On 30 Jan, 22:48, Sacha wrote:
On 30/1/07 20:19, in article
. com, "80/20"





wrote:
I have a small lawn that is not it's best because it is used in the
summer as a patio area, the table, chairs and umbrella stand all turn
the lawn yellow.

I am thinking of digging it up and covering the area will gravel,
after putting down a mulch sheet.

I also would like to put triangular raised beds on the 4 corners to
grow veg in.

Questions:
How high would you make the beds?
I have plenty of home made compost, could this be used to fill the
beds?
What crops would you recommend?

My first reaction would be that if you intend to gravel it and then put a
table and chairs on it, you'll curse yourself to the end of your days! Pave
it, perhaps but if it's gravel it will never, ever be an even surface for
garden furniture.
--
Sachahttp://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devonhttp://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Good point Sacha.

On 1 Feb, 21:17, "Mike Lyle"
wrote:
"JennyC" wrote in message

...







On 30 Jan 2007 12:19:28 -0800, "80/20"
wrote:

I am thinking of digging it up and covering the area will gravel,
after putting down a mulch sheet.

I also would like to put triangular raised beds on the 4 corners to
grow veg in.



Many thanks for all your replies, they certainly give me food for
thought, if not the stomach straight away.

Steve

On 1/2/07 21:21, in article
, "80/20"
wrote:

On 30 Jan, 22:48, Sacha wrote:
On 30/1/07 20:19, in article
. com, "80/20"





wrote:
I have a small lawn that is not it's best because it is used in the
summer as a patio area, the table, chairs and umbrella stand all turn
the lawn yellow.

I am thinking of digging it up and covering the area will gravel,
after putting down a mulch sheet.

I also would like to put triangular raised beds on the 4 corners to
grow veg in.

Questions:
How high would you make the beds?
I have plenty of home made compost, could this be used to fill the
beds?
What crops would you recommend?

My first reaction would be that if you intend to gravel it and then put a
table and chairs on it, you'll curse yourself to the end of your days! Pave
it, perhaps but if it's gravel it will never, ever be an even surface for
garden furniture.
--

Good point Sacha.

It's live and learn. A long time ago when I first started making my first
garden, I had a similar idea and an experienced gardener pointed the same
potential problem out to me. With me, it was old and uneven stone slabs but
the outcome would have been the same.
--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
http://www.discoverdartmoor.co.uk/
(remove weeds from address)

"Keith (Dorset)" wrote in message
...

Steve,

I use 6in by 4in treated timber boards just screwed together.

I dug over the soil the first year and added compost. Every year I add a
bit more compost and its gradually building up.

You don't need to fill them all up the first season.

Make three beds and rotate them with roots, brassicas and 'other' (look up
'crop roatation').

I have been thinking, and that is not easy!, about using raised beds, but
they would be 30 feet by 4 feet, how would I be able to make those up to a
reasonable level, of soil I mean!

Alan

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
g'day steve,

best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!




On 30 Jan 2007 12:19:28 -0800, "80/20"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

On Thu, 1 Feb 2007 19:39:01 +0100, "JennyC"
wrote:


"Pam Moore" wrote in message
.. .
On 30 Jan 2007 12:19:28 -0800, "80/20"
wrote:

I am thinking of digging it up and covering the area will gravel,
after putting down a mulch sheet.

I also would like to put triangular raised beds on the 4 corners to
grow veg in.

I always wonder, when you see pictures of raised beds, edged with
boards, with nice cleangravel paths between, how you manage to dig and
plant without getting soil on the gravel. You can sweep a paved path,
you can't sweep gravel.
Practical or not?
Just a thought!
Pam in Bristol

I find that spilt soil washes down through the gravel..........
Jenny

BUT that makes a nice bed for weed seeds!

Pam in Bristol

best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!


don't understand what you mean alan??

we have 2 pages with pictures and descriptions of raised beds that we
have done.

On Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:26:55 GMT, "Alan Holmes"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!

don't understand what you mean alan??

we have 2 pages with pictures and descriptions of raised beds that we
have done.

Alan - look at http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm

Jenny

thanks jenny,

just can't understand how alan couldn't find that page and also this
one:

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/builds.htm

???

On Sat, 3 Feb 2007 07:42:56 +0100, "JennyC"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!


don't understand what you mean alan??

we have 2 pages with pictures and descriptions of raised beds that we
have done.

Well, I'm afraid they were not obvious to me!

Alan

"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!

don't understand what you mean alan??

we have 2 pages with pictures and descriptions of raised beds that we
have done.

Alan - look at http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm

Thanks, that went straight to it.

Very impresive but I don't think I could cope with all that straw.

What puzzles me most about raised beds is, where do people get all the soil
to fill them?

Alan

"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
On 31/1/07 23:38, in article ,
"Pam Moore" wrote:

On 30 Jan 2007 12:19:28 -0800, "80/20"
wrote:

I am thinking of digging it up and covering the area will gravel,
after putting down a mulch sheet.

I also would like to put triangular raised beds on the 4 corners to
grow veg in.

I always wonder, when you see pictures of raised beds, edged with
boards, with nice cleangravel paths between, how you manage to dig and
plant without getting soil on the gravel. You can sweep a paved path,
you can't sweep gravel.
Practical or not?
Just a thought!

Hosepipe wash down?
Whenever I read about raised beds, I envisage trying to get those going
for
myself - it's never going to happen but the concept intrigues me. I'm
5'10"
and have quite a lot of back and neck trouble. By no stretch of the
imagination am I disabled or whatever but I certainly can't dig, a visit
to
the supermarket leaves me with backache and the sort of stoop you have to
do
to empty a dishwasher is just the angle that gets me into trouble. So, if
I
wanted to have raised beds that truly saved me back ache I'd have to have
raised beds that came to something around chest height which, for me would
be around 4'or so. Does anyone actually do that? I'm genuinely
interested
to hear about this from those with experience.

So, apart from the height, we appear to have quite a bit in common, I have
all the same problems and I am not looking forward to digging at all this
year, but someone posted about hiring a cultivator, and I might have a try
at that.

I was thinking of putting a notice in the local newsagents window asking for
some energetic young 'person' to come and dig it for me!

I have seen beds at about 3 feet high for people in wheelchairs.

Alan

On Sat, 3 Feb 2007 20:52:24 +0000, Alan Holmes wrote
(in article ):


"JennyC" wrote in message
...

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
best height is about 10 to 12"s you can go higher see our page for
pics etc.,. on how we do our raised beds.

Nothing obviously shown for raised beds!

don't understand what you mean alan??

we have 2 pages with pictures and descriptions of raised beds that we
have done.

Alan - look at http://www.lensgarden.com.au/straw_bale_garden.htm

Thanks, that went straight to it.

Very impresive but I don't think I could cope with all that straw.

What puzzles me most about raised beds is, where do people get all the soil
to fill them?

Alan, we have only one raised bed (for veg). We covered the bottom with
layers of thick cardboard straight over the existing grass (I think this was
a tip from Janet Baraclough), and then put loads and loads of horse manure
in, mixed in with some of our own dried grass (we have lots of long grass
which we cut twice a year and then we leave the dry grass in a large
container to dry more and rot down a little). We topped it up with some
bought in top soil, but most of the "filling" was manure and grass. We are
lucky in that we live in a rural area and have friends with horses who are
delighted to find a home for their horse manure. The second year, of course
we had to top it up a bit since the level had dropped a bit - again, we dug
in more horse manure.



--
Sally in Shropshire, UK
bed and breakfast near Ludlow: http://www.stonybrook-ludlow.co.uk
Burne-Jones/William Morris window in Shropshire church:
http://www.whitton-stmarys.org.uk

"gardenlen" wrote in message
...
thanks jenny,
just can't understand how alan couldn't find that page and also this
one:
http://www.lensgarden.com.au/builds.htm

I've bookmarked your excellent info pages for future reference. I hope to be
able to put it to good use .......
Jenny

g'day alan,

the straw bale one is of a temporary nature, if you go to the building
a garden page you will see what other material i have used, the straw
all breaks down anyway. and always looks bit chunky until it settles
down.

if you read through the text you will see that our main medium is
mushroom compost. we don't bring any soils in.


On Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:52:24 GMT, "Alan Holmes"
wrote:

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/