Raised Beds

Last year, with little help from a friend, I turned a mound of soil, which was dumped onto my lawn by the so called landscaper that gravelled my driveway, into a raised bed so I could plant some veg. By the time I got around to doing this, the earth mound had been there for well over a year and was covered in grass and weeds. Having no spare cash to buy wood to make the raised beds, I decided to make use of some large lumps of slate that I had rescued from a nearby bank that had been demolished, and after much weeding and digging and spreading it looked quite good. In October of 2011, I picked up a few trays of cheap veg plants, at 29p for 12 plants, I just couldn't resist and bought trays of cauliflower, cabbage, leeks, carrots, sprouts and kale and I planted them into the bed to see what happened.

Biodynamics

Right well here comes post number 2. I know it's taken a while to do this second post but hopefully now I will be able to update the blog on a regular basis. Recently, I have been reading a a book that I bought myself with one of my Christmas vouchers called Gardening and Planting by the Moon 2012. I was curious after reading an article in the Guardian about The National Trust giving biodynamics a go so after doing some research on the subject and chatting to a few people, I have decided to give it a go. Being a bit of a geek, (according to my daughters, although I can't see it myself) I have devised a bit of an experiment to see if it has any noticeable effect on the veg I plant. I have been collecting wooden fruit crates from my local greengrocers and I am going to fill 3 identical boxes with compost from the same compost bag. Then I'm going to use seeds from the same packet to plant the seeds. Box 1 will be planted on a day which corresponds to a recommended planting day for that particular veg, box 2 will be planted on a day when it says not to plant any plants at all and as a control, I'm going to plant box number 3 on any old day. It seems a bit complicated but from the reviews I have read and the planting by the moon book, I figure it can't do any harm and if it increases the yield of my veg this year, then I'm all for it. I will be posting a weekly photograph of the boxes so you can see for yourselves.