Nature News - Little Surprises

I went to put my crock pot out this morning and found this little beauty... 

Potting Shed News - DIY Raised Beds

These were some raided beds we built on my allotment several years ago. The soil there was clay and I found it too depressing to work as it was like concrete in Summer and flooded in Winter, so I decided on raised beds. While it's possible to buy some lovely ready made ones or buy in fashionable railway sleepers for the job, our funds didn't stretch enough to that for the amount we needed. I think even if they had, I would have preferred to spend that money on plants or other garden supplies!

In the end we came upon a chap selling old cabbage crates. They measure 1 x 1 x 1 metre and he had an abundance of them available. (They are brought in containing imported cabbage or other veg and because its too expensive to send them back empty, they are then just broken up and disposed of!!) This chap, like me, thought this was an awful waste, so he had brought them and was selling them on for around £7 each. (As I say, that was a few years ago, but I have seen them for sale on the side of the road since for not much more)

For best value, just cut them in two and you've got a raised bed half a metre high, two long and one wide, which is a great growing space as (even if you're short like me!) you can always reach the middle. You can see that the ones photographed here were set up slightly differently. My allotment happened to be in the middle of a very exposed patch of Fenland, so for the beds along the side battered by the prevailing wind we left one side of the crate intact to provide half a metre of protection. As it turned out, it was also great for suspending protection netting from.

The crates were screwed together in a row for stability, lined with empty compost bags with a staple-gun and filled with soil. You don't have to use compost bags of course, you just need to get the crates lined with something to stop the soil falling through the gaps. Me being me I preferred to recycle an old bag rather than buying in plastic for the purpose. We also gave the beds a coat of wood preserver while we could get at all the areas that would eventually be covered up.

Whilst you can buy the soil in bulk to fill the raised beds, there are usually recycling plants offering it for free or for a small price as long as you come and take it away. We happened to know a local wholesale grower who was more than happy to let us turn up with our wheelbarrow and take as much of their waste soil as we could.

Advice: do be careful about the soil you fill your beds with. While free soil is always good, you want to make sure it hasn't got anything in it that will cause you trouble later on - i. e pests and diseases. Generally speaking, soil from a recycling plant will have been heat treated to prevent this, but it's always worth asking where it's come from and what has been done to prevent things spreading! The soil we obtained had been used for propagation of alpines, so although weed free it did occasionally contain a stray Sedum which we were more than happy to accommodate! 

If using second-hand soil to bulk up the bed I would still recommend buying a few bags of good quality compost for the top six inches or so if you can afford it (or if you haven't managed to make that much compost from your own garden waste yet! )

If you can't find cabbage crates, you could (with a little DIY skill) knock up something similar with pallets, with are probably easier to obtain now there are so many ideas out there for how to use them! 

One of the crates we cut up into three shallow beds for taller crops. They were treated in the same way, with liner and wood preserver. Some of the slats we upended and used as a loose frame to suspend netting from. 

Whilst this seems a lot of work, especially if you're barrowing free soil into the beds (honestly, it feels like they're bottomless after a while!) these beds should, with a little care, ultimately be hassle free. They are easy to weed and because the soil hasn't been trodden down over the years, they are heavenly to dig! Crop rotation will help get nutrients in the soil and if you have some of them empty over winter you can also sow a small green manure crop to dig in before the start of the next season.

Potting Shed News - Using what you can get...

There's not doubting that this way of life isn't for those with show gardens! After yesterdays post about plant pots I thought I'd share this pic of recycling in action. Whilst I prefer lovely, long lasting terracotta, I can't let large containers go to waste! At least not until they finally start to bio-degrade anyway. Large containers can be really expensive and until I get a dream garden of several acres with loads of planting space, I'm stuck using whatever big tubs I can get without having to buy new. This bucket contains a loganberry, but at this time of year I enjoy it for the little muscari flowers planted in the topsoil. 

I use no chemicals in my garden, so it's especially important to have as many flowers blooming as possible to attract insects. Insects are encouraged not only because many of them are useful pollinators, but also because they attract other wildlife such as birds. The birds, along with hedgehogs and frogs, set about eating up all my 'pests'. I always lose a few crops to the creatures that share my plot, but that is part of natural gardening. As long as you plan for it and grow extras, it really doesn't matter!

Potting Shed News - Plant Pots and Little Luxuries

I've been re-potting my beans today. They are already at quite a height, so I may have a crop in the conservatory this year too. I have sown another batch for succession and as a back up, as it's getting tempting to be putting a few outside. We have a mild climate and a sheltered garden here, so I often get away with sneaking a few out earlier than is wise. The one thing I haven't done yet is sown my tomatoes, so that is certainly a job for this weekend. My garden is small and well established, so much of my annual veg growing is done in various containers - usually recycled tubs and buckets. 

I don't buy plastic pots and I try to avoid buying plants sold in them (where possible I grow from seed or propagate from cuttings and division). Not only is this cheaper, it saves me having to deal with waste. Most modern plastic plant pots are designed to biodegrade, which is good if they end up in the ground and need to do that, but not so good if you want to reuse them! Over the years I've collected many vintage terracotta pots and they will last for as long as I don't smash them! Even when broken they are utilized as 'crocks' ( the shards that you put in the bottom of bigger pots to cover the drainage hole). It's possible to buy modern terracotta pots, but I will always look for vintage ones or those produced by artisan potteries first. I always avoid the mass-produced if at all possible; if I do have to buy instead of make, the independent crafter is the next best thing. This lifestyle isn't all about hard-graft and economy. It's important to have a few luxuries too, if only to remind us that this is a thoroughly modern way of life. That said though, these days I find that my luxuries are rather practical! A handcrafted plant pot from Whichford Potteries or a fancy rhubarb forcer from Errington Reay are the things dreams are made of! 

New Beginnings

Well here I am - Blog One

I'm not sure who is going to be reading this blog, but I guess my hope is that there are a few others out there on the same journey as me. It's not easy to give up the convenience of modern life, but it's my feeling that unless some of us start to, the planet may be doomed. Dooomed, I tell ya! In some respects it's doomed already. Animals made extinct because of human 'progress' and endless others teetering on the brink. Many of my friends wonder why I put myself through the difficulties of adjusting to a more eco-sensitive lifestyle, because one person won't make a difference. That might seem true, but unless individuals start making this change, the masses certainly never will.

I guess I should introduce myself really. I am a thirty-four years old (thirty five in eight weeks!) and I work part time at a nature reserve. I'm also an artisan (noun: 'a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand' ) I started painting at a young age and more recently I have had a go at a variety of crafts. It is partly this interest in making things instead of buying them that inspired me to move forward crazy idea of living a better life. Always aware that anything manufactured would likely have a heavy tag of pollution around its neck, I started getting involved in the handmade lifestyle and supporting other crafters. The more I started looking at the things I used day to day , the more I wanted to invest in reusable, yet sustainable, items. Avoid plastics where possible and reduce the amount of waste I created in the process. I have always preferred vintage and antique items over new, so thankfully I don't have a habit of buying new to overcome. 

I am also changing my eating habits. I am avoiding processed food, both because of the packaging and manufacture involved in such things, but also because processed food is unsurprisingly the most unhealthy. I have been vegetarian since birth as my parents had already made that change before I was born. In someways this makes things easier as the meat industry causes a huge amount of environmental damage in it's own right. I also already have a veg plot, so growing organically is already something I'm used to. I live  in Eastern England and we have a mild climate here. I grow in harmony with the wildlife that shares my outdoor space. I use no chemicals and over the years I've created a natural balance that I don't really have much of a problem with 'pests' . 

So there is a little introduction to my world. Over the next few posts I'll be talking more about changes I'm making and sharing some great ideas and products I've come across recently. Periodically I'll also be sharing some no fuss recipes, to show how I'm using some of the food I grow here at home.