If you follow me over on Notes, you may have seen a spoiler of my raised bed. It’s a bit of a beast, standing at 72cm high (roughly hip height on me), I’ve built it from decking planks and 2x2” timber. The aim is to be able to grow a variety of fruit and veggies, without the dogs charging through my plants or toileting in inappropriate places (Badger took to pooping on the rhubarb for a while there, sigh). I’m also hoping it will protect my back and knees over the coming years. Having spent a large amount of time weeding my gran’s veg beds over the last decade or so, I can attest that traditional height raised beds don’t necessarily protect your back, you still have to bend at an awkward angle to weed and plant.
That’s the idea in theory, but I figure if it’s too tall in the long run, I can always remove the top decking board and cut the posts down to size. Tanya from the Lovely Greens (a very inspiring YouTube channel I would highly recommend if you’re into gardening and soap making) recommends sealing the inside of raised beds with silicone sealant, of the type used in vivariums and aquariums. This will apparently lengthen the lifespan of my raised beds significantly, whilst minimising the chemicals and microplastics that can leach into the soil from other methods of wood protection. I’m then planning on sealing the inside of the wood with linseed oil (similar to my compost bin) and the outside with Cuprinol garden shades, in the colour we’ll be picking to match the fence. The linseed oil and external painting have yet to be done, that’s the plan for my next set of days off.
Building a compost bin
This episode is a slight departure from my normal content, but still in the realms of handicrafts, in the sense of building things with your hands. I was lucky to grow up with a DIY Dad, an experience I didn’t value at the time, trailing bored behind my parents in Wickes on a Saturday afternoon. I spent many dull teenage hours, handing tools to my Dad a…
You can see from the picture above, taken just after we moved in, the garden hadn’t had much love in the recent past. The previous owner was very into growing veg, but hadn’t been physically capable of it for a while. The area where the raised bed is now, just in front of the greenhouse, was full of half-rotting rhubarb, old herbs growing wild, and bits of netting and plastic. In this photo, we were in the process of lifting all the gravel, hence the black plastic bags, pulling out all the rotten wood, and rescuing as many of the remaining plants before we laid turf.
This was taken just after finishing laying the turf, less than a week after we moved in. We were on a bit of a deadline to get the turf down before it became too cold for it to survive. It was a mammoth task, but we managed it! I cleared all the rotten rhubarb leaves, finding some healthy looking rhubarb plants underneath, and moved the surviving herbs into other parts of the garden or into pots, whilst I decided where they would go next.
And here we are today. It’s looking a bit chaotic because I’m mid-raised bed build. The pile of greens to the right of the image is chopped up holly tree, which will go into the bottom of the raised bed once I’ve treated the inside with linseed oil. The chopped logs on the patio table will either go into the raised bed or into a pile in a hedgerow in the front garden, to form a habitat for beetles and other insects. I’ve got 2 redcurrant bushes I’m hoping to replant behind the greenhouse, where they’ll get a lot of sunlight, and the remaining 3 pots of rhubarb in the bottom right will be either going to the next door neighbour, or back into the raised bed. It’s definitely a work in progress, but I’m getting there!
The next step is to fill the raised bed, I had a metric tonne of topsoil delivered last week and I’m heading out at the weekend to collect horse manure to mix into the topsoil for added organic matter. And then the final, and most joyful step will be planting! This was on my Spring joy list and I’m so excited to almost be able to start.
Spring joy plans
I spoke on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, about the concept of seasonal joy lists. This is a process I followed for a couple of years, but stopped when we moved house and city last spring/summer. The time has come to make some definitive space for joy, so I’m setting myself the gentle challenge of completing these activities in the next 3 months, Ma…
Thank you so much for listening to, and supporting my little podcast corner of the internet. I really appreciate you all for being here, for clicking like or leaving a comment. I hope wherever you are, you’re enjoying the spring weather (or autumn in the southern hemisphere!) and seeing signs of life appearing around you.
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