Turning back garden into veg patch

[GinAndOnIt]

We've got quite a big space in the front garden which we're slowly clearing/transforming, and just a small garden out back.

We had planned a big veg patch out the front like next door but we're now thinking of turning the entire back lawn into the veg patch and keeping the front for the mature trees and borders. Is this a silly idea?

It's a raised grass area, with a small wall in front and a few steps going up to it in the middle from a small patio area. We have a table on the patio area, and don't use the grass area at all.

The back garden is also south facing, so does get the best sun. So I was thinking we could create a path (just a mown strip probably) from the steps to the back of the garden, and grow veg either side. Then it would be close to the kitchen too, which makes a lot of sense.

The only thing I'm worried about is what it will look like in winter - what do your veg plots look like? Will we just be looking at a big pile of soil for months?

I suppose that doesn't really matter, because we mostly have views of the front garden when we're sat inside, and we could pretty up the patio with pots or something maybe.

It just seems a bit extreme to dig up a whole lawn - would we be mad to do it?

This is such self-evident advice I hesitate to type it!! So apologies in advance for being Captain Obvious!! But with fruit, it comes at different times of year. So the advantage of something like rhubarb is a really early crop in the spring when not much else in the way of fruit is a-going. Then strawberries come, then early rasps, currants, mid and late season rasps (it is well worth getting canes of all three), then your tree fruit like apples and pears. There are even things that go later than that, like Chilean guava, which I am waiting so, so patiently for in my garden right now, despite the almost irresistible temptation of just trying one!! (I have to sit on my hands, I really do, to stop myself).

Perennial veg is useful because it's often lower maintainance and also lower carbon. I am trying to expand my collection of things slowly as I find by trial and error as I find out what I can grow!! :). So far I have asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, yacon.

we have just bought a Chilean guava - DH chose it for the front garden,as an ornamental shrub - hope it does well shove :)

I love a bit of Captain Obvious - I'm still so new to all of this! It's shameful really how little I know about how things grow when I eat them so regularly.

I love this board though, I feel like I can ask silly questions and still get lovely responses. I'm excited to watch Gardeners World with my breakfast tomorrow

I went for a walk with MIL this afternoon and she pointed out Spindleberry which I have never seen before and am mesmerised! I'm sure it's a terrible thing to plant and keep control of in the garden, but do you think I could pop it on the edge of a border if I really really promise to keep cutting it back? I love it!

erm, can I be blunt? - no its quite large. so more for hedge /screen ....and the berries are poisonous !

Hmmm, I'm trying to think of something that might give you amazing berries but be slightly easier to control - what about a callicarpa? The berries are like little wooden beads and such an amazing shade of purple.

Are you on alkaline soil?? I think spindleberries like lime, which is why I ask!!

I'll stick to admiring it in the dog walk then

Callicarpa looks gorgeous. I also want a sarococca (or whatever it's called) that you recommended last time shove

How do I know what my soil is?!

Just watching GW now. Monty is planting some gorgeous sedum. Sedum is slowly becoming one of my favourites I think. I love the thick leaves and the stiff structure.

I've got lots of Autumn Joy to move into the borders but he also had some lovely deep purple/brown ones. So beautiful. Might have to try and get my hands on some of that kind too.

Did some digging out front today and found three fern plants! Was thinking of planting some in the shady part of the border (when I've made it!) and they are already growing close by. Hooray.

Oooh, I love it when plants that you really want just show up! It's wonderful. And it shows your thinking is perfectly aligned with nature's gin!!

Sarcococca is such a wonderful scent, one of my very favourite in the garden from the whole year. It's not the most showy looker of plants, but it really does make up for it with that fragrance, which comes at the time of the year when you most need it - February and March! Hodsock Priory have lots of plants in a mini hedge alongside a path and it's just glorious in the sun. (They also have a lovely smelling winter honeysuckle, which I must get I think!!).

I do like a sedum, but in my north-facing garden they go all leggy and collapse everywhere. I thought I had a cunning plan to avoid this by giving my sedum the Chelsea chop, which did work to make it bush out and assume a rather less horizontal form. Unfortunately, though, it delayed the flowering to such an extent that the first frost hit before it had a chance to get going!!

For your soil, pick it up when it's not soaking wet and roll it between your fingers - if it falls apart, it's likely to be well drained, if it forms a ball it's likely to be clay. With sandy or chalky soil, you can often see the particulates in it. You can also tell by the weeds that frequent your garden! Mine is full of creeping buttercup, willowherb and chickweed - real clay-lovers! Also, you can buy a pH testing kit for a couple of quid from the garden centre - this is well worth doing at several points around your plot because you have an enviably large area and one end may be a little different from another.

www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/soil-types-and-weeds.htm

Ah from your description alone, I would guess clay. Buttercup everywhere! And does form clumps.

Have started putting the cardboard down on the back lawn this morning - so it begins!

oh, I like sedum too, but DH really doesn't.
Free plants are good - it surprising what you find furtling around in the soil at this time of year. :)
What are you using to weight it down with?

book luckily (unluckily?) the previous owners used the garden as a dumping ground, so the little shed and underneath the big shed is full of bricks and slabs and all sorts of other rubbish, so I've used some of that to weight it down for now, until we can source some soil.

shove do you remember the picture of the bottom of the front garden, where I'd put the roses? Have been digging and started to make better ones now (I hope?!) - I feel like I need your approval

(Excuse the long grass)

gin I do remember it well!! That looks so much better for the roses - you have room for manure now! Your edging is bloody neat as well - that's not easy to do!

(You don't need my approval, though, you are doing AMAZING work! It's going to be sensational in a few years - you'll be opening for the National Garden Scheme!)

If you find it is a pain to keep those edges once the grass starts regrowing next year, and you want to stick with circles, you can buy Everedge garden rings which will keep it looking absolutely pristine!! But you may find it's not an issue for you - depends on the grass! So worth waiting to see if they are needed, since they aren't that cheap!

Also, I know this is slightly off topic from original post, but do any of you experts know of a lovely gardening book? I was thinking of getting one for MIL, but she has a few old books that she's used for decades and trusts. She's helped so much with our garden (letting me endlessly chop away at all her plants for cuttings, for one thing!) so I thought a token garden present might be nice. Bit stuck though. Do you still appreciate a book if you've been doing it a while already? Or is there still lots to learn?

Ah thank you! They look a lot more like a feature now don't they? Rather than little lost flowers. The one nearest the edge of the path always caught my eye and so I decided I wanted them all to catch my eye as I walked up :)

Thanks for tip about edging, I've no idea how it will age so it's good to know there's something to help. Keeping on top of edging the path seems a full time job as is!

They do look quite the feature, especially as you have one still in flower! I always forget that nowadays so much flowers right up to the end of October.

And yes, books are wonderful and an absolutely brilliant present! And there are lots of different kinds. You can get things that are generally informative (there is an Anna Pavord one called The Naming of Names, which is beautifully illustrated and an easy-to-read guide to plant nomenclature), books by specialist gardeners (Christopher Lloyd's Well-Tempered Garden and Colour, Beth Chatto's Dry & Damp Garden books, for example) or even classic antiquarian books by people like William Robinson, Gertrude Jekyll etc if you are thinking of a splurge!

If your MIL likes graphic design, Herbarium by Caz Hildebrand is a gorgeous new book - truly spectacular inside.

We should probably have a gardening books thread - I know book has lots and I will be eagerly awaiting her recommendations!

Yes a gardening books thread would be brilliant! MIL gave me one called Gardeninf Through The Year which she said she bought for herself but thought she'd be kind and pass it on. It's a lovely book for a total amateur like me ;) I mainly like the part where it says what I should be doing in what month, and pictures of plants that are 'stars' in certain months.

She has one book that is very old, but has a chart in it of when to sow certain vegetables, and she refers back to it a lot. She has borders but I'm not sure she changes them that often - she likes low maintenance as she's fairly busy still around the farm. But maybe it would be nice to get her a totally different style to what she's used to so she can try something new.

Ooooh, do it gin! You should own it as a thread because it's your idea!

(Also someone may clang me over the head with a watering can if I start yet another thread myself!!)

Here are a couple of page spreads from that Herbarium book.

Oh wow, those pages are beautiful. I'm half tempted to buy it for myself and frame a few pages for the kitchen!

(I'm sure people are a lot more sick of my name popping up than yours, shove - I love seeing your name on a thread though )

By the looks of things, they are going to make notecards and index cards of the pages, along with giftwrap! So maybe you will be able to frame those!!

And I guarantee no-one is sick of your name!! I feel privileged to watch your amazing new garden take form!

In that case, may I ask another question? Saves starting another thread ;)

What is this great big carpet of green? It's growing below the pine tree. DP loves it so it is to stay, but I'd like to know what it is so I can at least prune it back!

(It also has to stay because it's full of rabbit holes underneath it, as GinDog and I discovered numerous times when walking over it!)

Looks like a Juniper 'blue carpet' to me? But I could be wrong - I don't really know my conifers!