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Garden preparation
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- 3. Relative location. • Thebest location for a garden is in a sheltered spot where it can get at least 6 hours sunlight per day. • Close to the house and garden shed • Near a water source • With your compost, liquid fertiliser and worm bins
- 4. Good soils taketime to develop. • Manure and seaweed added in autumn and left to break down over winter. • This will be dug into the soil just prior to spring.
- 5. Good soils taketime to develop. • Building your soil can be achieved by regular additions of organic materials like manures, vermicast and green crops directly to your bed, or • By composting your garden wastes and incorporating this into the soil by forking it in.
- 6. What a goodsoil looks like • Garden soil needs to be rich in organic matter, as indicated by the dark black colour. • Friable, breaks up easily into small crumbs • and at least 60cm deep
- 7. Compost • Compost is an ideal soil conditioner it provides • Structure so your soil can hold more water and improves soil drainage • nutrients which are in a plant available form and microorganisms which help your plants grow.
- 8. Bed preparation • Add your compost or manure to the surface of the garden bed • Fork this organic matter into the bed so that it is well mixed (incorporated) into the existing soil.
- 9. Bed preparation • composted material should be incorporated into the bed using a spade or garden fork. • Soil should be worked or dug over until it is friable, this will ensure good aeration, drainage and root penetration.
- 10. Garden preparation. • After the compost is incorporated the garden should be left • Raked smooth and level • Weed free
- 11. Planning your gardenlayout • The bed can be divided into grids to make your plant layout easier to visualise. • This can be done on paper or out in the garden like here. • These grids are 30cm square.
- 12. Planning your gardenlayout • The most efficient planting layout is a triangular pattern. • You can make up templates of different sizes to help you achieve the correct plant spacing and arrangement
- 13. Planning your gardenlayout • The size of the triangle template is based upon the a spacing between plants where leaves of the plant will be just touching when they are mature size. • A peg is placed at each corner of the triangle to mark where plants will be planted.
- 14. Planning your gardenlayout • Completed bed, starting from near end the plants are • Garlic and Spinach • Lettuce and Alyssum • Celery and Calendula • Broccoli and Coriander • Beetroot and spring onion • Garlic and strawberry
- 15. Planning your gardenlayout • This bed was planted on the 18th of July. • Water and weed as required. • Liquid feed with worm juice at 14 day intervals • Protect from frost by covering with a cloche as required.
- 16. Planning your gardenlayout • The bed on 16 of September. • Beans and corn to follow Eating , coriander , spinach lettuce. Tomatoes and Basil to and lettuce. follow Broccoli • Spinach and lettuce ready
Editor's Notes
- #5 Seaweed , sheep manure and compost laid on garden bed and left to break down over winter . In spring any bulky bits that remain will be raked off and composted the remaining material worked into the soil with a garden fork.
- #8 Compost prior to being added to garden bed, note crumbly structure, prolific worm numbers, dark brown colour.
- #9 Any weed cover is removed and compost is added to the garden bed and then forked in
- #10 Fork the soil over to encourage deep root penetration and to work in the compost.
- #11 A smooth surface is easier to plant both transplants and seed into and it is easier to achieve the desired planting and spacing arrangements.
- #12 Its best to plan your garden on graph paper before you plant. This enables you to work out the most efficient planting and spacing arrangement and provides you with a record that makes rotations easier to manage.