Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi all,

This seems like a nice place to put my roots down so I thought I would, and then pick all your brains!

I put my name down for an allotment a few months ago but as the waiting list is over 2 years I have got impatient and decided to convert part of the back garden into a mini allotment!

Given the time of year is now a good time to do this, as I understand it I can dig in the existing grass and that should get it off to a good start. Would I be better then leaving it as it is for the winter and then digging it, or with a bit of compost could I grow something? (more impatience! )

The garden isn't that big to start with so this isn't going to be a very large patch so I know I will need to plan. I'm also wondering whether raised beds would be better as the garden sort of slopes down towards the bit that I'm planning to dig so I wonder if water logging is potentially going to be a problem.

All thoughts/suggestions gratefully received!

Hi JG and welcome to the Vine. You'll get loads of advice and have a good laugh here too.
Now is an ideal time to mark out thearea you wanna use for your veg plot and dig it over. You say you are thinking about using raised beds too. Thre are those who swear by them and those who just use their ground as it is. Although you say your garden slopes down to the area you plan to use, unless water run-off is a problem at the moment, or that part of your garden already has drainage problems, there is no necessaity for raised beds. However, they may look tidier, make it easier to plan cropping and means you should never have to walk on your soil. If you opt for raidsed beds, make them no more than 4 ft wide. This ensures that you can reach the centre of the bed without having to stand on it. I know it doesn't sound very wide but remember you may have to reach crops in the centre by going over the tops of crops at the edges ofthe bed. In addition, raised beds warm up quicker and drain faster too.
No matter what system you opt for, dig over your area, apply compost / manure as necessary - remembering that some crops don't grow to their best in freshly manured ground.
Enough for just now - sure others will be along to pass on their shared wisdoms too. Let us know what you decide, what sort of area you have and what you wanna grow and we'll do our best to tailor the advice for you.
Good luck

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Rat

British by birth
Scottish by the Grace of God

Blog updated Wednesday November 13th

Hello Jenny - from Jennie

Welcome to the Vine!

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~
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

Hi JennieG, I did just what you are suggesting. In my garden, starting 2 years ago, I skimmed off the turves of grass and stacked them green side down. I dug over the remaining soil in the winter ready for planting in spring. The next year,same again and the patch got a bit bigger and I'm just ready to extend again for next season. The stacked turves are now nicely rotted and I mix them with a bit of manure for home made compost. Any garden waste goes into the Dalek composter for reincorporating into the soil. Apart from adding a little blood fish and bone to the soil, I've done very little else to it and for the last two years I've had a good crop of root veg and loads of salads. SO give it a go and good luck and welcome to the vine.

Hello Jenny and welcome to the vine!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Hello Jenny and welcome. You'll soon feel really at home here.
I did the same - had a long lawn, don't like mowing grass! I skimmed off the turf then double-dug. I made a trench 2 spades depth and buried the turves upside down at the bottom then replaced the soil. You can do this a couple of spades at a time - not a whole trenchful. I was still at work then and came home, got my boots on and did a row every evening except when it was tippling down with rain. You can get a long way quite fast like that. By spring it will be ready to go!

Best wishes with it. I don't think I'd bother with raised beds if you plan to grow on your lottie in 2 years time.

Cheers,

Flum

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Earth laughs in flowers. Ralph Waldo Emerson

www.vegheaven.blogspot.com

Updated November 30th - Mr Stinky's Excellent Adventure (and a Christmas Cake)

If you fancy "not digging" over all that turf, have a look at Lasagne Gardening (order online from your library?) which tells you how to layer cardboard, compost etc which will break down into nice soil ready for planting.

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~ What do I think of Western civilisation? I think it would be a very good idea ~ Gandhi

Hi and welcome Jenny! This is my first year growing and I did the same thing as well - my approach was to skim off the top layer of turf, double dig and add a layer of topsoil because the original soil was very poor quality and very very stony. We built some decking at the same time so OH edged my plot with left over decking boards which I guess makes it half raised (if there is such a thing!). I had some great successes in my first year, what a steep learning curve it's been but such fun too. I also have quite a few containers which are just about coming to an end now. Go for it, and report back often on your progress, and on the joy it brings you as well.

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Life may not be the party we hoped for but since we're here we might as well dance

Hi Jenny, and a warm welcome to the vine!

We started out late last year by lifting a row of pavers and then digging over the ground and adding compost. We did this all around the back yard and at the side of the house, then when we realised we weren't going to have enough room looked into an allotment, took on one that was 8' deep in weeds, double dug that last winter, took on a second half plot, dug that over late winter and have had our first years growing this year! We've supplemented this growing space with lots of containers, and have had a good first years growing! I wish you as much fun and tasty produce as we've had, and as many friends on the vine as we feel we have!

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Blessings
Suzanne (aka Mrs Dobby)

'Garden naked - get some colour in your cheeks'!

The Dobby's Pumpkin Patch - a blogspot work in progress!
Last updated 26th November2008 - more new piccies!

Welcome to the vine. There are few of us who are growing vegetables in our garden. So plenty to talk about later with the challenges facing small garden plot & container growing.

I also started mine this year with a 3ft by 13ft raised bed, 2 planks high but I don't have walking access on one side as it's against a low hedge that is a border between ours and neighbour's garden...it's not easy to reach out the far end of bed unless you really stretch out your body (very uncomfortable) or stand on the two planks. So do think carefully over the width of the bed. I personally like raised beds because they're neat (& pretty), easier to control/maintain/pull weeds, heard they drain water well too and you can incorporate your own great looking soil coz I'm bed vain.

I think you're pretty well covered on advice from other viners so I won't add any more. Good luck and enjoy veg gardening. It's made my life more meaningful.

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Food for Free

Hi Jenny,
welcome to the vine its been a wonderful sorce of advice and quite a few laughs too, you're gonna love it!
Lainey lou x

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Hi Jenny & welcome. I'd just like to second everything that's been said above & say give it a go either in raised beds & containers or in the ground depending on how much digging you want to do. You could grow something overwinter in pots or a veg. bed such as autumn onion sets, garlic, turnips, spring greens, perpetual spinach or salad leaves maybe with just a little protection (cloche/fleece etc) for the more tender crops in the worst of the winter. Good luck & enjoy.

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Into every life a little rain must fall.

Hi Jenny, welome to the vine,

as well as all of the above, dont forget containers and big pots.

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Kindest regards, David.

http://pigletsplots.blogspot.com/
updated - Sunday 19th at 2100hrs

Thank you everybody for your replies!

I think that I might leave the raised bed idea for now but as I dig leave pathways between the beds so I still have something to walk on that is only containing the original grass.

I can't see that they would be very big though as the bit of garden is not that big, without measuring it I have no idea how big (small!) it is. It seems to be that 4 beds are normally used for rotation but I think if I do that they might just be too small, so I don't know if it would be better to have 3 more decent sized ones instead.

About the pots - I am thinking that next year I can have fruit bushes in pots on the decking area and probably do garlic etc that way as well.

The local stables may well be my next port of call for some nice manure to dig in with the grass - that'll make the car smell nice!

Other than that, I think I just need a bigger garden!! At the moment I am only planning on sacrificing half the grass, but we'll see what happens...Digging starts on Saturday.....

Thanks again everyone!

Hi Jenny. Welcome to the vine.

Hello again!

Well, digging has begun, and I can safely say that once I have finished the garden allotment I'll be able to make a rockery!! Who knew it was possible for so many stones, bits of brick and lumps of concrete to be in one space!

I have split the garden space up into four separate beds, have completely dug over one and started on number two. Some of the grass has been dug in and some is being piled up to turn into future compost.

There was a ton of over clearing to do before all that could be started so the whole garden looks completely different (and much better now) so I'm pretty happy. Didn't get my blueberry bush though which was a bummer but will get it this week, it's pot is ready and waiting!

Hi Jenny, just thought I'd say 'Welcome' and add my two penn'orth...
You say that the ground you're growing in is at the bottom of a slope? I was just wondering if 'frost pockets' might cause you a problem? Cold air naturally travels down hill, and then kind of settles at the lowest point. This shouldn't cause undue problems if the slope carries on downwards past where you'll be growing, but if there's a wall or solid fence or something which could block the 'flow' of cold air, then raised beds might be necessary. Otherwise the ground will be slow to warm up in the spring, and could get cold earlier in the autumn.
Sounds like you've been really busy already, and enjoying it too?!!

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Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Hi,

It carries on and then levels out again so from what you say it shouldn't be a problem.

Yes I am enjoying it, although will enjoy it more once I see from fruits of my labour of course!!