plant through the holes. I tend to do it by eye now - perhaps that's why everything is wonky!

At the moment I have pea netting strung across some calabrese. OH thought he would put canes across to stop it blowing away and they have actually made nice perches for the pigeons to eat through the netting without any hassle at all!

My enviromesh is on the currants at the moment, but when I did use it for the brassicas a couple of years ago it was the time when we had a hosepipe ban. It did keep off the butterflies, but the fleabeetles (we were infested with them - couldn't go outside without them landing all over you and the washing, ugh) collected in their millions all over the top and when we watered with the can it knocked them to the ground and some got inside from there. All we could hear was the munching. Not much left after that!

[chickencam]

We had hailstones and gales (ok only for about 15 minutes and before the muck arrived but it was quite dramatic, we hid in the shed)

 

We also had a couple of showers but most of the time it was quite sunny and windy.

 

The worst part was that the guy who delivered it couldn't get his tractor and trailer around the first bend in the path therefore we had to move about 60 wheelbarrow loads 300 yards

 

To say I was tired would be an understatement

 

It looks like a giant mole has built hills all over our plot now

 

On the plus side though it was really well rotted looked and smelt just like really good soil

[FeatherForecast]

Planting diagonally is definitely one of the best tips. You add the planting distance and the distance between rows and divide by 2. You can squeeze in loads that way. Humming line works quite well for me when it comes to keeping the birds off, and I resorted to organic slug killer in my first ever year of vegetable gardening - and that was on a third floor balcony!

 

Also try wandering around the garden with a hoe or one of those prongy cultivators on a stick and a glass of wine in the evenings. Poke weed seedlings and slugs viciously and enjoy the fact that the wine makes you feel all omnipotent and protective of your plot.

 

I hesitate to mention that I have just taken out my raised beds It is partly to make space for the new WIR, and partly because I am 4'11" with correspondingly short arms and ended up trampling all over them to tend them anyway... Traditional row planting works best for my personal vertical challenge.

 

Has anyone read John Seymour, the celebrated father of self sufficiency? He talks about "The Black Art of Muck Shifting". Too right. Last year, in addition to three tons of topsoil, we were on the recieving end of a ton of manure. Yes, that's right, £80 for a ton of poo. And it wasn't remotely well rotted, it smelled like sewers and took a day to shift. It has sat in the corner of what is now going to be the new WIR for a year and grown the most luxuriant nettles. It is now black and crumbly and odourless - time is a wonderful thing.

 

This weekend I am emptying the carefully constructed and lovingly filled raised beds so we can peg the mesh skirt of the WIR down. Hope the ladies appreciate it, my lumbar spine doesn't....

 

Best of luck. Grow some Long Arms if you can. x

[Redwing]

[quote name="Lesley Don't use pebbles - pebbles roll under your feet' date=' you need irregular, sharp edged stuff which beds down to make a good pathway.

 

quote]

 

I'm glad I read this before getting OH to shift loads of pebbles DOH!

 

[Lesley]

Oooops!

 

I used lovely beach pebbles at our last house and was always slipping along on them - not good when you are recovering from knee injury

 

We use granite chippings 20mm-30mm now.

[ClaireG]

I was getting serious raised bed envy yesterday Tashas are fantastic and there were some lovely ones at Harlow Carr as well.

[redhotchick]

I finally got some stuff in my raised beds. Phew!

Mostly various beans so far, but some green leaves, and courgettes too.

See "what are you sowing now" thread for all the details!