I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to start. I
have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does anybody have any
recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice. I'm presuming (maybe
wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right now but would like to
begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice greatly received.

Caz

Caz wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to start. I
have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does anybody have any
recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice. I'm presuming (maybe
wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right now but would like to
begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice greatly received.

Caz


Now is the time to plant onion sets and garlic cloves, though these do
take up rather a lot of space and will remain in the ground until mid
Summer. Also now is a good time to grow broad beans.

"Broadback" wrote ...
Caz wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to
start. I have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does
anybody have any recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice.
I'm presuming (maybe wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right
now but would like to begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice
greatly received.


Now is the time to plant onion sets and garlic cloves, though these do
take up rather a lot of space and will remain in the ground until mid
Summer. Also now is a good time to grow broad beans.

Raised Bed suggests a small area, what size are we talking about? How are
you going to make it?

Converting old grass to veg growing is fine but you may suffer from a few
soil pests for the first couple of years.

Garlic should be planted now but I've given up with autumn planted onions,
lost too many during the winter and they only come a couple of weeks before
the spring planted ones and don't store well either.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden

Bob Hobden wrote:
"Broadback" wrote ...
Caz wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to
start. I have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does
anybody have any recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice.
I'm presuming (maybe wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right
now but would like to begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice
greatly received.


Now is the time to plant onion sets and garlic cloves, though these do
take up rather a lot of space and will remain in the ground until mid
Summer. Also now is a good time to grow broad beans.

Raised Bed suggests a small area, what size are we talking about? How are
you going to make it?

Converting old grass to veg growing is fine but you may suffer from a few
soil pests for the first couple of years.

Garlic should be planted now but I've given up with autumn planted onions,
lost too many during the winter and they only come a couple of weeks before
the spring planted ones and don't store well either.

Wish I'd read that before Bob, I have just had my Autumn onion sets
delivered. Last years lot were rotten (literally) though the spring sown
ones are fine, I'll just stick to the Spring ones in the future.

"Broadback" wrote ...
Bob Hobden wrote:
Garlic should be planted now but I've given up with autumn planted
onions, lost too many during the winter and they only come a couple of
weeks before the spring planted ones and don't store well either.

Wish I'd read that before Bob, I have just had my Autumn onion sets
delivered. Last years lot were rotten (literally) though the spring sown
ones are fine, I'll just stick to the Spring ones in the future.

Well you may find they are worthwhile where you are, they weren't with us.
We always lost a few and the last year we grew them we lost almost half over
winter. The seed merchants have sold them for as long as I can remember so
someone must consider them worthwhile.
We always grow too many spring planted ones (as you do!) so can always pull
some up as needed anyway.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden

On 28 Sep, 11:19, "Caz" wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to start. I
have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does anybody have any
recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice. I'm presuming (maybe
wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right now but would like to
begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice greatly received.

A couple of good books would be Organic Gardening by Lawrence D. Hills
and Practical allotment gardneing by Caroline Foley. The first will
guide you towards understanding your soil and the crops for it and the
second has practical info from building raised beds to compost and
from planting to mulching and off course composting! Both will be
brilliant for you. After that, just ask!

A lot of information can be picked up from gardening magazines. I would browse them to check that they are publishing what you want before purchasing. The main use of a raised bed is to increase the depth of the soil, so its height will depend on the depth of soil in your garden. Most pictures of raised beds in magazines show them made out of 6 inch boards. Tanalised boards are expensive but they are usually guaranteed for about 20 years I believe. Personally I use breeze blocks, and they are cheaper than buying ready made raised beds - about a quarter of the price. You can lay them on edge burying about 3 inches in the ground for a 6 inch wall. You can lay them on end burying about 6 inches in the ground for a twelve inch wall. You can lay them flat giving 4 inch height multiples with 9 inch wide walls. That might seem a waste of space but you can grow quite a lot of veg in buckets and pots. My beds are 4 blocks high but I can sit on them to work the garden - much easier on the back.
Bigal

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:38:09 +0100, AriesVal
wrote:

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:36:25 +0100, Bigal wrote:

Caz;817441 Wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to
start. I
have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does anybody have
any
recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice. I'm presuming
(maybe
wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right now but would like
to
begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice greatly received.

Caz


Check out the web for info on 'lasagna gardening'. It's a raised bed
technique that might save you a lot of digging.


http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...Sea rch&meta=

Started now, should be ready for spring. Although some plant it up
almost immediately.

As far as planting now, quite a few salad crops will grow late
autumn/winter eg some varieties of lettuce, spinach and rocket. There
are also some overwintering spring onions. It's a bit late to start
them, but as seed is cheap it's worth trying a few rather than leaving
the area bare. I made some simple wooden open framed boxes covered
with polythene to protect late and early spring sown hardy plants from
the cold winds (just as deadly as frost). Another advantage of a
raised bed is that you can screw a protective cover over and so not
have it blow away like the cheaper plastic cloches.

Nigel

The message
from Broadback contains these words:

Now is the time to plant onion sets and garlic cloves, though these do
take up rather a lot of space and will remain in the ground until mid
Summer. Also now is a good time to grow broad beans.

Unless you can arrange an area of the bed which is low in nutrients, I'd
advise against onions. These are usually planted fourth in a four-year
rotation.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

Somewhere on teh intarwebs "tony newton" typed:
On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:38:09 +0100, AriesVal
wrote:

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:36:25 +0100, Bigal wrote:

Caz;817441 Wrote:
I have decided to grow veg on raised beds and have no idea where to
start. I
have a small piece of lawn that I will be converting. Does anybody
have any
recommendations for a book to give me ideas and advice. I'm
presuming (maybe
wrongly) that I can't actually plant anything right now but would
like to
begin preparations for spring planting. Any advice greatly
received.

Caz


Check out the web for info on 'lasagna gardening'. It's a raised bed
technique that might save you a lot of digging.


http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...Sea rch&meta=

Started now, should be ready for spring. Although some plant it up
almost immediately.

As far as planting now, quite a few salad crops will grow late
autumn/winter eg some varieties of lettuce, spinach and rocket. There
are also some overwintering spring onions. It's a bit late to start
them, but as seed is cheap it's worth trying a few rather than leaving
the area bare. I made some simple wooden open framed boxes covered
with polythene to protect late and early spring sown hardy plants from
the cold winds (just as deadly as frost). Another advantage of a
raised bed is that you can screw a protective cover over and so not
have it blow away like the cheaper plastic cloches.

Thanks Nigel, I'd not heard of that method before. Lots of links bookmarked
for later browsing...

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me
offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it.
If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to
me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-)

Somewhere on teh intarwebs "~misfit~" typed:
Somewhere on teh intarwebs "tony newton" typed:
Check out the web for info on 'lasagna gardening'. It's a raised bed
technique that might save you a lot of digging.


http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...Sea rch&meta=

Started now, should be ready for spring. Although some plant it up
almost immediately.

As far as planting now, quite a few salad crops will grow late
autumn/winter eg some varieties of lettuce, spinach and rocket. There
are also some overwintering spring onions. It's a bit late to start
them, but as seed is cheap it's worth trying a few rather than
leaving the area bare. I made some simple wooden open framed boxes
covered with polythene to protect late and early spring sown hardy
plants from the cold winds (just as deadly as frost). Another
advantage of a raised bed is that you can screw a protective cover
over and so not have it blow away like the cheaper plastic cloches.

Thanks Nigel, I'd not heard of that method before. Lots of links
bookmarked for later browsing...

Ahhh, so it's essentially composting in situ, then planting into it.
Interesting but I prefer my more traditional methods. I simply don't have
the sheer volume of compostable material needed for that method.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

DISCLAIMER: If you find a posting or message from me
offensive, inappropriate, or disruptive, please ignore it.
If you don't know how to ignore a posting, complain to
me and I will be only too happy to demonstrate... ;-)