[Bert]

Morning everyone


Quick question   how would you all go about designing/layout a garden from scratch?
The short version. I’m building my own house on a 3/4 acre. Mostly peat bog, why would we want to make life easy for ourselves   .
The garden must have a veggie garden area (dog free zone). Space for dogs to play, place for stuff ( boat, mowers, scaffold tower etc) and sheds, a cottages garden and some trees  !
I don’t want much    .

[doganjo]

I built my own house years ago - not boggy but bedrock so difficult to find enough soil to plant into.  I had more land than you but I sectioned off about a fifth of an acre - what I thought I needed that would relate directly to the house

I found the most productive areas and cultivated that. Fenced off an area for kennel,  and dogs to run,  that wasn't much use for anything else and let it go wild as my dogs are hunters and that suits them best.

Tried to make the kitchen garden as near to the back door as possible, where I also had a wet room - so dogs, me and veg could be cleaned before coming into the rest of the house.

Put hardcore and scalpings round house for outdoor storage, and slab paths for access to different parts

I set up a website but took it down when I sold the house - wish I hadn't but I've got all the photos I took as we were going along and some of the wordage/descriptions - so one day I'll reinstate it - when i can find the time 

Hope that prompts some ideas for your own place [member=24259]Bert[/member]

Have fun, don't get stressed, enjoy building - I absolutely LOVED it!

[Fleecewife]

You're going to find your space gets used up very quickly so plan your site cleverly. Build a large shed for the things you know you need to store, perhaps with a loft, then maybe wait before you put up smaller sheds.
Our smallholding was open fields when we arrived, with the house, one fence and a barn which was the old farmhouse.  I decided the size of veg garden I wanted and exactly where it was to be, then a new neighbour's son turned up to show off his new plough.  'I'll plough your new garden for you', he said, so we wandered off for a cuppa and came back a short while later to find the lad had ploughed up a whole acre and was still going strong  .  I couldn't crop a whole acre so we ended up with weeds seeding themselves and have a problem of couch grass, thistles and nettles to this day, 28 years later.  The moral of that tale is to take things slowly and for the veg garden make sure you can plant every bit you dig (or no-dig).
You will find that with use you may want to change the layout of your land so concentrate on the house and shed first before allocating other areas. Steph Hen has covered the bits about noting aspect, soil, local climate etc which is essential when choosing the sites for each feature you need.
Have fun building the house and designing the garden 

[Steph Hen]

Also, if you’re saying it’s peat bog, drainage will likely be vital and your biggest cost. Also have a look at the soil. I grew up in South Wales and though the land was described as peat big by locals it was actually very thin acid soil over subsoil. I doubt this sort of land will grow much veg at all without serious imports. Also not impossible but def worth considering early on.

[Bert]

Sheds are definitely on the plan. Kennels are not. My dogs will bite anyone that mentions kennels    . In fact they get a little annoyed if there blanket isn’t straight on there sofa    .


Drainage is in hand. No veg will be getting grown directly in the ground, veggie garden will be all raised beds. That includes in the tunnels.


Here’s a few photos of the land before we started. I’ll be back later with more of my plans. But I’ve got to go take down some scaffolding now and fit the front door    . Keep the ideas coming.

[doganjo]

Lovely lace to live, Bert! 
when I moved to my present home I discovered there are springs everywhere, so drainage was an urgent matter

My present two Brittanys would also take exception to kennels  so I don't have any here.  But at the time i had 8 dogs and my husband had just been killed in a mountain accident so kennels were a necessity.  Certainly a fenced area was then and still is in case I can't walk them for any reason.

Looking forward to seeing more photos - have fun!

[Bert]

Yeah we’ve definitely got fencing up. Never grow anything if we don’t keep the sheep & deer out.


We’ve got a couple of rocks to use in the garden. Probably going to use them around the cottage garden beds which will raise the beds out of the really wet ground.


I’ve also built and put in place my roses arch and entrance gate to the cottage garden.


Hope you’ve all got good imaginations when you look at the photos   

[doganjo]

Yeah we’ve definitely got fencing up. Never grow anything if we don’t keep the sheep & deer out.

You'd never see my dogs again if there wasn't fencing in a place like that - not till they reached the sea anyway  - then you'd need a motor boat 

This is one of my champions - Belle - hunting for pheasants

[Bert]

My lab loves shoot days. He’s fully committed to the pheasant hunt and retrieval ( quite regularly before the pheasant’s shot    ).
My collie hates shoot day    he stays home with me . While lab & other half are out having fun.


Here’s some more gardening planning