Get yourself a brew and take a deep breath! - When i started the garden due to it being wonky (the whole property is) i thought "Raised beds". Looking back, i should have bit the bullet and started digging, however, the garden is alot of sand, this i know for a fact as we had an extension built onto it back in 98 and it was lots of sand and clay that came out! First beds went in, spuds for several years and a few runner beans. Beds, filled with muck off the pile, bags of compost, shove in a tuber and hay presto, theres my veg! Well, those beds rotted after a few years, so then the fun started. Original plan was a few beds. Over 3 years, ALL 2ft deep, i put 3, 6ft X 4ft beds in, 8, 4ft square beds, an IBC cut in half, an old bath, and 8ft by 2ft bed to fill a space (its 2ft 5 at the other end (garden wonky!)) and several belfast sinks that we've inherited over the years. reclaimed slabs (off a pile where they were all shoved on my field), blue bricks, blue tiles, lethal red quarry tiles used for edging (little buggers to walk on) and several buckets and mineralised lick tubs for extra planting. NOTHING ORGANISED AND TIDY HERE!! With lambing in December, i have plenty of muck, so beds, once all cleared of everything and weeded, muck straight from the shed, shoved on. I dont rotate the veg, i rotate the soil. I know it sounds like hard work (it is) but i know what grows best and where, so as the compost has rotted down, i make a trench, fill with muck, toss on from the next row and keep going around. ITS WORKED LIKE THIS FOR SEVERAL YEARS!!
However, the last few years, the beds have been slightly rotting (think raw hot muck cooking away all winter waiting for the spring sowing!) Last year, i had to bite the bullet and replace ALL the wooden beds. When i bought them originally, it cost me £250 for all the boards. It would have cost me £750 this year and i dont have it so i had to merge. The 6ft beds are now one long 21ft bed by 6ft wide. I have been practising, i can stretch, just about to reach the middle. The 4fts are now also 21ft long as they are in front of the previous bed, but we have dug down and lowered this bed as since i have lost my paths in between the beds, the wheel barrow now has one access, straight down between them.
My alone 4ft beds are now slightly smaller. I was offered a type of concrete panel that is around 3.5ft long by 3ft deep, so we got enough to make 3 beds. These have also been dug down into the ground to lower them down. My 8ft bed is the last original wooded bed left, but that was also the last one to be put in, so i am hoping he has a few years left.
I had help doing all this, thankfully and he has shifted alot of soil, however, there wasnt as much as i thought that there would be as the beds were pretty low, so i have purchased compost, and the big bed has been filled with muck as described earlier on. However, i have done this differently by layering it. A wheel barrow of muck a day, then layer with compost, then repeat up until i got about 6 inches from the top. The cattle were also in so i had plenty of muck! My Charlottes are in this bed and they fill a space about 6 ft x 8ft (i'm guessing the length). I am also trying this year Rudolphs. Discovered them in Tescos last year and loved them so have bought some sets and giving them a go. They are not on muck.
There were problems here with mum and that bed, 21ft x 4ft has had no muck on it. I do realise i might not get a good crop of spuds on this bed, am prepared for that, so have got some compost in to help. I'm hoping that my courgettes, winter squash and i'm trying sweet corn, will be fine on that bed as well, (i have images in my head of how i hope my garden will look, which of course NEVER matches how it does look!)
Sorry for the long essay, trying to explain why and what etc.
We have couple of multifuel stoves and have some logs, but mainly burn smokeless so cant spread the ashes.
Brassicas, i love them but nothing worse than seeing butterflies inside the netting, wondering how they got there, even worse, finding catterpillars but no butterflies, wondering how they got there!! Love leeks, have never managed to get them bigger than a spring onion! Carrots never go bigger than my little finger. When the mice dont eat them, mangetout NEVER make it to the house. Sweet mangetout? waste of time steaming, pop it in your mouth raw. Lovely! Love broad beans, can grow them too! Got suttons in at the moment in one of the IBC halves with a few spuds as i'm sure i read somewhere that Broad Beans grown with spuds is good.
I knew that this 6ft bed would be ockered to get at due to its size but i was limited with what i could do due to how the garden is. Tilts several directions at the same time. You stand behind this big bed and you're very much aware that you're standing at least a 6 inches higher than the bottom of it!
The only advantage about the garden is that its south facing but i have a holly hedge all round and when the sun is out you can see where there are shady areas. Mum planted 2 conker trees on it, won't let them be cut down, a whopping great yew tree, 2 lime trees, plum tree that i have threatened to chop his head off unless he gives me plums (he has obliged the last few years) and 2 apple trees. We have alot on a little space.
Also, my patch!! My beloved patch!! This is 6ft square, the sunniest, brightest spot in the garden, originally where a greenhouse was, that we gave away due to never using it!! Potatoes, success! Runner beans, MAJOR success. Lots of muck on it one winter, result, fabulous courgettes!! THEN! "Oh, where can i put this?" Mum plants 3 conkers!! Fast forward several years, the biggest is now about 12 ft tall and towers over my patch and casts shade onto my 6ft bed. The other 2 were "accidentally decapitated" last year! So i have dedicated this patch to wildlife. Lavender on it at the moment with some marigolds and borage coming through. The decapitated trees have grown back HOW?
Extra watering for me. Mum also planted a conker on a bank behind a breezeblock wall holding the garden up. That too has shot up about 12ft high, we get conkers off that one.
So, if you've managed to reach the end, 6ft x 8ft after spuds?