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Post by taihaku on Oct 22, 2016 4:33:09 GMT -5
Thought I'd start a "doings" style thread now I'm actually doing some things. When we bought the house it abutted a bit of land with an abandoned property on it that'd sat fallow for 30 odd years. Last year the owners started making moves to build a new property and submitted some rather lovely plans very sympathetic to how close they were to us. But they got refused planning permission (planning laws here are "complicated"). After a long stressful period we ended up buying the land and turning it into a new garden. We've got 2 kids under 2 (our second is 7 weeks old today) so its been a busy summer but I'm trying to get us ready to grow some stuff next year fairly seriously. Like an idiot I didn't get any photos of just how horrendous the plot was before we started but I found this online. It's after the brick chimney collapsed but you can see a lot of the structure we had to remove and it'll give you an idea of what the ground looked like underneath the brambles, nettles and scrub.  Untitled and here's what it looks like now from the top of the bank.  Untitled the idea was to make something practical for food gardening but also a neat area the boys can play in without trashing too much hence the raised beds. There are 4 big beds for annual growing and 3 smaller ones for edible perennials and herbs. I'm still filling them. 1 is full of compostable materials I'm trying to get to rot down in place, the others have a dump truck full of spent mushroom compost between them at present. They'll get mulch layers of seaweed, horse manure and woodchip amongst other things to fill up. |
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Post by shoshannah on Oct 22, 2016 9:03:56 GMT -5
Great before and after pictures. Can't wait to see pictures of what you have growing next year.
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Post by philagardener on Oct 22, 2016 12:18:55 GMT -5
Looks wonderful! It is fortunate you now have a wonderful garden on which to look out, and it is yours!  Can't wait to see more pictures! |
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Post by richardw on Oct 22, 2016 23:43:48 GMT -5
Wow what a difference!!,was that ivy had to kill?
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Post by taihaku on Oct 23, 2016 6:37:49 GMT -5
Wow what a difference!!,was that ivy had to kill? I'll tell you how hard it was when I know it's dead.  We've still got various things, Ivy, bindweed and nettles pushing up in a few places. Under the gravel is a layer of permeable fabric used for gravel driveways which should suppress things pretty well. I'm sheet mulching the beds to try and do the same in the beds themselves. We have one long border which we're filling with aussie plants (bottlebrushes, manukas, small eucalyptus and wattles) as a. they look awesome, b. my wife is aussie and c. I figure it'll be good for my bees early in the year - that is getting a lot of hoeing at the moment. I'm a little worried about the "composting" bed - I figured it'd heat up on its own quite nicely as there was a lot of green in there but I think the structure of what went in has kept it quite airy and dry and it's not gone as I'd hoped. If I can't heat it up I'm a little worried there's potentially a few undesirables in there. I've thrown some blood fish and bone in and it's heating up a little but not as much as I'd like. I'm trying to lay my hands on more horse manure and to the extent that doesn't work I'll pen the chooks in that bed to tear things up. |
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Post by nicollas on Oct 23, 2016 8:12:38 GMT -5
Congrats for the newborn |
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Post by taihaku on Oct 29, 2016 7:24:10 GMT -5
Congrats for the newborn Thanks Nicollas! This is my Galangal - it's outside in the UK in a pot at the end of October and fine. It'll go into a bigger pot in our new greenhouse once its up in November (assuming it doesn't get frostkilled before then) and then next year I'll try it in the edible perennials bed....  Another edible ginger - this is Zingiber mioga "Dancing Crane". It should be absolutely stone hardy here and I've got my eye out for a cheap plant of the non-variegated form. Again both will go in the edible perennials bed....  I'm envisioning it'll be a hurly-burly mix of rhubarbs, seakale, gingers, mints, lemon verbenas and similar plants - perhaps some alliums. Ideas gratefully received. In anticipation of all that rhubarb and kale we picked these forcing pots up. Our local "lifestyle" garden centre had them in and I suspect they were fairly unpopular and hence got sold off at a massive discount.  I rather like them and this year we'll be using them to shelter some of the smaller banana's through the winter. Speaking of 'nanas. Musa sikkimensis going really well. The leaves are definitely big enough for cooking with now.  |
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Post by philagardener on Oct 29, 2016 18:09:19 GMT -5
Really wonderful forcing pots! (Everything else looks great too.)
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Post by taihaku on Nov 5, 2016 9:32:30 GMT -5
Just done filling one of the beds with compost. We have a local tree trimmer who cooks his woodchips with seaweed to make a really nice crumbly medium.
I thought I'd jot down the projects I have in mind with various degrees of seriousness so they're on the front page and we can see how far I make it with any of them....
1. Open Pollinated tomatillo grex. Tomatillos did really well for me a few years back, I want to grow out a few different kinds and select for earliness, aggressive growth and a mix of fruit colours and sizes. Ideally I want them to become a naturalising "weed".
2. Japanese moschata mix. Those gorgeous little japanese moschata varieties; I want to try them all and then do some crossing to try and produce some slightly variable seed which conforms to the general type of being squat, ribbed and awesome looking and tasting.
3. Hardy gingers; going to try and push the envelope a bit with turmeric and galangal outside.
4. Breadseed, growing out a few varieties this year. Will select from my favourites for a mix which crops nicely and fits the garden
5. Variegated jalapeno. I have a favourite jalapeno variety. I'd like to try and variegate it by crossing it with fish and then backcrossing selecting exclusively for variegation. I may do the same with a very long cayenne as well.
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Post by diane on Nov 5, 2016 12:20:34 GMT -5
That's an interesting list of projects.
Where do you live, and what is the climate there?
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Post by taihaku on Nov 27, 2016 9:48:12 GMT -5
That's an interesting list of projects. Where do you live, and what is the climate there? I'm in Guernsey in the English Channel Diane. Climate is mild temperate. About the mildest climate in the British Isles. This morning I lifted the overgrown alpine strawberries and planted them out in the front of the edible perennials bed....  Still plenty of fruit and flowers on 'em....  Untitled |
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Post by richardw on Nov 27, 2016 12:28:49 GMT -5
I do like alpine strawberries
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Post by taihaku on Nov 27, 2016 14:00:49 GMT -5
I do like alpine strawberries You are not alone Richard. My goal with this bed is for them to become fairly established and produce me loads of splits I can dump in other places about the property (under fruit trees as ground cover primarily) so we can graze as we wander about.... We have 6 or so different varieties in the bed; red and white so plenty of material to work with and interesting seedling possibilities down the line. |
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Post by diane on Nov 27, 2016 15:06:37 GMT -5
I have them growing everywhere except in deepest shade because for 40 years I've thrown any bird or slug munched berries as far as I can throw. I get new plants wherever they land.
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Post by taihaku on Dec 1, 2016 16:17:34 GMT -5
This is my Galangal - it's outside in the UK in a pot at the end of October and fine. It'll go into a bigger pot in our new greenhouse once its up in November (assuming it doesn't get frostkilled before then) and then next year I'll try it in the edible perennials bed.... Well it's now 1 December, the greenhouse isn't up yet and the galangal is still outside. We had frost on the ground this morning so we should get a fair indication of how hardy it is :/ |
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We've still got various things, Ivy, bindweed and nettles pushing up in a few places. Under the gravel is a layer of permeable fabric used for gravel driveways which should suppress things pretty well. I'm sheet mulching the beds to try and do the same in the beds themselves. We have one long border which we're filling with aussie plants (bottlebrushes, manukas, small eucalyptus and wattles) as a. they look awesome, b. my wife is aussie and c. I figure it'll be good for my bees early in the year - that is getting a lot of hoeing at the moment. 
