September 22nd, 2007

Okay I have now taken the plunge and bought a garden in a box. I will blog about how well my little project is doing. I am endeavoring to grow some of our own veg and to cut down on the food miles. Will let you know how it all goes.... First off our garden is really small. We live in the middle of a housing estate and have 6ft tall fences surounding our little patch of earth. My husband and his first wife did the landscaping for this garden along time ago. The shrubs have more or less matured now so have made the garden even smaller with their size. Hubby and I are slowly starting to grow more food producing plants to help benefit both us and the wildlife. One of our first changes was to take out a couple of shrubs that had humongus thorns on them. Those I felt were totally dangerous to us and the cats. So one of the areas now houses our compost bin and the other is where I am growing some red currants and gooseberries. The currants did really well this year and I have some put by in the freezer. Anyway on to our new project..... Our garden in a box.... Or the Lego garden which ever you choose to call it.


This is the before photo that everyone always takes before starting a project. So you can see the difference after you are done. These are some rather leggy penstamens which Brian has now transplanted elsewhere in the garden. And my wormwood or artemisia. I am really rubbish at the latin names of plants so forgive me.

The kit - Link A Boards boasted of being so simple a child could put it together, but a cat??? Hee hee Jingles is already wondering what on earth is going on in his garden.

Okay this is the 2 meter by 1 meter section done!!! Man was it ever hot!!!!! The sun has decided to come out of hiding and shine on my project and me too!!! Oh notice the brown thing in the back ground. That is our potatoe barrel. When my potatoes start sprouting I put them inside and before long we have new potatoes. But you must keep topping it up with soil.

Next comes the second tier. I liked this and thought I could grow my root crop in the really deep end. And the shallow I could grow things like lettuces and beans and courgettes.

Ohhhhhh a brief interlude into putting the garden up.... The cats weren't the only ones curious as to what I was doing. A little frog decided to inspect the potential garden. Brian stuck him in the pond out of harms way. We love having wildlife in the garden... That is as long as it isn't snakes. I don't like snakes.


Well it is my right to change my mind. So I have decided to switch the end around. Thougt I didn't want thing that grow tall shading my root crop. I may end up changing it all back again. But that is the beauty of this system. You can!!!

Now for the single meter square.... So now my little veg plot is going to be L shaped. Thought this would still leave plenty of room for Brians flower pots and also give me plenty of room to grow my veg.

To help kill the weeds and grass I put down a layer of news papers then put the dirt on top. We have taken alot of old plant pots and emptied them and some home made compost to fill the beds up....

My first bed is done!!! Now to start planting!!!!

I had some chard in a pot growing and it was looking a bit sad. I hope hit likes it's new home. The white around the edges are broken egg shells. My friend Linda at Crafty Gardener suggested them for keeping slugs out of the garden. We will see how well it works. I do have some rather ingenious slugs in our garden. They would probably dig a tunnel knowing them.