Raised Beds

I've always loved gardening. When I was a Girl Guide I was the only person in my company to get the Gardeners badge. I've never really liked growing flowers though, apart from the forget-me-nots that I used to dig up from my grandma's garden and plant into yogurt pots and distribute around the garden and occasionally take home.

So in the spirit of "Getting Things Done" I inquired about getting an allotment. I found this was easy by just googling allotments and my council area. It gave me a form to fill in and email back to the council. Apparently the waiting time for me area is 2 years.

I decided more immediate action was required.

We are lucky to have a nice back garden at our house. Most of it laid to grass. So G and I started to make plans for some raised beds.

After research, we decided 12" was the right height to make the beds and decking wood was our material of choice as it had been treated to stop it rotting. The beds were also lined with plastic to stop them rotting even more.

G cut the wood and made them before putting them in place, but found that there was a patch of concrete under the grass so went to work with very noisy power tools to remove it. I ran off to the house as it was far too noisy, but he was having lots of fun destroying things with a power drill.

These are my very sad looking runner beans. I planted them a couple of days before we had a very windy storm. The wind and rain battered them so much. The top leaves are looking a bit more healthy now, but the bottom leaves have lots of marks on them.

I've also got radishes, spring onions, beetroot and carrots planted in the raised bed but no sign of life yet.