Tag: vegetable growing

Runner bean, wheelie bin screen

Runner bean wheelie bin screen

For a while now we have been discussing our options how to partially hide our wheelie bins from view with some form of trellis and maybe a vigorous climber or vine (passion flower/clematis). Instead of purchasing a plant for the purpose, we could have always taken a cutting of one of our numerous climbers from the back garden. The initial downside was the lead time in which to get a cutting to take root and plant out was too long as we are already 4 weeks into summer. Plus any cutting would take many months to completely take up residence in advance of winter.

For a couple of weeks we have been deliberating where we could grow our runner beans this year, as you cannot grow them in the same location two years running.

Our frugal bamboo trellis for our peas

Our bamboo pea trellis

We could not leave it any longer, our “Champion of England Tall Climbing heritage peas” (yep that is their name) were desperately needing to run riot in the new raised vegetable plot. These are a very rare UK variety that was almost extinct commercially and can grow up to 10 foot tall. They seem ideal for those living in an urban location with limited garden space, like ourselves.

With the usual crop rotations, we cannot grow beans/peas in the same location two years in a row, so we could not do the usual wigwam construction in the main veg plot to support them all…

Building our permanent raised vegetable beds

One of the smaller raised beds

To increase the amount of food we can grow in our garden each year, we had been contemplating how to make a more efficient use of the space available in our back garden without any large scale landscaping or demolition.

Raised vegetable plots were certainly the favoured option, but our requirements were not as straight forward as the last time we built raised beds in our previous properties, there were plenty more variables to consider this time.

From garden to plate in less than 15 mins

Home grown asparagus spear soldiers!!

Ahh home grown fresh asparagus! They taste so much better than what you buy in the supermarket and we are not just saying that, they are sweeter, juicier and have a much stronger flavour.

Though neither Sherrie nor I have ever used an asparagus spear as a soldier substitute when dipping into boiled eggs, what were we missing!? They were absolutely yummy, though after a great debate whilst devouring our prey, we decided the next set of spears (ready in a week or two) will get the hollandaise treatment!

Finally, potatoes planted out

Chitting what? ooops we forgot.

Most of the potatoes have now been planted out, we were a little behind schedule (to say the least). They should have gone out a couple of weeks ago and were starting to get a little leggy and grown through the netting. Ooops!

Yes our chitting regime has been left a little by the wayside, instead of well sprouted tubers we opened the box to find them their long triffid ‘tendrils’ trying to escape through the gaps. Most of the years prior we have been pretty good at saving our egg cartons and getting the potatoes chitted, but this year we were so busy we fogot time and time again.

Fun moving soil to the back garden

Shifting a tonne of soil

This looks like it’s going to be hard work, its a lot of soil to shift from the roadside to our back garden lol. We knew when we ordered a tonne of soil that we would have to move it to the back garden ‘manually’ ourselves with a couple of spades and a wheelbarrow, as we have no access for deliveries. Damn!!

All these great ideas, always seem to result in a little missing forethought on just how we are going to move the materials from point A to B. The rest of the construction/ideas have been planned and thought through, just not the deliveries…