Sunday, February 10, 2013

RESULTS OF A HARD DAY'S WORK - 23 October 2012

Taking advantage of the great weather over the weekend, I dug up a part of our lawn to create my potager garden as I mentioned in a blog post a couple of days ago.  And here are the results!
 
After digging up the grass for the two new beds, I added lots of organic material to prepare the soil:
  1. Coffee Grounds
  2. Leaf mould (home-made)
  3. Horse Manure
  4. Blood & Bone and Seaweed (collected from our local beach
  5. Compost (home-made)
Given that these beds were formely lawn, they need a lot of preparation for vegetables.  I’ll dig all this over in about four weeks and by then, I’ll be able to plant out some lettuce seedlings that should be ready.  They will be a temporary measure until autumn, when I’ll move ourartichokes into their new home.  I’ve chosen different varieties of lettuce which I will plant out formally.  Given that I won’t move the artichokes until autumn, this will provide me with an opportunity to keep growing cuttings of buxus hedge which will form the border.  I’m pondering whether to grow kale in here too, but I’ve never grown it before nor eaten it, so I’m not to sure whether I will or not…but it would look fantastic here!
I’ve made little tinfoil things to keep the blackbirds away too and it really seems to be doing the trick!  I don’t want them flicking all the compost and leaf mould over the lawn whilst they hunt for worms.
Later on this summer, I’ll dig up the rest of the grass and lay weedmat and lime chip will form the pathways between the lavender and buxus hedge borders.  I can’t wait to see it all finished!  I’ve wanted a potager look for a long time!

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