Evening All

[heggied]

Hi there

I'll start by thanking everyone here for the trugloads of excellent help that I've already received from the forums. I've finally plucked up the courage to stop lurking and post something.

We live in the wet, windswept western wilds of the Isle of Lewis, where we've been fighting with a waterlogged peatbog of a vegetable plot on and off for 5 years. We managed really well for a couple of years - potatoes, carrots, parsnips all were grown and munched happily. Then came a couple of kids.

It's amazing the state a once well tended and productive veg plot can become after a couple of years of neglect ...

Anyway - this year ... Kids are a bit older and capable of "helping" out in the garden, I've armed myself with a subscription to GYO, and I've spent the past 6 weeks or so building some raised beds on the ex-veg plot, which now resembles a recreation of the Somme battlefield.

I've built four raised beds so far, and to break myself in gently, I'm going to give the square foot gardening method a bash, and I'm looking forward to annoying everyone here with never ending requests for help, statements of the obvious and recounts of my stupid mistakes. I apologise in advance

David

[Hazel at the Hill]

Blimey! - that's a long way up! Welcome to the vine - enjoy the ride!

[shirlthegirl43]

Hello and welcome to the vine. Take it gently and enjoy the rediscovery of the joy of the garden. If the kids annoy you too much - plant them for a while - they will love it too!

[Flummery]

Hi David - my son worked on the Isle of Lewis for a while a few years back. the winter was interminable I seem to recall! Welcome to the grapevine.

[yoanbob]

hi David welcome to the mad house.

[SarzWix]

Welcome to the 'Vine David At least, with all your weather related problems, drought won't be one of them
Look forward to 'seeing you' around the boards.

[terrier]

Hi David, another warm welcome from North Wales. If you don't mind me being nosy, why do you call yourself 'heggied'? Is it a local word?

[JennieAtkinson]

Hi David and welcome to the Vine. Nice to see another Island member! There's me here in Shetland and Diana in Orkney (Eday). Anybody else out there we dont know about?

I expect we all have similar problems with growing (later schedules and wind, wind, wind .........), but you might be slightly warmer down there than up here.

Let us know how you get on.

[heggied]

Hi folks

Thanks for the friendly welcomes

@terrier - I've been heggied (as it were) online forever - my surname's Heggie. My first name's David. Heggied seems to fit ...

@Jennie - I'm not a lone Islander then! I've been to both Orkney and Shetland loads - I reckon Lewis is very similar to Shetland although, as you say it's probably a fair bit milder here.

The main problems I've had to contend with (apart from the inability to garden on a Sunday) are the ever-present wind and (almost) ever present rain. Drainage is a huge problem, hence the raised beds. When I first got started a few years ago, I dug loads of drainage ditches and filled them with gravel etc which worked for a wee while, but the sheer volume of water that seems to fall from the sky here fills ditches as quickly as you can dig them. So I gave up on that plan.

Anyway, thanks again for saying Hi - I'll keep you all updated.

[Nelly]

Hi Heggied and welcome to this 'ere forum!
It's good to hear that folk are planting their own veg so far north. I used to think I lived in the north (I'm now in Cumbria but grew up in Devon) but friends of mine have just moved to Skye and I could well be joining them this time next year...
As for square foot gardening, I've just started a plot using that method. I've got three square-metre raised beds on the cobbled terrace area outside my rented flat (the land lady's not noticed yet). I've never gardened before (beyond the occasional basil, tomatoes and peppers on a windowsill) so it's all a bit of an experiment. With such a small space to get going with though, I figured I had little to lose from trying - at least I can attempt several different veg and hopefully more than one helping of each. Trouble is, I'm apt to get over-excited at the first sign of ANY sunshine. Result: several batches of seedlings planted out just before large quantities of snow fell out of the sky yesterday. No doubt it's all a learning curve...
I'd be interested to hear how you get on if you do go for the square foot method. Do you have any problems getting hold of gardening stuff (large quantites of compost etc)? Do you get charged extortionate rates with mail order companies?
I'll be pedalling around Lewis (and maybe another island or two) before the end of this month so I'll think of you out there, converting bog to plot. Plenty of excuses for the wee ones to have Welly Days.

[carlseawolf]

hi Heggied , welcome to the vine