Ta-daa ~ the start of our kitchen garden 😊 We were so excited to finally get the raised bed kit ~ it took quite some time to get here, coming as it did from Co. Sligo in the Irish Republic! The order also got lost somewhere in transit, so we had to have a replacement sent out. We did a lot of internet searching for raised beds, hoping to be able to get something delivered from either the Scottish or English mainland, to no avail. One company in England would ship up here but the delivery charge would have been £80! We took a chance on this kit from Quickcrop for a number of reasons: they were actually willing to deliver to Orkney for a very reasonable charge; the company had good reviews; and the beds themselves looked to be sturdy.
Because of my back issues we chose the 21" high kit. It was simple to put together and Adrian gave it three coats of our favourite Black Ash wood stain. The tricky part was trying to get the thing level in the garden! As I've told you before not only does the garden slope in two directions, the "lawn" is full of bumps and dips as well. It was really frustrating and in the end we simply got it levelled as best we could making use of some of the old roof slates from the house ~ luckily, we like the rustic look 😄
It looked fine once we had it filled and planted up. We put in lumps of turf (upside-down) first, then a layer of rubbly soil to take the level up to the top of the lowest board. Next was a layer of sieved soil (Adrian is an absolute hero, sieving soil is hard work!) up to the top of the middle board, and we finished off with bags of shop-bought compost.
I'm using the Square Foot Gardening method in the beds, hence the string lines. It was very exciting to get some plants in there ~ I'll tell you about them in another post 😉
Then there were two! Getting the second bed in position went much more smoothly than the first ~ we learnt from our mistakes LOL We've lined this one (as we will the others) with weed membrane as the lumps of grass we put in the bottom of the first bed are shooting out of the gaps along the base! Bed number two is still in the process of being filled but half the bed will be used for strawberries. I think I will make use of the other half as a nursery bed to grow on perennial plug plants ready for putting in the "ornamental" side of the front garden next year.
And here is my new garden chair, tucked into a cosy little spot next to the terraced border beside the pond. I bought it with birthday money from my Mum and Dad last month, and once again Adrian got out the wood stain. It's lovely to have somewhere comfortable to rest my back for a while whilst I'm working ~ and also to just sit and daydream 😊
No comments:
Post a Comment