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Your Questions About Gardening « gardenerscardiff.co.uk
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gardenerscardiff.co.uk

For the Best Gardeners in the Cardiff Area

   Dec 07

Your Questions About Gardening

Richard asks…

How do you start a veggie garden?

I would like to start a vegetable garden. Our soil is rocky and poor quality, so I plan on building a soil box. How deep do I need the soil to be? Should my garden box have a bottom or should I line it with bark or something else? Once I have a box, what ind of soil should I buy – is it best to use different types of soil at different layers?

GardenersCardiff answers:

Hello and excellent question!

First, you have made a wise choice in building a raised bed (soil box). When your soil is rocky or poor quality, a raised bed can make the difference between disappointment and a nice harvest.

How deep your soil needs to be kind of depends on what you plan to grow, and how much soil you actually have underneath that you can use — the rocky part is the problem. In general, 12 inches is the least I would go for a great harvest. If you can build your bed even deeper, your beggies will thank you for it. 🙂

As long as you’ve cleared out the weeds and removed some of the rocks, you don’t need to line your raised bed box. In fact, you can start by mixing what soil you do have with compost, to make your poor soil a bit better.

Personally for the raised beds I grow, I like mostly compost — bagged is fine. I will also usually add in some (don’t laugh) potting soil to make the soil a bit more porous; easier for new roots to grow. I just mix it all up.

Once you’ve planted your veggies, don’t forget to mulch them well. I like hay (the cheaper the better) the best, but you can use bark chips, newspaper or plastic garden mulch.

Best of luck with your garden!

Joseph asks…

What is a good thing to build that is easy and fun to do?

I am bored and want to build something. It has to be easy to build yet, fun. Please give me ideas.

GardenersCardiff answers:

There are blogs and websites that can help you. The crafts page on American Made Yes shows pictures of things you can make and the instructions and where you can buy craft kits and supplies.

There are two projects offered without charge on the website, with pictures and full instructions.The free instructions are for an easy to make planter and an easy to make miniature satiny bed for a doll house. The satiny bed uses ordinary things like an old cd which cut in half makes the headboard. It is very clever. Then there is the planter which uses a straw basket. It makes a nice gift filled with plants and is easy to do and practical.

There is also a feature for making a cold frame, with a link to the free instructions, and pictures of the cold frame under construction. This is, of course, a project requiring a fair amount of skill but fun to do and very useful indeed.

Some super websites that offer kits are Greenleaf Dollhouses with wonderful miniatures you can make, birdhouses that can be hung in the garden, and crafts kits from Janlynn, Toner Crafts, Wildwood Crafts, and others. You’ll find all these listings with pictures on http://americanmadeyes.com/crafts.html

Lizzie asks…

What can i do to reduce the amount of time i spent working in my garden?

i am always so busy working in my garden i never have time to enjoy it. what can i do to reduce my labor time?

GardenersCardiff answers:

I know how you feel. Or should I say I KNEW how you feel. I lived on the end of an out-of-the-way cul-de-sac. In the spring I’d get cars coming by every day just to check out my yard. I enjoyed the attention, but after a few years I started feeling the pressure not to disappoint. It got to the point where if my family wanted to spend time with me they came out to “visit” with me in the garden. The only time I saw my pool was when I was fussing with the plants that surrounded it. It was time to do something to free up some time to enjoy my work. I made some simple changes and managed to cut my garden time in half. These are some of the steps I took.

1st. I installed a good agricultural grade micro-drip system with automatic fertilizer injector. Electric valves on a good, easy to use automatic irrigation controller. The controller was a modular design. I could program it at my desk & just walk it out to the garage & snap it into the pre-wired wall mount & I was done.

2nd. I started using larger, colorful, low maintenance perennials & shrubs in the outer areas, away from the house. Lots of salvia, ceanothus, rock rose, penstemon, verbena, westringia, nandina and the like and went heavy on fields of hybrid repeat blooming daylilies in shades from cream to deep plum.

3rd. I buried the entire property under 6 inches of mulch. Some areas got as much as a foot of mulch.

Suddenly I had time to be a parent volunteer in my son’s kindergarten class. Time to see the pool from the inside. Time to go back to school & get my Masters Degree… In fact I had time to get two Masters.
I was spending 50% less time in the yard, and the traffic still came every spring.

Just a few adjustments in your normal way of doing things can really save you time in the garden.

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