New Garden

I would love to post a picture of my garden before it was started this morning, but I can't get Photobucket to upload it - keep getting error messages. But when I can upload it, I will post it here.



Thanks to Lorraine, here are the pictures! This is the before: you can see we are on two levels (patio below, garden above) with the York stone wall supporting the upper part. A gravel path from the edge of the wall up to the soil (you can just about see the wooden edging) and then a sloped triangle of earth bounded by the path, the drystone wall and the sort-of fence between us and our neighbour.

This is how it looked when the landscapers had finished.

And this is a view taken from the upstairs window. The only plants at the time were the shrubs at the very back against the drystone wall - the golden yew and the hebe were here when we came and the others were planted last year - and a few raspberries in the front right-hand bed. The big bed at the front is the one we are quarrying at the moment.

Lynda

Haven't got round to trying Flickr to upload the 'photos, but will do - if that doesn't work, not sure what I can do. Can only assume that either the new Canon software from our camera or the latest update to the Hewlett Packard software (use it to resize pictures so they they're not too big for e-mail or web upload) is clashing with Photobucket.

However, today we made a start on the garden, digging over one of the beds. I say digging, but it's more like an archaelogical dig as you can't use a spade or fork. We have now discovered that the whole of this area was once a quarry, so the rocks we found previously were not builder's rubble or bits that had fallen off the drystone wall. I dug, using the trowel, an area about 2' x 1' by about 10" deep and found enough rock to make a small rockery, plus smaller stones almost enough to fill a bucket. However, have managed to plant 2 potatoes: will go out another day and do some more.

We are, however, going to invest in a pickaxe!

Lynda

HELP!

I've managed to upload the 'photos onto Flickr (Photobucket still keeps failing to upload). I've used the "Grab the HTML" code facility, but the text stream that comes across doesn't produce a picture. Have tried editing it various ways, but no luck.

Anyone know how to do it, please?

Lynda

keep trying pb i have to try a few times sometimes ,sorry dont know flickr

Absolutely shattered: have been quarrying for part of the morning and all the afternoon - came in just before 7pm!

We are working on digging over the lowest bed, which is a triangular shape (just like the garden). We started digging over an area about 12" wide and 12" deep at the back of the bed, planting potatoes as we go. Already we have taken 30 buckets of rocks to the tip: most of these have come from this trench, although a few came from a couple of holes we dug in other parts of the garden to put plants in. Today, we just had the last 6' to do, before we turn round and work back with the next foot-wide trench: it took us all this time and we filled another 5 buckets of rocks. This last bit seemed like it was rocks glued together with clay - yes, we have clay here, just like Essex. In fact, if we don't want to open our garden as a quarry we can have a pottery here instead.

Will the garden be finished in my lifetime, I ask myself?

Lynda

Gracious Lynda - sounds like mighty hard work even for someone keen like me. I am sure it will all be lovely when it is done though and well worth all the effort. Hope Steve can stand the strain in his poorly condition!!

Is a garden ever finished? I know what you mean though, looking like a garden. You two have worked very hard on this I hope it starts to reward you soon.

Having turned round, we are digging the new trench wider than 12", which means I can get in it, kneel on the kneeler and pick the rocks out without bending into the "hole". Better for the back. Even better than that, Steve has worked out a new method where he uses the pick and then the rake, which seems to loosen the rocks even more. We've now got buckets number 46-50 in the boot of the car, ready for the tip on Tuesday, plus at least another 10 buckets just lying around the garden. Yesterday we dug up the biggest rock yet: about 15" x 12" and 3-4" high: we're keeping the bigger ones, either to add to the walls round the beds or to use as stepping stones set in the earth so I can reach everything once we're finished.

We now have quite a few edibles in the garden: apart from the six rasperry canes I planted last year, we have a Bramley apple tree, a blackberry and three blueberries (they're in pots). There's also onions, leeks, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and a courgette and a pepper. Runner beans and French beans are waiting to be planted out. Looking forward to our first produce - which will probably be a single raspberry, the only one looking pink!

Lynda

It all sounds great Lynda. I can't believe how many rocks you've had though!!!!

Did your neighbours have the same problem with their ground Lynda, or was your ground used as the dumping area when they were built? Seems an awful lot of stone in one smallish area!

You could have built a granny shed with that lot!
Pics please.

No, Di - we weren't the dumping ground! Everyone else had the same problem, but they all cleared it/had it cleared when they moved in after the houses were built. The guy we bought from said that he wasn't much of a gardener (a few shrubs and perennials and some really big rocks he had collected) and anyway he had his wife to look after, who had motor neurone disease.

Would love to put up pics, Karelyn, but every time I try to upload a 'photo to Photobucket I get an error message and the upload fails. Not sure what is causing it and, although I've managed to upload 'photos to Flickr, I can't get them on here (tried the procedure shown on the site but it didn't work).

We now have five half-filled rubble-sacks of rocks in the car with the buckets, probably equivalent to 5 buckets-worth, so that takes us up to 55. Rain stopped play again about 4pm, so we gave up. Luckily, because the garden is, shall we say, free-draining, the hole we're working in won't have filled up with water!

Lynda

Lynda, email your pics to me hun and I'll put them up for you.
You can do that any time you want to upload a pic.

It all sounds like you will get the rewards from all this work you are putting in.

You're a star, Lorraine: would never have asked, with all that you've got on your plate. I just wish I could find out why I'm suddenly getting error messages when I try to upload to Photobucket.

Lynda

Pics in first post.

Lynda, love the garden and apart from the hard work, you will really get the best feeling when it is finished, I hope you can carry on without too much weather interference. I bet you will appreciate every morsel you reap from the garden x x more pics please as you go along

It's very neat Lynda, you'll have lovely views from that window once things are growing.
It's lovely to see what you've been telling us about.
That little greenhouse is gorgeous.

We just call it a plant-house, Karelyn - didn't have anywhere for a full-size greenhouse, so had this made by the guy who did our shed (ditto for anywhere, so it's more or less outside the back door, against our neighbour's house wall, and it's a lean-to shed). However, a lot of firms are making plant-houses now: before, you could only get those metal-framed things with polythene covers, but now they are making them wood-framed.

Lynda

Looks as if you are winning the battle Lynda!

you need a big one for a craft shed lol x x

Great to see the photos Lynda. Now we can really understand the work involved. Can't wait to see one from towards the end of the growing season and it all ready for croping.

Garden looks fab Lynda. I think I missed this thread before.
Always thought we would have liked a bigger garden, but these days
are glad we only have a small plot.
Den's been growing runner beans but the red flowers keep dropping off.
It's as if they have been cut or bitten off.

Rings a bell, Steph: am sure there is something specific which causes the flowers to drop on runner beans - will try and remember.

Lynda

Have you got many sparrows etc around Steph, they might be nipping them.

Or it may lack of moisture at the roots, Tony always grows his in a deeply dug trench with lots of good compost and chopped paper, helps retain moisture. Mind you ours are no where near flowering yet, only about two foot up the canes.

No wonder you've been busy Lynda, great to see what all the hard work has been about.