Looking Back At 2007

This post starts with a photo taken a couple of days ago on a frosty winter morning

This shows the veg plot as it stands now at the end of the year with winter getting underway.

We both knew that the garden would take a while to sort out but this can sometimes be a little disheartening. I think this is more to do with the size of the garden we have taken on and the amount of work we need to do. In my mind I have always thought that this would be a three to five year project. I suppose that part of this feeling could be the sections of the garden we have chosen to take on first. The fact that the recreational section of the garden nearest the house has been a little neglected means that we do not have a fantastic area to relax in by the house. Don't get me wrong, I think we have moved sections of the garden on fantastically.

What Went Right?

The year started really well with fantastic weather in the early part of the year. We moved on at a good pace getting the raised beds dug over and filled with some of the top soil from other parts of the garden.

Several of the crops were planted on time and gave us a reasonable amount of produce. These included:

• Early potatoes
• Garlic
• Shallots
• Broad beans
• Jerusalem artichokes

In fact, we are still eating the garlic, shallots and artichokes.

Several major jobs have been completed. These include the filling and digging over the raised beds for the first time. These may not sound major but they take about 12 hours each. The fruit bed took even longer as it is 2.5 times the size of the other beds.

The cordon fruit trees are in and the bed around them forms a good division between the veg plot and the rest of the garden. This looks so good that we are going to do something similar the other side of the path (the cordons only stretch across half the width of the garden at the moment).

The greenhouse was completed. Some of the work on the greenhouse could have gone better but we got there and it is stable and works. Yes, if I had to do it again I would do things differently. Remember, this was the first time I had done this so I think this went reasonably well.

What Went Wrong?

The weather! Yes I know that this is not in our control but boy did it make a mess of the middle of the year. We are grateful that the weather did not hit us as badly as some of the communities near here. Yes, our garden spent several weeks under a few inches of water but it was not several feet.

We did not plant some of the crops as early as we should have. This meant that they either failed or gave a very low yield. These included:

• Runner beans
• Peas

The runner beans low yield was baffling as the neighbours had a fantastic crop and a long season. Still, there is always next year.

What Is In At The Moment?

The planting for 2008 has started already. We have the first broad beans in the garden and they are 3-4 inches high and look to be doing very well. Close by we have the spring greens along with the late planted winter greens.

The fruit trees and bushes are all in the ground ready for the next year. This time last year they were in compost or were waiting to be ordered. In fact the fruit bed looks to be ready for the new year and should be low maintenance in 2008.

The rest of the planting for 2008 is a blank canvas.

Plans For 2008
There are several jobs that we know need doing in 2008:

• Finish leveling the paths
• The garage needs extending (we need storage space if we are going to grow a reasonable amount of food)
• 40m of fence at the end of the garden needs replacing
• A wildlife pond needs digging
• Build some cold frames

The next few days will also see us look at the plans for the rest of the vegetable plot. We can put in a firm planting regime now that the greenhouse is complete. This will be helped by the cold frames so I had better get those built by March :)

The fence is already underway. The old one had to be taken down as it was not stable enough to remain. The wood is here and just needs painting, if you can say 93 sq. m. just needs painting.

The wildlife pond and the levelling are complementary really as the earth removed will help with the levelling and also fill the raised beds.

Mark

All We Need Now Is Robin Hood !

Late in 2006 we took delivery of some fruit trees and several native hedge plant/bushes/trees. Now for some read forest. There were so many trees I expected them to be supplied with a band of Merry Men. Looking at the garden and the trees I was having mental difficulty figuring how to shoehorn them into the space we had allocated.

They had been delivered early and so spent most of the winter in compost on the patio whilst we prepared the area we were going to plant them in. This took a little longer than we thought it would. We had originally hopped to plant these whilst they were still dormant. The combination of a mild winter and a hectic time at work meant that by the time we got around to planting the trees they already had leaves on them.

The hedge was another matter. This has so far managed to spend all of 2007 in a large tub as the work at the end of the garden had a major set back with the near constant rain during May, June and July. The photo below shows the end of the garden on 28th July 2007. As you can see, there is a lot of surface water and this stopped us working on the end of the garden.

Aside: If you look at the water level and the raised beds you can see the amount of work that needs to be done to level the garden. All of the raised beds were put in using the first bed as a reference point (this sat level with the ground). All of the beds were levelled and each bed is level with the closest edge of the adjacent beds. I know they are not perfectly level but they are close enough given the scale and nature of the project. The water level under the closest bed is about 15cm under the bottom of the wooden surround.

Back to the trees. These had been selected by Karen with a few criteria in mind:

• Either self pollinating or complementary
• Make the season as long as possible
• No varieties which are commonly available in the shops

We also selected a tree which is not common but we hope will solve our drainage problem - a quince. These trees are supposed to love water and we are hoping that nature will help us at the end of the garden.

Leaving the existing apple tree to one side, we have added two rows (three trees per row) and a row of cordon trees (five trees) and the quince and we now have:

• One greengage
• Two plums
• Two pears
• Two cherries
• One Damson
• One quince
• Three apples

The two pears and three apple trees have been set as cordons. This is hoped to provide a natural divide in the garden between the orchard and the vegetable plot.

Mark

Spring 2007

We now find ourselves heading towards 2007. The garden has not been levelled but at least we have some raised beds and a starting point for the next year. So the Autumn comes and goes and we head through winter to the spring. Not a lot happens in the garden for a while and then spring appears on the horizon.

And the wind blows. And blows. And blows. Now remember the greenhouse frame in the garden. Well that survived OK. We still have a large amount of glass stacked up against the shed. Not as single panes but in groups - surely they will survive. Not on your Nelly! We lost about half of the glass during the strong winds. So a quick trip to the local builders merchants and we find out we are not alone. A slow and careful journey home and we have a full complement of glass. Now all that is needed is to finish the jigsaw. This waited until late March and one thing I can tell you is that the weather we had in the early part of this year made the glazing process a very hot experience. So hot I had to be transported to a local hostelry to recover - life's hard.

Planting
There is no point in having worked this hard if we are not going to plant anything. We were a bit late but the shallots and garlic arrived in the early new year. We decided to dedicate one of the beds to the two crops - about half a bed each.

I think that you can safely say that these two crops were a success and by April they were running away.

So what of the remaining beds. Well the asparagus bed was completed and filled with some gritty soil and this was also planted ready for 2007. Outside, we also managed to plant:

• Broad beans
• Runner beans
• Two crops of potatoes
• Jerusalem artichokes

All of these seemed to have performed moderately well for our first year here.

The start of May saw a dramatic change in the weather. In fact it seemed that it did not stop raining from early May through to late July. By June sections of the garden were under water and they stayed that way for several weeks. It was that bad that we actually lost a patch of the lawn because it was under water for so long. The bad weather just reinforced the fact that the raised beds were a good decision, If we had not done this then we would have lost a lot more.

The rain did cause some concern and we did wonder about some of the crops rotting. Particularly the garlic, shallots and potatoes. We ended up lifting the first two early and lost about one third to rot. The potatoes managed to fight on and we have only just (at the time of writing) started to buy potatoes again.

And Finally...
My advice to you is do not glaze a greenhouse on a bright sunny day. Well, not unless you need driving to a local watering hole for a few beers to replenish the fluid levels :)

Mark

You'll Need A Big Rake To Level That

As it was already summer we had missed the growing season for 2006 so some of the pressure was off. The next job we had was working out how we were going to lay out the plots. The area we had allocated for the vegetable plot was approximately 350 sq. metres. This would be plenty of space to grow enough food to support the two of us. In fact it would be too large.

Looking at the picture in the previous post you can see that the ground is uneven. It would be no small job to level this even now it had been rotorvated. We decided that we would not level the ground at this time. We also decided to use raised beds for cultivation. Using raised beds would also solve the problem we have with poor drainage.

The layout we settled on was to leave the greenhouse where it was and to put in ten raised beds. These would be 4m x 2m. These would start about 2m behind the greenhouse and they would be split into two rows with 1m between the plots.

A quick call to a local lumber yard and I was a few hundred pounds lighter in the wallet and the proud owner of approximately 150m of timber. Now all I had to do was put it together.

Starting with the bed nearest the greenhouse we used the ground there to set the level for the rest of the beds. At the end of two nights we had the ten raised beds in place and level. The startling thing was that the beds finally showed the extend of the levelling problem. The ground dropped by 7cm in only a few metres. This left us with some beds which were flush with the ground and some that we suspended in mid air. At the time of writing (nearly a full year on) two of the beds still remain unused and are floating on wooden stakes.

The immediate problem of how to fill the beds was solved by work we were doing on some of the beds elsewhere in the garden. The front garden yielded enough soil to fill two of the beds to and inch or so below the top of the timber frame. Another bed in the garden to at the back of the house allowed us to fill one more. The soil also had a large amount of grit and sand mixed in to it. Ideal for crops requiring good drainage.

So, now we have three beds which can be used now with another seven in the wings. Oh and a greenhouse still lurking in the background.

It was time for the raised beds to take rest whilst we had a look at the greenhouse. Out comes the assembly instructions and the telephone directory. Two days later we have a tonne of sand, gravel and a few bags of cement in the front garden. This is where we Iearn how many wheelbarrow loads it takes to move one tonne of sand and gravel - LOTS. And it hurts the day afterwards. I have also found out how much your shoulders ache after mixing 3/4 tonne of cement by hand - in a wheelbarrow. Memo to self - next time hire a cement mixer.

With the foundations laid my next job was to learn how to lay bricks. Or in our case - cement blocks. It was at this stage that I discovered that I really need to do this job when I am not tired and can pay more attention to what I am doing. After checking the levels on the blocks I found out that they are not, how can I put this, well level. They are not too far out and we decide to carry on. The greenhouse goes on the base reasonably well and there is only one part of the frame which is out to the point where it is worrying. We will only find out how bad this is when we glaze that section of the frame. A job for another day.

And Finally...
We now have three raised beds ready for use, a greenhouse frame on a cement block base and I have learned that when working in our garden we buy things by the tonne.

Mark

You Bought A What !

This is where I reveal that Karen has an eye for a bargain. So we have a large area of land, I like tomatoes which leads us to the need for a greenhouse. So I get home from work one day to the bargain hunter of the century telling me that she had bought a 6m x 4m greenhouse. All we had to do was to collect it.

"Can't it be delivered" you hear me cry.

"No - it is second hand and is collect only."

Hmmmmmmm... Never one to turn down a challenge especially one which has on reflection saved us several hundred pounds I start looking for van hire companies. I had already worked out that a family saloon car will not be up to the job. So one Saturday afternoon we set off to Hull with large sums of money to collect the aforementioned "bargain".

Four hours later we have a large collection of semi assembled greenhouse, glass, used plant pots and other miscellaneous gardening equipment. We also had two key items - the assembly instructions supplied with the original greenhouse and a biscuit tin full of nuts and bolts.

Three Dimensional Jigsaw
As a child I was never too keen on jigsaws. My parents loved them but not me. Here I was twenty plus years on with a large aluminium and glass which has cost us the same as a life times supply of jigsaws.

The first thing to do was to get an idea on location for the monster. So one day I came up with the bright (or not so bright) idea of loosely putting together the shell to see how it would look. Do you ever get the feeling that you should not have started something but once you have got going it well sort of takes on a life of its own. Well this was one of those occasions. Part way through I knew that drawing the outline is sand - or even pegs and string should have been enough. But hey, I was half way there so why not carry on!

Six hours, a hundred or so nuts and bolts and I had put together a master piece. Well I had the aluminium shell standing on its own and I knew I had enough metal to put it together and keep the glass in place.

And really that's how it stayed for several months, standing there looking silver and making me feel guilty about not putting the concrete base down.

So What Were You Doing?
In the meantime, summer had started and I was busy at work so had little time for the garden. Karen was working on the borders whilst I was working. It was July before we could spend some serious time attacking the crop of weeds to which we had become the proud owners.

Having bought some of the weeds under control it was back to the vegetable plot and the greenhouse. By this time it had spent the majority of the summer standing at the end of the garden making us feel guilty and rattling in the occasional strong wind.

So one morning in early July I was sitting with a cup of tea looking at the area I was to attack next and the urge to get the veg plot in some order became too strong. Out came the yellow pages and two hours later I had a large rotorvator, a manual, some basic training (throttle, brake and don't put your feet under the spinny things) and a plentiful supply of petrol.

So off I went man and machine not so much in harmony more like in competition. If you have never used a rotorvator then you need to know two things:

• It wants to skim across the soil doing as little work as possible
• You want it in the earth doing as much work as possible.

So off I set pulling the machine back and forcing it as deep into the ground as possible. The two of us managed to fight against each other we me winning - well most of the time I was winning - in straight lines. All was going well for about an hour. At this point I was getting pretty close the the aluminium monster and had to work out a plan for working around it. I was sure that if rotorvator met greenhouse then there would be a large amount of noise and a small pile of useless aluminium. This would result in a conversation I did not want to have. Having worked out a path for the machine the only thing to do was to bend the rotorvator to my will.

It was at this point that I discovered two flaws in my plan. Firstly, the area man and machine were approaching was the area around the old fruit trees and for some unknown (at the time) reason the machine would occasionally fly out of the ground and head towards the lawn at high (for a rotorvator) speed. The second problem was the holes left by the fruit trees I had removed several months before. Now whilst rotovators are good at dealing with flat ground they are not known for the skill in descending into and climbing out of holes five feet across and three feet deep. Working out that if I went around the holes I would eventually be able to push the earth in and fill the holes I managed to solve this problem. So now I had a flat(er) surface I could continue with my battle with the machine.

After several long hours and a large quantity of water it was done. We were now the proud owners of a patch of very fluffy soil. With a half assembled greenhouse.

Just to put this in perspective, from the edge of the lawn show to the fence at the end of the garden is 35m.

And Finally...

Like a hire car, the company likes to have the machine returned to them full of fuel. Never try to fill the tank over the lawn the wife wants to keep as you are bound to spill some petrol.

Never mind... It will grow back.

Mark

Clearing The Vegetable Plot

At the end of 2005 we decided to start by clearing the vegetable plot. This was to take up the majority of the last 25 metres of the garden. The plot would not extend all the way to the end as we decided to have a wildlife area at the very end. Looking back after this years rain it looks like this was a good idea.

Having decided to clear the end of the garden this left us with two immediate jobs:

• Remove the dead trees and those in poor condition
• Clear the grass from the end of the garden

When we purchased the house we had one apple tree which was fruiting and produces a good crop. The remaining trees were barely alive and did not fruit at all. To me this is a waste of space and these had to go.

So in Late 2005 and early 2006 you found me in the garden with a saw, axe and a good stout spade. The picture below shows the state of the garden part way through this work.

The tree in the foreground is the one tree which fruits well. The rest of the tree stumps are the remains of the unproductive trees. You can also see (to the rear of the photograph) one of the trees which still needed to be taken down.

Taking these trees down when we did also introduced us to one of the less endearing features of the garden and the area we live - water. During the summer the water table is a boon as we do not have to worry about a hosepipe ban or even watering at all. From late autumn to early spring we occasionally get days where the water collects and takes a few days to drain. You can see this in the photograph above. The result was that after cutting down the trees and digging the stumps out the rain created four small ponds which lasted for about three weeks. In fact these holes lasted for about another two months before any attempt at levelling the ground filled them in.

Clearing the grass was a little easier. It is one of the few times we have resorted to chemicals. It was simply a case of waiting for a still weekend and getting out and spaying the grass with weedkiller.

And finally...
After starting this job with hand tools, I would recommend that you buy a large axe and either rent or buy a chainsaw.
Mark

So, Where Do We start

With such a large space at the rear of the house we really needed to start to plan how we were going to use it. It was obvious that we could not do all of what we wanted to in one year and certainly not immediately.

A Rough Sketch
The starting point for the design was to split the garden into three equally sized parts:

• Recreational space nearest to the house
• Orchard / fruit cage
• Vegetable plot

Three plots about 25m long should allow plenty of space for each project. So what are we expecting in each space?

Recreational Area
This area needs to contain a lot when you consider it's size. The area currently contains a border down the right hand side running it's full length. On the left we have the garage and another border with a paved seating area. There is also a garden shed which has seen better days. The end of this area is marked by the rowan, holly and rhododendron. When we have finally finished with this space it will need to contain:

• Garage extensionDecking
• Ornamental fish pond
• Pergola
• Lawned area
• Patio in front of the house
• House extension (possibly)

As well as all of this it will need to be functional. This is rather a large demand and all of a sudden 25m x 10m looks small.

Orchard
This space should be the easiest to get start and finish. In this space we want to plant a variety of fruit trees which will provide us with fruit from early summer through to late autumn. Our initial thoughts included:

• Apples
• Pears
• Plums
• Cherries (possibly)

Vegetable Plot
From the start we knew that this area was going to be the most work. Not only in long term upkeep but also to get the ground prepared and the major structural components in place. The whole garden from the house to the very end is both uneven and prone to water logging

If we were going to succeed here we were going to have to solve both problems to some degree. Whilst some plants are more than happy to have their roots under water, there are just as many which do not like it. This was bound to make our life difficult in this area. The solution we decided upon was to use raised beds for planting. This would allow us to provide a reasonably well drained environment for the vegetables. It would also have the side effect of dividing this area into manageable areas.

Of course no self respecting vegetable gardener would be without a greenhouse. This was also an essential as both Karen and I love tomatoes. In order to get any reasonable crop in the UK a greenhouse would be required.

Who, When and How?
So now we know what we want we simply need to work out how to achieve this. It was always known that this would take a while to implement. In fact I expected about five years from start to finish. At the time of writing we are currently two years down the road. Looking at what we have left to complete this seems to be a reasonable estimate.

From the start of this I have always maintained that my knowledge of gardening extends to recognising when it is hot enough to sit out in it (with a Gin and Tonic of course). This does limit the options for me in the flower and planting department. One thing that I can contribute is the ability to dig holes - sometimes without putting the pointy thing (garden fork - Karen) through my boots. With this in mind the division of labour was obvious; I would be responsible for building things and getting the vegetable plots ready for use whilst Karen would look after the borders and stop me from digging up her precious plants.

Wildlife
One of our objectives is to encourage as much natural life into the garden as possible. Now we know that this can mean pests but we would also like to make sure that the garden is more friendly to the pest killers than the pests. With this in mind we also decided to allow for wildlife havens throughout the whole garden.

And Finally...
One thing we have not touched upon so far is that we wanted the garden to be organic as far as possible. We realised that we would ave to use some chemicals to get going. Let's face it, 250 sq metres of grass is a devil to remove without using weedkiller. We are not saying it cannot be done but we also have to keep on with the day jobs
Mark

In The Beginning...

2004 saw a few changes in our lives. Karen and I both started new jobs within a month of each other, both in the same city some 50 miles from home. At this time we decided that we should start to look for a new home nearer to our work. One of the key requirements was that our new home should have a large garden. Karen is a keen gardener and I am a keen cook. The aim was to have a leisure space and somewhere to grow some of our own food.
Karen took on the job of searching for our new home and soon discovered that estate agents have an interesting idea of a large garden. The persistence paid off and Karen eventually found the house which has been our home since July 2005.

There is nothing special about the house in which we live. It is a normal semi-detached house built around the 1920's. The exception is the garden which is large for a house of this type, especially when compared to modern developments. The front garden is pretty normal but the rear garden is 75m x 10m. It was this that appealed to both of us.

The Front Garden
As already noted, this is normal for the house. Originally this had a raised border, a lawn and a privet hedge to the front. Early on we decided that we would like to concentrate our efforts on the rear garden. With this in mind we removed the lawn and tidied up the border to make the front garden reasonably maintenance free.

Don't get me wrong, we have not abandoned this area. We have simply created a space which is still living but takes less work to keep in good order.


The Rear Garden
With a garden this large we knew that we had our work cut out for us. The original garden was predominately laid to grass. The space was divided into two areas by a rowan tree, holly bush and a rhododendron. The area closest to the house had a few borders and a seating area. The rear part of the garden (which occupied two thirds of the space) was grassed with a few fruit trees.

The five fruit trees were set out down the right hand of the garden. They were of variable age and quality. Four of the trees had seen a lot of pruning over the years. The trees were no longer productive. One of the trees (an apple) we still in good order and produced a wonderful tasting apple.

The entire rear garden was uneven and rain collected in some sections of the garden. In fact this could be an inch or more deep in places. There followed many debates on how we could solve this problem. You will find out about these as our story progresses.

Our Aims
With such a large blank canvas to paint upon we need to set out or long term aims:

• Produce as much of our own fruit and vegetables as possible;
• Provide a space to entertain;
• Be a relaxing place to rest.

As with all gardens, our designs are fluid and are bound to change as we progress.
And Finally...
This blog is the story of how we got to here and where we are going in the future. I expect there to be a brief flurry of posts whilst we bring you up to date but that this will settle down as this becomes more of a diary.
Our experience so far shows that you will be party to our mistakes and our triumphs. We hope that you will follow our journey and share in our experiences.
Mark