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On My Oasis – A Garden of Change
One of the things I love about gardening is the ease in which you can change a space to suit your needs. The original concept of my space came before I’d actually moved in; long before thoughts turned to renovating the house, I was busily creating a Mediterranean garden, cutting beds, oval lawn and veggie patch. But it’s not until you live in a space that you get a real feel for the garden.
With the arrival of a new rescue dog, as well as a growing hoard of hens, any chance of reclaiming the lawn is gone. I know it’s a winter and grass always becomes a mud patch at this time of year, but bitch pee is baaaaadd stuff for any grass grower. There’s all manner of remedies, but it seems a simpler solution just to remove the eyesore completely. Meanwhile, the space I’d originally allocated as the veggie patch just isn’t working for a number of reasons.
- There’s an old yew tree that I don’t have the heart to remove. Even with some intense pruning, it still blocks out the light.
- The area is concreted with a large metal shed. I’d originally thought to take down the shed and pull up the concrete. But the shed is well constructed and taking it down would open us up to more insecurities in terms of our boundary. And then there’s the concrete – a lot of work!!
- With a wall, a fence, a shed, a greenhouse and a yew tree, there simply isn’t enough light.
So, taking these things into account, the oval law and surrounding ornamental beds are coming out. The concrete area is going to be re-developed as our poultry patch, and raised beds with a wrap-around cutting garden will replace the grass.
It’s always a good idea to plan out any new space visually. I just use a standard line-market spray. It helps put the vision in your head onto the ground so you can make appropriate adjustments if needed. I know I’m not maximising the space but I don’t want to eradicate my flower borders completely. I have my cordon pear, plum and apple trees along that back fence too so I can’t pull the raised beds right up to the boundary.
To make life easier for myself, the beds are 1.8m long – the standard length of a cladding board from B&Q (they cost about £2.50 each). Meanwhile, I’m using the principles from The Market Gardener for a suggested width of 75cm. I’m no builder, but armed with a small electric garden saw, a bag of nails and a hammer, it only took about 30 minutes to create two beds.
Due to their size, I can fit three raised beds in easily, with the wrap-around cutting garden, a tropical fern bed (to the right side of the above picture) and a small area for a seat and some herbs at the back.
On a slightly rainy Sunday, I started construction and we’re already getting there!
I’m using a no-dig method so I simply knocked up the raised beds, laid them on the lawn and then put a thick layer of cardboard down before pulling on overturned sod, chicken manure and compost on top.
With the house full of seed trays, I badly needed to get some construction done for those early season seedlings. I’ll dig out the path area in time, but for now, at least there’s a couple of beds almost ready to go!
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