starting from scratch - a bit overwhelmed

[AthelstaneTheUnready]

Hello to all - and a plea for a bit of simplification!

Due to being flooded I moved to a new rental last year. Basically a block carved out of the side of a field in the middle of nothing. Big flat '[' shape of grass around the house, with a barbed wire fence and a bit of a ditch separating it from the field.

Because it's rented (and I earn close to nothing) I genuinely can't afford to spend cash on it. On the other hand, I love gardening and I can't look at this neglected space for the next few years. Last Spring I dug out a herbaceous border along the roadside fence and filled it with plants from the dead zones in B&Q and B&M (white lupins, six hills giant, some oriental poppies, lucifers, sisyrinchiums, a pulsatilla, ox-eye daisies and some other randoms). I've recently binged badly on the £3.49 fruit trees from Aldi and now have 5 fruit trees and a weeping willow up at the front bit of the front lawn.

But the rest... it's just tangled grass and weeds up through the wire fence and flat turf for two of the three sides - I can't afford to hedge all the way round (though I do have 12 half price beech heeled in waiting for a plan) and it SO needs a bit of shaping. Or something.

I've been looking at it for a year now and still inspiration hasn't struck - could I please ask you for help with any and all ideas you might have - preferably ones that involve labour rather than money...

The thing about gardening is that you can do a lot with time and patience and very little money - like pinching cuttings from everyone you know who has anything you like (hormone rooting powder and some cheap pots are the only things you need), buying bulbs and things in Aldi, sowing from seed. And one good thing about veg gardening is that so many crops aren't perennial - so you can get a good harvest annually that will hopefully more than pay for your outlay.

For other stuff, see it as a hobby that you're investing in - you're learning a set of skills that you'll take with you wherever you go next, and when you do settle down for the longer term, you'll be able to build the most amazing garden! What about doing some ornamental things in pots that you can move to a new place to get that continuity?? You can grow things like box balls that look wonderful from 99p plants bought from a market - but it takes time.

(I say this as someone who started gardening in a rented house that I knew I wouldn't be staying in for that long. I'm now on my third house/garden since I began - but settled in this one I think/hope. I landscaped it about 3 years ago now, with a very limited budget. It started off looking ridiculous because I couldn't afford large plants, so there was just a fatsia plonked in one part, and then a tiny stick of bamboo in another. But things are getting big and filling out now to create something very much more continuous, which is really exciting! When you reach the stage where you've having to divide and bin plants because they're too large, it's really satisfying!)

Ooh hello - yes I was busy!

In the rows versus blocks - you need to have a look at this picture.

If you plant in a grid, you are wasting space. Plant in hexagons [most plants are round not square] for the best use of space.

Shove, you have no idea how many notes and designs I have made for my long term garden! In fact, if you want to hear long term planning... last year I started from seed: larches, yews, hollies, viburnums, oaks, maples (ok, not difficult that one), birches, some random firs I don't know the name of but liked the shape, cotoneasters, and more... I realise I may be dead before many of those are much taller than I am, but that's not the point!

Doreen, many thanks for the picture - totally got it. I have been delaying digging out the veg patch as I didn't know where I was going with it, but will start today. have realised part of the procrastinating is a deep dislike of digging up turf and knocking the soil off it

This morning I've just put up one of the £15 4 tier plastic greenhouses everyone hates so much. It's up against the back (south facing) wall, with two oak garden chairs jammed up against each side, and a concrete paving slab on the bottom rungs, so fingers very crossed that it won't blow away. Mid construction I also sellotaped bubble wrap around the bottom 2/3rds to help insulation. And THAT is because like an overeager idiot I started my seeds off too soon and they're getting far too leggy on the windowsills, so have shifted them to the plastic greenhouse. Hoping that the cooler temps and increased light will slow them down a bit, rather than kill them. Am in NW, near Scottish border, so temps bumping along around -1 to 4 day and night. Not great. But they couldn't stay where they were any longer. NEXT year I will not/not plant seeds in February.

Ok you do NOT need to dig up turf. I repeat you do NOT NEED TO dig up turf.

organicgardening.about.com/od/startinganorganicgarden/a/lasagnagarden.htm

Part of gardening is knowing which seeds you can start in feb. Eg peas and broad beans are fine. Beetroot and lettuce. Chillis indoors. Tomatoes towards the end indoors. Parsnips can go outdoors now.

Oooooooooooooooooooooohhh!!! Big squeal. Seriously? I've just looked at that link, and I have lots of old newspaper, and last year's compost heap - I even have some old boards to hold it all in. Can you lasagne with just two layers?

Seriously?

Good grief.

Re seeds - it was my peas and beans I was most concerned about - they were straining for light. Parsnips will now have to wait a while for my lovely, fluffy, crumbly lasagna to be ready.

Doreen, I love you. thank you.

Yes but I would put the first layer down as cardboard so if you can some of that - then the newspaper and then the compost. You can also add your kitchen scraps as you go, including coffee grounds etc, just pop some wet newspaper on top each time.

If you are starting just with this space, I'd leave carrots and parsnips til next year...or grow those in deep containers whilst this beds down. Peas and broadies could go straight once the cardboard and newspaper have soaked some rain up and softened a bit.

OK, I've been poking about, and I think I can manage layers of:

1 cardboard
2 the top of the compost heap (i.e. not decomposed yet)
3 newspaper
4 the middle of the compost heap (mostly decomposed but still lumpy)
5 newspaper
6 bottom of the compost heap (lovely black soil)

I think I'm going to need to make this bed a bit bigger.

So much for no-dig gardening

I nailed together some planks (about 2x2m I think), layered cardboard, then

[backwards and forwards with the wheelbarrow to the compost heap]

a layer of undigested stuff, then

a layer of newspaper, then

[backwards and forwards with the wheelbarrow to the compost heap]

a layer of almost digested stuff, then

a layer of newspaper, then

[backwards and forwards with the wheelbarrow to the compost heap]

a layer of lovely black soil on top.

I haven't dug so much in a year .

I also now have a great gaping hole in the middle of my compost heap that needs, yep, digging over and around. And a slightly achey back.

I've pegged some fleece over the whole thing to keep it a bit warmer (it snowed a little this morning) and will refuse to even look at it until the 1st of May. BUT I have a veg bed in the making, and can spend two months building another one feeling smug.

Inside news: pansies are up - and that is a bonus, as I collected the seed last year, promptly forgot about it and left it in a tub in the cupboard all Winter - didn't think they'd do anything. Still no courgettes or cucumbers, bugger 'em.

Courgettes and cucumbers? I havent even looked at the packet yet let alone sown any. Far too cold.

You must have missed the 'overeager idiot' self diagnosis further up

They've been on the windowsill with everything else since mid Feb. Sigh.

I have spent a pedantic hour today planning backwards from an assumed outdoor planting date of mid-May, through hardening off times, potting on times, germination times, and you will not be surprised in the least to hear that mid February was not the optimum time to start anything that I have.

Perhaps the God of Gormless Gardeners will arrange an unseasonably warm Spring, starting around... tomorrow. < hopeful >

We've all done it, Athelstane, don't worry.

There are some things that can go on mid-Feb. I started my tomatoes, chillis, and aubergines then! (Last year I got a greenhouse in early April and I left sowing too late- particularly in Sheffield where the summer is cold. I didn't get much of a crop. This year I'm going in early!).

You're only a teensy bit early for some cucumbers to grow under glass too. If you faff around them a bit, you might be fine - put them in a cool but not freezing place with loads of light in the day, bring them somewhere warmer at night. If we get a warmer second half of March, they might be fine.

I'm afraid you are really, really early for courgettes though! However, the good thing with them is you only need a couple of plants to give a bumper harvest, so just resow once the frosts are out the way.

thanks, shove. I must point out though that this is the first house I have ever lived in with effective central heating. Which means this is the first house I have ever lived in that hasn't had ice on the inside of the windows during winter. Which means I still have foolishly stubborn hopes that the courgettes and cucumbers on the windowsills might germinate, despite starting far too early.

What the bloody hell I'm going to do with them between now and June if they do though... The ones that have gone 'outside' are the ridiculously early beans and peas ([cough] and the rest) - but they've gone into a bubble wrapped plastic greenhouse and still seem perky after a few nights' frost and snow, though lord knows how long that will last. Temp due to rise in the next few days which might prevent them keeling over entirely.

The courgettes might well germinate in the warm indoors - the challenge will be to slam the brakes on and keep them small until they're ready to plant out because they grow pretty quickly once they get started. They will die if they get frosted. If the last frost comes early, and we get a good start to the summer, they might make it. But I think I would sow a second lot a bit later on so I had backup.

Peas and beans may well make it - you can overwinter them (planting them in the autumn, letting them sit as small plants over the winter in the soil, and then they grow in the spring). As this might suggest, most varieties are tough!

hmm, think if they do make it, they can go in the rubbish plastic greenhouse when they're about an inch high as well - as before, it will slow them if it doesn't kill them.

the peas and beans are blasting well thriving out there!

today is pity-the-parsley-and-dill day i think. I bought a pot of each from the supermarket because i felt sorry for all the dessicated plants out there - they are both, of course, about 20 weedy plants jammed together to look like one big bushy one. I'll see if i can't split them up without too much damage into separate pots. they were only 40p each as they'd wilted, but a few days water has perked them up enough to make me think they might survive being split.

I'm having a sad moment. Dug out my camera prior to going for a walk tomorrow, and found photos on it from two years ago. I miss my garden - but it ended up under 2 feet of water, so it wouldn't have been sustainable like this anyway. On the plus side, I'm reminded how much I love canterbury bells and sweet william, and that there's nothing wrong with a whacking great vulgar red geranium in a pot.

I even miss the grass!