12 square metres of lawn to go.

[Brewer-again]

I have a small lawn area in my garden and all I do is mow it. Could it be used to grow something useful ?? It is surrounded by rockeries on two sides as it is terraced and small and large shrubs on the other two. One by the fence and the other between the lawn and the path.

The area is in the sun from morning untill about 13.00 hrs now.

Any one have any ideas what I could plant grow and use/eat. I like onions, potatoes, peppers, chillies, greens, salad, leeks or fruit for brewing???

This would not be a first as I did grow french beans at my last house, excellent.

[valmarg]

I'm sorry, I'm not very good at imagining from descriptions of sites, but I am sure there are others on here who will be able to help you on what to grow, etc.

To me grass (and I mean lawn, as opposed to the other stuff) is such a waste of space.

The chap next door's garden is 99% lawn. He has a few borders, but he grows nothing to eat.

We, on the other hand, cram as much, by way of edible crops, that we can in a small space.

I would say, dig up your lawn, and grow something useful/edible.

Lawns are a waste of space!!

valmarg

[ChocClare]

I have a small lawn area in my garden and all I do is mow it. Could it be used to grow something useful ??

I feel for you as I have a HUGE lawn which I'm about to dig up large parts of (grammar, what grammar?). You don't say whether it's front or back garden? Am I right in thinking from your description that the rockeries are top and bottom of a(n otherwise) slope?

Could you keep the rockery theme and dig up the whole lawn but run stepping-stone paths through it (not sure how naff this might look, of course!)?

I was only thinking that instead of a vegetable "patch" as such, you might want to go for more of a cottage garden-y type look - if you have shrubs by the fence, you could extend that bit in a curve to include things like blackcurrants, redcurrants, gooseberries. You could grow strawberries along the edge of the rockery. You could grow perennial flowers with vegetables among them, rather than standard rows. You could grow french beans and marigolds, herbs, even a bean wigwam in the middle of one area. If you made a number of curved areas within your rectangle, then you could even plant onions and leeks in rows within that curved space and it wouldn't look too regimented.

I've attached a (VERY) simplified plan of the sort of thing I mean. The grey circles are paths! Green circles are shrubs, showing how you might extend the existing "shrubbery" to include fruit bushes. It probably looks nothing like your lawn. But I hope it's a start! Best of luck!

[ChocClare]

Oh dear, well, so much for my little drawing, doesn't look like I can upload it for some reason. Hope you can understand what I'm wittering about!!