Just buying a house and plan to set up something :P

[Goonch]

Hi All,

We are just buying a house together in the West Suffolk area, its a south facing garden of good size, with field to the rear (we are rally lucky).

Hopefully the below link will work, I have tried to make a basic diagram of what we will have:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9aGWG3C8oMYXhyRm7




The garden is really lovely, but we want to grow some veg / fruit, we were thinking a greenhouse and a couple of raised beds perhaps. There is only the 2 of us, so we don't need to feed 5000, and we both fulltime work. We would Ideally still like to keep the area at the back of the house grassy / for socialising ^ views of the countryside. I suppose my question is, size and postioning of greenhouse and/or beds, polycarb or glass, polytunnel? This is the start of my research so any other useful advice and learning points well received too

Mark.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Mark and welcome.

I've copied your plan into your post so that we can see it more easily.
Great to have a bonus area to use too. Are there any restrictions on what you can put there?

[nickdub]

Hi Mark,
Lots of thoughts occur and a wealth of possibilities, but I'll just make a couple of points for now.

1) Fruit trees and bushes are generally more tolerant of neglect and time take for holidays than veg is - so if you like fruit - plant a few trees, vines and bushes in the winter time when they are cheaper and easier to establish - even if you put them somewhere you decide later that you done't want them they can always be moved - you can never get the years of growth back if you put off buying them.

2) poly-tunnels are cheap, effective and all round brilliant for gardening in, but they'll never be as aesthetically pleasing to look at as a glass GH - so to some extent the choice of what to buy comes down to the depth of your pockets and where you site them with respect to your views.

Happy Gardening :-)

Nick

PS when making your plans, have a mooch round the garden and line up where your main paths are going to go - form should follow function.

[SarrissUK]

I love my greenhouse, and I got that for £50 off a sales site. All I had to do was to bring it home and put it together.
Your garden will be lovely! I agree with Nick - fruit bushes, trees and canes are good investments for the future and require minimal work.
Raised beds are great - I like them, and I've set up a temporary raised beds in large ikea bags. The thinking is that if I find that things don't grow so well there, I can move them or just get rid. If things grow well, I will set up a permanent large raised bed there.
I only wish my garden was as large as yours!

[Chestnut]

Hi Mark,
Another idea would be to put some kind of boundary parallel to the house, level with the bit that isn’t yours, then make that bit of your garden furthest from the house your growing zone. That way the bit near house is all lawn and socialising zone.

If you want to go the whole hog, and use the bit which isn’t yours as well, then you could use the furthest part of your garden for the more permanent stuff like fruit trees and greenhouse/polytunnel, and the bit you are borrowing to grow annual crops. That way, if the owner of the borrowed bit decides to sell up/move, you won’t lose your biggest investments ;-)

Have a think about how much time you want to devote to growing- our local allotment comittee reckon a half plot needs 2half days a week to keep on top of things (probably more at first if that area is overgrown).

[Goonch]

Thanks so far peeps, how big is 1/2 a plot? 2 1/2 days, (like 20 man / women hours per week)?

I like the idea of having the gowing zone over on the west side of the garden, I just worry about too much shade from the established trees on that side, would be a shame to have to take too much out. How much sun do we need? I have a small rental garden currently and grew 8 vine tomatos last year, I guess they were getting about 5 hours of direct afternoon sun and they grew great, just outside in growbags, and we had loads from them. Do I need to try to get as much as possible of sun?

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in

[Chestnut]

Sorry, I forgot that allotment plot sizes are a bit confusing/variable....
Our council still use the traditional measurements, where a full plot is 10 rods (also called perches or poles, with 1 rod being equal to the distance between the nose of the ox and the far end of the plough which the ox is pulling....).
To modern folk, thats about 250 square metres, or a doubles tennis court!

All the plots round us are half plots(125square metres), so 8 hours a week of one person working to maintain 125sqm.

I would guess a greenhouse, two raised beds and a few fruit bushes/trees would be easier maintenance, maybe 2 person hrs per week during the growing season with watering, weeding, harvesting etc - depending what you choose to grow.

;-)

[The poly tunnel poet]

First year, do nothing but watch the garden grow... the sun travel and the rain fall(and pool)

perhaps get a few raised beds, say four and begin a small crop rotation and let the years pass and grow from there...

mow the grass and create a composting area... from clippings and fallen leaves in a leaf mould area...

but unless you employ people it will overwhelm the two

a large place all of a sudden is a lot to catch up to...

it is like trying to get on a roundabout that is spinning quickly....

I took on a large piece of land, that was lawn and ex paddock

first thing I did was have a path put in for wheel barrowing compost and for areas that waterlogged

the next year I began with the season and it still beat me to November...

this year I am hell bent on making it to the seasons end a little more on top of the growing....

I read somewhere.

"You will know a gardeners salt by the end of the fourth year"


As Geoff Hamilton used to say

"Whatever the weather enjoy your garden"

hope that helps.....

[nickdub]

Thanks so far peeps, how big is 1/2 a plot? 2 1/2 days, (like 20 man / women hours per week)?

I like the idea of having the gowing zone over on the west side of the garden, I just worry about too much shade from the established trees on that side, would be a shame to have to take too much out. How much sun do we need? I have a small rental garden currently and grew 8 vine tomatos last year, I guess they were getting about 5 hours of direct afternoon sun and they grew great, just outside in growbags, and we had loads from them. Do I need to try to get as much as possible of sun?

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in

Difficult to answer the question of the amount of sun required to grow things as there are a lot of variables. Some plants such as say gooseberries will tolerate quite a lot of shade and still crop, others like peaches need as much sun as possible.

Probably you will get more direct responses if you split up your queries on this sort of topic in to a new thread for each one, with a query at the start. ie "What fruit/veg would you grow in a 20 x10 foot plot which gets sun for about 5 hours a day and which will need not too much continuing work ?"