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Posted: Sunday 10 October, 2010

by Rosemary at 7:44pm in Gardening 1 comment Comments closed

When we first moved here, we identified the small paddock behind the West range as the mose likely site for our vegetable garden. It is also where the coils for the ground source heat pump are being installed - NEXT WEEK!

Given the time of year and the approaching groundworks, it seemed like a good time to start planning the vegetable garden. As usual, we're doing it all on paper (well, on computer) first - much easier to move things around! Last night, we had our first planning meeting and Dan's started getting the design drafted.

The area is 0.78 acres and has to accommodate a polytunnel (maybe not this year though), five raised vegetable beds at 1.2m wide, a bed for comfrey and the comfrey barrels, compost bays and water tanks. We're planning to move one or both of the big tanks beside the barn into the vegetable garden to collect the rainwater off the West range to use for irrigation, particularly in the polytunnel.

The planned polytunnel is 22ft by 30ft and the five raised beds are 18m long (apologies for the use of imperial and metric!). There's still enough room for more beds or another polytunnel and we might put a small shed in for tools.

As the candles guttered, metaphorically speaking, I started drafting a planting plan. This sounds a bit anal, but it really helps us come spring. The plan incudes and overview of varieties, a detailed plan for each bed and a calender, monthly in winter and weekly April to October. This means that once spring comes, we only have to look at the sheet to see what's to be done that week - no thinking required! The plan will be refined year on year, as the fruit garden and the polytunnel come on and as our experience grows.

We will start with the infrastructure - repairing the fence and gates, putting up new guttering, moving the water tanks then building and filling the beds. It's quite an investment in both time and money, so we hope that the preplanning will avoid costly mistakes. Hopefully, we'll be ready to start planting in spring.

Comments

peter

Wednesday 13 October, 2010 at 1:53pm

Really interested to hear how this goes. I have long term plans to replicate something similar (probably in Welsh border country) in a year or two with a big veg garden and poly tunnel so you will make a great guinea pig!

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