My Veg Garden Diary - From Scratch

A few weeks ago we had a caravan fire in the garden and lost the lot. Now it has nearly been cleared I have decided to start a veg garden in its place.

I have always wanted a veg garden, ever since I use to help my grandad when I was a kid up north. We have allotments literally two minutes walk from my house and a few years ago I took up proud ownership of one. Due to being one of the many people with serious back problems I had to give it up. It wasn't fair that there were people on the waiting list when mine was going from bad to worse, so I gave it up. I have always missed it but still pop down every now and then to have a chat.


Now that I have my small piece of land its time to start. As you can see in the pictures below, it looks a right state but over the next few months I will try my hardest to transform it to something more acceptable.



The little patch near the wall has some lovely soil in it, plenty of used John Innis and many a pot of compost from years gone by. That is as far as it goes where soil is concerned though. The rest of the garden is just compacted stone, sand and rubbish.

I have decided to build raised borders on the plot and make use of the walls and fenced gates to hang different stuff in pots for this year until we are sorted. For now I have some onions in individual cells which will be transplanted into the decent bit of soil once I have prepped it.

In the future I will be taking the wall out so my daughter can have her much wanted trampoline and the apple trees will be moved somewhere else.

There will be more to come over the next few months.

Thanks for reading.

 

Welcome, I'll be keeping a keen eye on this. I like having my veg patch in the garden. Sorry to hear about the caravan, once they catch there's not much you can do. hope no one was hurt.

 

Luckily nobody was hurt but it was gone within minutes. Lost a lot of fishing and camping gear went in the fire but it can be replaced in the future.

Today though has been a much better day. The sun is shining in Cornwall and it has made an amazing difference to some onion sets I planted in cells a couple of weeks ago. Two days ago they were literally just showing growth apart from the odd one which was a little bigger. Now after a couple of days of the warm stuff this is how much they have grown.



Not a 100% success rate but I'm pretty happy with my second attempt. We are taking the kids away for a few days next week so when we get back I will transplant them into the soil at the top of the garden. My first attempt ended in disaster a few years ago when I had the allotment. A couple of days after planting most of them were taken up by the birds and scattered all over the place. I was advised by a couple of the old boys down there to do it this way in cells as it would stop the birds.

For the last few weeks I have been advertising on all the local Facebook selling sites for a cheap or free greenhouse. Money is always tight for us like it is for most families with kids and mortgages so I knew I couldn't afford a lot. A friend popped over this morning and I was telling him about my plans for the garden and what I was looking for. "I've got one not being used behind my shed", he said. It isn't his but he has been storing it for a neighbour for six years and he really needed it moving. A couple of hours after leaving he phoned me up and said that I could have it, his neighbour didn't want it any more.

Nice one !!. He has told me that its a big greenhouse. I don't know how big but he said that I might have to adapt it and make it smaller. Thats not a problem and I could always use the spare parts for something else.

 

If that falls through, have a look on Gumtree. I saw one the other day in my area: £70 for 8x6. That's silly money!

 

Well, its been about three weeks since my last post and things have changed a little. The block garden wall has gone as I have been 'instructed' by Her Highness that a trampoline needs to go somewhere for our youngest daughter and son.



As you can see, the onion sets that I planted in individual cells earlier have now gone into my little veg patch. They have only been in there since yesterday, along with the peas and runner beans.




Previously, I had been looking for a greenhouse on the local selling sites but didn't have any luck until a few weeks ago as already mentioned. I have brought the glass home already, and the main frame will be picked up in the next day or so. I think this greenhouse is a 10 x 8 so I will now have loads of space to grow stuff in the colder months. It will be situated where the trailer is once the ground has been levelled and a base made.

Thanks for reading

Neil

 

Bad luck about the caravan, but the fishing gear as well!!

Coming on good now

 

Blimey you've cracked on Neil,it's looking good and what a lucky 'find' with the GH what are you planning to grow in it?...