help-how to proceed????

[lindyloo]

hello- i have decided, rather late, to try to grow a few veg., fruit, herbs, and salad this year, using a raised bed, and some containers. i am hoping that you experienced gardeners will be able to give me advice on what is possible as a first year, with no previous bed preparation (!)

the plus side is that i have some composted stable manure ( the ratio was more muck than straw, when it first went into the muckheap). it is now quite friable and about 2-3 years old. not ideal as has not been covered, but i thought it would be a starting point.

my idea, as a quick starting point, is to make a raised bed using scaffolding planks, on undug, wet, clay soil, and layer with newspaper, then straw, then some of the composted manure, then a mix of soil and the manure. the area which i want to do this on is a wet boggy one, and i wonder if it would work to also dig a shallow drainage ditch all around the outside of the raised bed, or would this be unnecasary?

i also thought that it would be best to start off seedlings and transplant later to this raised bed, buying in some bagged compost to give each plant its own surrounding, in case the manure i will use is too strong. would this work?

the things i want to plant in this bed are strawberries, leeks, garlic, turnips, chives and iceberg lettuce, and salad greens, maybe some kale. i would like to try swede. also a few gooseberry shrubs.

any and all advice will be much appreciated, thanks for "listening"

[taff]

your manure is perfect as it is.
anything except asparagus and fruit trees are possible
Don't bother with a drainage ditch, raised beds solve that problem,but I would dig over the soil underneath and remove any weeds from it, then fill with what you've got. Save the rotted compost/soil for the top layers, any new-ish manure can go in a bit where you may or may not plant squash or a similar heavy feeder. Shred the paper you put on first or rip into strips.
I don't think root veg will appreciate new manure, and you may be a bit late for garlic, lettuce don't need hardly any feed, strawberries willproduce runners if you want to increase the amount of plants, and are very attractive to mice, so they may need covering, and somestraw or similar to keep the fruits off the soil [they can rot]
Kale [depending on variety, is either tall or bushy,so keep that in mind for space and for support,and will need covering with mesh to keep the butterflies off it.
your plan sounds good, go for it.

[lindyloo]

thanks for all of that advice, taff! i dont really have a clue! had a garden in southern germany 20 years ago which thrived, but since i have been back over here, my gardening seems to bite the dust, if not from rabbits, from caterpillars, or from some other mysterious ( at least to me) force of nature which sneaks up when i am not looking. so i gave up trying several years ago, apart from some container growing and rhubarb.

i have some seedlings started, and have bought some young plants ready to go in ( leeks , garlic, iceberg lettuce - no luck with lettuce in previous years ) and have the stuff ready to build the bed. also some gooseberry bushes and blueberry, and also redcurrent, which will go outside of the raised bed.

strawberries might be better in a container, do you think? i have a large sugarbeat drum about the size of a rain barrell which i thought i could run a tube up the middle with gravel for drainage, and cut holes out of the sides,

it all seems a bit daunting to do all at once! had planned to start it off a bit sooner but it has been so wet

[lindyloo]

forgot to ask - when you say my muck is ok as it is- could i fill the whole bed with it, or do i need to put other stuff in with it? i have a whole muckheap to dispose off, but dont want to kill the plants. i did wonder if i could just plant straight on top of another muck heap that hasnt been used for several years? it has composted down to about a foot high.

[taff]

any manure you've got that as well rotted as it sounds [2 years plus is a goldmine!!!] you can happily fill a bed with.
Any you've got that's new, say less than a year old, save it for topping up next year, if the stuff underneath is older, you can use that, providing you're willing and able to dig it out
barrel sounds good for strawberries...

[lindyloo]

looks like i will be busy on saterday then! i am tempted to move the proposed site of my raised bed, to my old muckheap, which would save a lot of hard work! i temporarily put some gooseberry bushes just at the side of it, when my nieghbor gave them to me a couple of weeks ago, and they are doing really well, but i had worried that it would be too rich.

[paula.berriman]

If you want to use up your muck make a good pile and plant some summer or winter squash / pumpkins in it. They will thrive!!! No need for raised beds or anything fancy just space for a pile of muck about 1m square will be enough for 2 squash plants planted diagonally or one pumpkin (sprawling variety). They are very easy to grow and once the leaves mature a little even the slugs dont bother them.