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Update on the raised beds

Feb 262012

Raised veg bed with cabbages

Here are a couple of quick pictures as an update on the raised beds I added over the winter. To my inexperienced eye they look pretty impressive but then what do I know!
Last autumn I planted a few cabbage seedlings out (an impulse buy at B&Q) but they haven’t done a lot so far… At least the wood chip path along one side is looking nice and the bluebells which are everywhere should add a nice bit of colour eventually.

The other raised bed just next door is also looking good and when I took this picture the plan was to keep it covered for a while to keep it protected from any cold weather. I soon realised that the forecast is looking good for this week so I might as well leave it uncovered and get some rain on it!

Covered raised veg bed

Wood chip is the way forward

General Gardening, Plans / Preparation No Responses »

Feb 162012

I can’t believe I’ve never used wood/bark chips in the garden before! After setting up the 3 veg beds it very quickly became clear that I didn’t have enough old paving slabs to reuse when making the paths around them.

My first reaction was to leave the unpaved areas as compressed soil and hope that regular use would mean that weeds did not take over. It wasn’t long before I realised that wasn’t going to work as a permanent solution for weed suppression.

Instead I added 3 bags of bark chips to a recent online order of compost (from Creative Garden Ideas) and threw a couple of them down (after clearing any obvious weeds of course). The result was a major transformation quite out of proportion to the amount of time and effort I had put in.

There was an added bonus as a result of using pine bark chips, my veg beds now small a little like a pine fresh toilet!

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