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#1
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New Border!
Hi All,
Bored with container and grow bag gardening we asked the landord for permission to dig a border in the back lawn. This granted, we have now cut the turf away to reveal a patch of sandy, dark soil that seems typical here in Folkestone. The border has a 8' wall behind it and faces SW, but has a four storey building 30' away to the SW and is open ( except for a low, sheltering 4' wall ) either side. Almost a "sunken" garden in effect. Today, we're off to buy a fork to dig it over, remove any stones and perhaps buy one of those huge bags of multi purpose compost from Homebase to improve the soil quality as I don't think it's been touched since the war. The question is, what to grow? Considering the time of year, position etc. Plus, it has to be from seed. At some point we will move on and I don't want to invest large sums of money on something we will leave behind eventually. You'll glean something of our interests from earlier posts. Giant echiums, pawlonia tormentosa, vegetables, exotic or exotic looking plants. Oddities, tropical, edible, the strange or just downright huge. Any ideas anyone? anyway, time to buy a fork........... les ) ( happy to be a gardener again.......) -- http://www.stuffmongers.com "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Edward O. Wilson Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge Remove frontal lobes to reply from a NG |
#2
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New Border!
I hope that you have got a spade, which is a gardener's main tool. You
cannot do without it. It enables you to doubledig, slice, break-up and remove soil, whereas the fork has considerable limits in its use. In fact the fork is rarely used in the garden for digging purposes. Regards, Emrys Davies. "Les &/or Claire" wrote in message ... Hi All, Bored with container and grow bag gardening we asked the landord for permission to dig a border in the back lawn. This granted, we have now cut the turf away to reveal a patch of sandy, dark soil that seems typical here in Folkestone. The border has a 8' wall behind it and faces SW, but has a four storey building 30' away to the SW and is open ( except for a low, sheltering 4' wall ) either side. Almost a "sunken" garden in effect. Today, we're off to buy a fork to dig it over, remove any stones and perhaps buy one of those huge bags of multi purpose compost from Homebase to improve the soil quality as I don't think it's been touched since the war. The question is, what to grow? Considering the time of year, position etc. Plus, it has to be from seed. At some point we will move on and I don't want to invest large sums of money on something we will leave behind eventually. You'll glean something of our interests from earlier posts. Giant echiums, pawlonia tormentosa, vegetables, exotic or exotic looking plants. Oddities, tropical, edible, the strange or just downright huge. Any ideas anyone? anyway, time to buy a fork........... les ) ( happy to be a gardener again.......) -- http://www.stuffmongers.com "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Edward O. Wilson Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge Remove frontal lobes to reply from a NG |
#3
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New Border!
Emrys Davies wrote:
I hope that you have got a spade, which is a gardener's main tool. You cannot do without it. It enables you to doubledig, slice, break-up and remove soil, whereas the fork has considerable limits in its use. In fact the fork is rarely used in the garden for digging purposes. Regards, Emrys Davies. Indeed we have! It was the first tool i bought.... to take the turf off. I find a fork much better to dig with in stoney ground though. The tines penetrating much better than a spade. Plus, one spade depth is enough if you use lots of deep rich mulch. A sort of semi "no dig" method. Anyway, to this end i am now the proud owner of a stainless steel fork ( only £12! ) and 240 litres of multi purpose compost ( special offer at Homebase ) to serve as a soil conditioner. It'll be a leaf mulch and homemade compost over winter, but I can't wait that long! After this afternoons orgy of digging, the first seeds sown will be some Pappaver Somniferum taken from a decorative bunch of dried pods bought for an arrangement a few years ago. The pods contained several thousand seeds so even if germination is patchy we should get a few plants out of it. Looking around on the web it gives the germination to flowering time as 60 days. So there should be plenty of time left to finally find out what they look like. I already have some giant Echiums sown, and some tamarind seeds ( you never know! ), and some pepper plants ready for planting out. Waffle, Waffle..... ok, on with the digging....... Les wrote in message ... Hi All, Bored with container and grow bag gardening we asked the landord for permission to dig a border in the back lawn. This granted, we have now cut the turf away to reveal a patch of sandy, dark soil that seems typical here in Folkestone. The border has a 8' wall behind it and faces SW, but has a four storey building 30' away to the SW and is open ( except for a low, sheltering 4' wall ) either side. Almost a "sunken" garden in effect. Today, we're off to buy a fork to dig it over, remove any stones and perhaps buy one of those huge bags of multi purpose compost from Homebase to improve the soil quality as I don't think it's been touched since the war. The question is, what to grow? Considering the time of year, position etc. Plus, it has to be from seed. At some point we will move on and I don't want to invest large sums of money on something we will leave behind eventually. You'll glean something of our interests from earlier posts. Giant echiums, pawlonia tormentosa, vegetables, exotic or exotic looking plants. Oddities, tropical, edible, the strange or just downright huge. Any ideas anyone? anyway, time to buy a fork........... les ) ( happy to be a gardener again.......) -- http://www.stuffmongers.com "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Edward O. Wilson Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge Remove frontal lobes to reply from a NG -- http://www.stuffmongers.com "Homo sapiens, the first truly free species, is about to decommission natural selection, the force that made us.... Soon we must look deep within ourselves and decide what we wish to become." Edward O. Wilson Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge Remove frontal lobes to reply from a NG |
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