Grreetings from Sunny (well, it is today) South Cumbria

[bramble]

Hi Chris and a very warm welcome from sunny Dublin.

[chris_m]

Pics were requested so let's see how I manage at posting some

Fruit Cage

This started out last year as a 2m x2m thicket of raspberries which were here when I moved in. After they finished fruiting I thinned them out into a U-shape and added supports.
I also added a couple of blackcurrants and a blackberry in what was the flower bed beside the fence.
This spring I chucked some nets over but decided it was too much of a pain to keep removing (and untangling) them and refitting so decided to build a cage and extend it to be rectangular, also allowing me to add some more - so in the front I now have another type of blackcurrant, a whitecurrant and a redcurrant. I'm thinking of adding a tayberry too.
I've still one section of netting (the green stuff) to change but that job's waiting for the Tree Bumble Bees in the nest box behind the cage to die off naturally. Since they have been doing such a good job of pollination I don;t want to disturb them too much.


Pots & Tubs

An assortment of stuff in pots on my patio. From left to right I have four dwarf broad beans in two tubs, two tubs of peas, against the trellis are some dwarf runner beans, then three different tomatoes and a couple of tubs of carrots. In front of those are some sunflower seedlings and a tub each of two types of leek.
Not shown are the bags of spuds nor the two dustbins with parsnips in them as an experiment.


The Veggie Patch

Afraid this isn't very conducive to photographing due to the proportions so it's had to be a shot from the upstairs window. The whole patch is some 5m wide by 4m long.

Towards the front from left to right I have;
sweetcorn, onions, leeks, green sprouting broccoli under the hooped net, courgettes and swedes with parsnips between the swedes, fence, more onions and parsnips, romanesco and (partially obscured by the honeysuckle) carrots. Not visible immediately behind the garden fence are spuds, maincrop in front of the broccoli and 1st earlies in front of the romanescos.

At the back, left to right, there is a young bramley apple tree, green and purple sprouting broccoli in the big net, the fence again, sprouts and caulis in the other big net and what should be peas but they haven't done very well unfortunately.

Behind all that lot is the strawberry patch which was here when I moved in, all I've done is tidy it up and build a netting frame with lifting panels to give me easy access but not the birds.

The fences are intended more as windbreaks than dividers. I did try a couple of rows of spuds last year, after I'd destroyed the mossy lawn that used to be there, but we had a spell of strong winds and the poor things got battered very badly, hence the windbreaks.


As you can see, I do have a greenhouse but I'm not using that this year, other than bringing on a few hardy perennial flowers from seed which have now gone out in the front garden. If it seems I've got the hang of everything I'm trying this year I might have a go at some greenhouse produce next year.

I'm planning an alternative layout next year, since in retrospect the patch is too crowded - especially with regards to space for me getting in to some of the stuff. If my experiments with tubs and bins work then I'll be putting more in those to free up space in the veggie patch. I'll also relocate the tubs off the patio and sideway to what is currently a poor patch of lawn in front of the fruit cage.

[veggiechicken]

Looks great, Chris and you've mastered the photos! You have extra marks for doing that

[chris_m]

Well, the first year's attempt is almost over and plenty of lessons learned, I hope. The most important, IMO, were;

1) Digging a few bags of compost into a sandy soil ex-lawn isn't enough to give the plants what they need.
2) Just because the garden centre has veggie seedlings or seed spuds on sale doesn't mean it's the right time to plant them. For example, I got caught badly with swedes I bought in March. The things bolted in June and, when looking it up, I discovered that the seeds oughtn't to have been sown until around then let alone be well grown seedlings in March.
3) Parsnips (my favourite veg) don't like being transplanted, they go all knobbly with roots all over the place. Again, these were shop-bought seedlings. The seeds I sowed in the ground didn't do so well either, but I think that was just the poor soil. However, I did pull one of a batch I sowed in a dustbin of compost as an experiment and, although still fairly small (but not too small to roast, yum yum) because they haven't been in long enough yet, it was one single long root, nice and straight. I'm looking forward to the rest ;-)
4) It's a good idea to find out about pests before they strike. I'd heard of carrot root fly so netted the carrots. I'd heard of Cabbage White butterflies so I'd netted against them. I hadn't heard of cabbage root flies, until after they struck - butterfly netting doesn't stop them :-(

Nothing really did as well as I'd hoped, although I do have a fair amount in the freezer so it wasn't a complete dead loss. The only things that really did well, against my hopes, were the horsetail weeds which found underneath my brassicas a great place to hide.

So, based on the lessons, it's all change for next year.

The biggest change is that I'm converting the open patch into semi-raised beds, gravelboard sides, 3 boards high, sunk into the ground and levelled so that they're about 6" above the ground at the high end of the patch, 10-12" above at the low end, then the contents dug out to about a foot below the bottom of the boards, weed barrier membrane laid in and fixed to the boards, then the original contents replaced and topped off with manure and what should be decent topsoil. The beds are only 2'6" wide so in the future I can reach everything without treading the soil down which should help with the soil structure.

I've done three 12' x 2'6" beds so far, the fourth is waiting for the sweetcorn to make its mind up if it's going to mature or not. I could do with a rest anyway, I estimate I've dug out, and replaced, something like 7-8 tons so far, ouch !!

After the cabbage root fly attack I abandoned the thought of netting the whole area in a cage - I might have got away with it using butterfly netting but if I tried that with a fine mesh I think the whole lot would be the other side of the county when the first strong winds hit. Therefore, I've netted two of the semi-raised beds with 3' high frames and hinged panels to allow access, all lined with veggiemesh.
That's where my brassicas and carrots will be going next year. Although I already have some kale and overwintering onions coming up in the first one, I don't plan on putting anything else in before the spring, I'll let the rain and the worms have a good go at the soil & manure first.

I'm also going to be giving the square-foot gardening method a try next year, mixing the plants around as well as putting some marigolds in amongst them, to try and confuse pests in the unnetted beds.

I've cleared the grotty patch of lawn that I mentioned previously and covered it with bark chippings as a sort of hard standing for tubs, etc. I'll be doing all my spuds in tubs (got half a dozen tubs of summer-planting ones in and looking more like triffids already), almost certainly some extra parsnips in a bin and I may even try some extra carrots and dwarf broad and runner beans or peas in tubs there as well.

Finally, I'm going to stop using the greenhouse as a "glass shed" and try using it for its intended purpose. My tomatoes did fairly well on the patio but they did suffer from wind damage, as well as the inclement summer we've had. So they can go in the greenhouse next year, and I'll also try cucumbers, aubergines and melons. It's a pretty tall GH so I may try some sweetcorn in there as well as outside.

In conclusion, although 2017 wasn't a dead loss, especially for a first try, fingers crossed for a better 2018 season.