Raised beds

[KMA]

FINALLY after shovelling, barrowing and levelling (and heat stroke) the drains are now in. Getting the right gradient on the pipe was remarkably easy the real hardship was that EVERYTHING had to be done by manual labour.

Note the supervisor sitting still for once

 

[KMA]

Cable tied some ground mesh over the ends to stop stuff getting in.

Final level of the gravel was a lot higher than I'd expected but I didn't have much depth to work with in the first place and at least it should help keep the surface dry-ish.

 

[KMA]

Couple of stooges from the EA? The smallest hen bird is there almost full time and becoming very tame

 

[KMA]

About half way through making the first bed. 12'x4'x2' takes a hell of a lot of soil to fill my shovelling, barrowing and levelling should be up to Olympic standard soon

 

[Old McDonald]

Close to 7 ton at 2t/cu.m. Mixing Imprial and Metric, but a rough guide.

 

[KMA]

Don't I bloody know it, I'm leaving one side lower until as late as I can to make barrowing easier. Was beginning to wonder where I'd get enough soil to fill the first bed but I've located an attempt at a veg plot from a couple of years ago was well dug with lots of compost and some sand added and looks good is easily dug and relatively weed/stone free but it's going to leave me with a deep hole to fill further up the garden.

First job today is cutting to length, cleaning off and painting the remaining boards and then shifting soil while they dry. It's showing up just what a lot of work is needed just to level the ground up even before I even start the other beds. I'm really hoping to have the first bed finished today. After that my main problem will be finding and bringing in enough soil (lots of it) preferably free.

 

[KMA]

making a start, base and membrane in place, by stopping time

 

[KMA]

After scratching my head about the amount of material need to fill the beds I'm going to get hold of some hay bales my son has had sitting at the bottom of the stack that he'd like rid of. My plan is to put a layer of soil in the bottom then a layer of bales then some cattle FYM and finally 8"-12" of soil. Can anyone forsee any problems or a better way of doing it?

 

[KMA]

FINALLY!! First raised bed is now completed and planted.

Checked the pH and found some areas were acid and some were very alkaline so mixed it together until I got a consistent reading of just around 6.5 and mixed in some organic veg fert. I'll need to check again this morning but I was getting reading a couple of degrees higher than I'd been getting in the horse radish and potato planters.

D battery energiser keeping the dogs and mogs off, it will be simple enough to link in the other beds as they're built. Beer taps in 2 of the corners and a soil thermometer in what I think will be the most exposed corner. I plan to have soil thermometers in all the beds.

10 runner beans, 2 courgettes (under the cloches)

Fortunately my old cages fit quite neatly and I have one protecting the earliest plantings of leeks (Jolant), lettuce (Llittle Gem), and beetroot (Pablo)

I hope to have the second raised bed completed by the end of next week.

 

[Kidds]

Your fence looks more likely to keep them in rather than out.
The earth won't be very good as they climb up the wood and then once inside the earth will work and they can't get out.

That's how it would work in theory anyway.

 

[KMA]

Good point I may have to run a lower wire if there proves to be an issue. So far there have been no signs of mogs in the 2 nights the fence has been in place and going by the demolition wreaked on my 1st early tatties when I put them in I'd have expected at least some sign, from our own two if not any visitors.

The yellow lab proved it's effectiveness, she was the only one that hadn't experienced an electric fence before, you'd have thought she was being murdered. The mad spanner kept well clear as soon as he saw me putting it up and the old girl is never a problem. Could have hooked it up to the mains energiser I have running down the boundary fence but that could have caused actual harm (2.4 joules which fecking hurts) rather than just a warning zap (0.4 joules, meh).

 

[KMA]

Cleaning and treating the boards has always been a PITA but I got by by resting them across the loader bucket. My son needing his loader tractor back has motivated me to make this temporary rack, really surprised at just how much easier and quicker just a few minutes taken to knock it together. Classic case of 'work smarter'.

 

[KMA]

Bed 2 is now complete just got to plant stuff in it and fit the electric fence. Tempersature is sitting at 25C, barely 24hrs after putting the bales and first layer of soil in, I've put a couple of off cuts from the drainage pipes in as sort of vents to allow air and water in and hopefully heat out. It'll be interesting to see how the decomposition of the haylage compares to the hay in Bed 1 which is still maintaining a temp of around 28C

 

[KMA]

Bed1 is now up to around 31C in the middle, so keeping a close eye on the plants which seem to be OK and growing well.

Bed 2 is planted and up to 27C in the middle

Now levelling the area for Bed 3, would like to think I can get it finished this week but it's where one of the loads of topsoil was dumped, so instead of fill in I'm digging out while clearing any stones and sods/weeds so its a bit of a slog and my body is reminding me of it's age.

Most the spuds have now been moved to where the timber for the raised beds was sitting, still have to find a more suitable place for the garlic so that Nell can have the patio back , next year the garlic will be planted in the raised beds.

 

[KMA]

Bed 3 finally finished and YAY! WOOHOO! and all that kind of thing. Had to get my son to help finish it as all the raking through (15t so far) of topsoil to remove sods and stones has left me with golfers elbow. In the middle of planting it out.

Have started building up an area for a chicken run.

Have had to put in a second feed station for the little birds as this years broods mean one is completely swamped, having difficulty finding a 4th hanging bracket hopefully B&M will restock soon.Also had a visit from a sparrowhawk earlier in the week fortunately the wee birds headed for the middle of the leylandii so it gave up

 

[KMA]

Progress so far

Bed 1. leeks, lettuce, beetroot, courgettes, runner beans

Bed 2. carrots, cauli (under frost fleece), onions, shallots

Bed 3. undecided, beetroot, swede, leeks, parsnips, peas.

Peas. Two stands of 2" plastic mesh with one row of peas each side. Seedlings were bought in (Greenshaft), two rows of Kelvedon Wonder of pre-germinated (on paper towel), one row of pre-germinated Ambassador planted this morning.

I'm finding pre-germinating the peas, beans, beetroot, courgettes and parsnips on paper towel very handy as it should mean I'm not wasting space.

Also having a go with a couple at sweet pepper seedlings in the greenhouse, pretty much same regime as the tomatoes which is handy.

 

[KMA]

Been a while since I updated this thread so here goes.

Production from all 3 beds has exceeded expectations and I'm now replanting part of 1&2 with second and 3rd crops. Biggest concern is to give myself leeway to keep some kind of rotation going.

Soil temps in 1&2 are consistently at least 3C higher than the rest of the garden and bed 3 is still kicking out a fair bit of heat low 20s so the haylage seems to the best option for the base layer giving a less extreme but longer lasting heat.

In the process of building frames to cover with 20mm mesh to keep the cats off the seedlings. Going to use the same basic frame to create insulated cold frames to sit on the beds for next spring, between the heat from the beds and the cold frames it should let me get some things off to a really early start.

The drains I've put in have transformed a huge area of what was a swamp into ground I can work on in almost any weather and any puddles are generally gone in less than 24hrs. One of my current tasks is digging out trenches to put in what I hope will be the last of the drains.

One lesson is to make much sturdier frames for the beans and peas as we had very strong winds a few days ago which skewed everything, peas are now well into production and the beans are showing signs of coming to and end though still yielding over half a kilo every 2 days from 8 plants, we need another freezer.

Carrying out a little experiment by alternating rows of leeks and parsnips at half the row spacing on the basis that leeks have shallow roots and grow up while parsnips grow downwards, so far they look OK.

Treated myself to a composting bin using a loyalty voucher, obviously spending way to much at that place. I'm coming round to our new neighbour's suggestion of having a table at the gate to sell my surplus (even if it only pays for the next lot seeds).

I'll put some pics up once I find the card reader.

 

[renewablejohn]

Its September so in with the winter veg.

 

[KMA]

Yup, got some winter cabbage to go in the only space available, early purple garlic will go where the runner beans are when they arrive later in the month, last planting out of leeks week, parsnips established and thinned, swedes growing OK.

As it's been the first year of trying proper veg growing I've had to build things before I can get on with the actual planting so some of it hasn't been as timely as I'd like but now I've done most of the drainage, made some of the raised beds and some of the frames at least some of it is place for the future.

We were at a wedding yesterday and Nell sourced as much topsoil as I can use at a very low price if I collect it .

 

[KMA]

Just planted out the winter cabbage in part of bed1, this will be the third crop off this patch since it the bed was completed in May, (Beetroot followed by Stonehead cabbages which have just been blanched and frozen). Slugs have been awful this year, thankfully I've only lost one lettuce so far but have still have upped the defences.

1. beer traps - tick
home made copper collars - tick
seedlings - tick
soil thermometer - tick

2. All tucked up under a bug cage