Sunday 9th May

Garden centre visit
http://www.whitehallgardencentre.co.uk/

lots of lovely stuff, really big place with a good range of plants, definitely need to go back and buy more.

One stand of spinach harvested and frozen
Runner bean wigwam erected and beans planted out complete with toilet roll tubes.
Trough planted with red and green salad bowl lettuce seeds

bought/planted
Gooseberry-Whinhams industry:dark red fruit, June eat fresh or cook. Planted in low maintenance bed.
Brussel spouts- planted bed 2
Purple sprouting broccoli - planted bed 2

beans/broccoli/sprouts all treated with slug stoppa
general treatment of bare areas with slug pellets

Digging up the lawn - before and after

Before:




After:

Digging up the lawn - final phase

Yesterday:
All remaining turf dug out, stripped of excess soil, and stacked

Today:
Paths sanded and gravelled
Turf in rear beds covered with thin layer of soil
Compost added to front beds, and raked in
New bit of left-hand bed dug over and de-stoned
Left-hand bed weeded and fresh bark added

Weeding of strip to left of patio in progress. This is a narrow, shallow strip of soil which never gets any sun. What to do with it? Possibly try growing ferns, failing that dig out the soil and fill it with rocks.

Digging up the lawn - 3

Final two beds in place.
Almost all turf stripped of loose soil and stacked.

Tomorrow:
Get sand, weed-proof membrane and gravel from B&Q.
Dig out remaining turf and lay gravel paths.
Set a slab levelled on 2 bricks at crossroads.

Digging up the lawn - 2

Monday:
Made 3 90x150cm beds
Determined 4th one should be 90x75cm
Painted outsides

Tuesday:
Made 4th bed
Finished painting all of them
Still to do - line with plastic sheeting

Today:
Dug out turf and installed 2 beds - Left front and back
Front beds to be filled with soil/compost and planted this year
Back beds to be filled with turf to rot down, check these next year
Started to stack cut turf in rear bed, removing excess soil into front bed

Digging up the lawn

Plan:

Replace last rectangle of lawn with four raised beds with gravelled access paths in between.
Requires a rethink of clothes-drying facilities otherwise we won't be able to grow tall things.

Last week:

Bought timber for raised beds:
16 x 240cm decking planks
4 x 180x5x5cm posts
1 tub decking screws
Bought wall-mounted clothes airer and new pressure washer.
Ordered growbag-pots from Lakeland.

Yesterday:

Rearranged corner of patio behind garage.
Fitted wall-mounted clothes dryer to back of garage.
Pressure-washed patio.
Weeded top bed and around waterfall.

Today:

Bought plastic sheeting to line beds, growbags, grit, weedkiller and red watering can (for weedkiller).

Cut posts into 45cm stakes for vampirescorner posts.
Cut 12 of 16 planks into 90 & 150cm lengths.

Weedkiller'd gravel out front.
Potted tomatoes, peppers, cucumber in growbags / growpots.
Planted tumbler tomatoes in hanging baskets.