Horticultural nightmare?

[Snadger]

I've devised my own type of gardening which I call 'pocket planting'.

I started off with a rather formal potager type of layout with symetrical beds around a circular herb bed.
I then realised the formality was out of sync with what I was trying to achieve which is biodiversity in my plantings. There are no straight lines in nature.
Having done an about turn in my thinking, and not wanting to start from scratch again, I experimented.
Firstly I planted small pockets of flowers,vegetables and and fruit, within the formal beds. I usually plant odd numbers like 3,5,7 in a pocket, and lo and behold it worked!!!!!

I have very few pest problems, hardly ever need to weed and my allotment abounds with colour. Veg and fruit seem to thrive on my biodiversic plot
At first I used hydrated lime to mark out my pockets, making lines around each so that I knew where I'd planted stuff.(all curved shapes, no straight lines)
This has evolved so that I now delineate the pockets with block paving sets when I can get a hold of them for nowt. At first I thought this looked a bit 'arty farty' but with time and as my plots are nearly all 'pocketed' now this method has grown on me and I intend to see it through.

Sorry if I have been waffling a bit but this is my 'thinking out of the box' moment and all my own idea..............and I love it!

[solway cropper]

I quite like chaos so my nightmare is the tidy garden. There was one near us where the owners, a middle-aged couple almost measured the lawn grass with a micrometer. She was hanging out her pants on the washing line one day and adjusting them so they were all at the same distance apart from each other. That sort of mindset terrifies me. Apart from the tattie patch I plant in blocks or randomly put things wherever there's a space. I have brassicas dotted around the fruit border, marigolds among the veg and containers all over the place. Not pretty but I like it.

[binley100]

Om my lottie I have a variety of edged beds. In these I plant in rows or blocks dependant on whats being planted. Companion plants are put around the edges. At home in my garden which is mainly herbaceous apart from tom baskets and salad pots I like to plant wherever there's a space as I like the cottage garden type chaos.

[annacruachan]

I grow in pots - round or square - and fishboxes - rectangular - so I sow in both blocks and rows, depending on the container, but I arrange them haphazardly. Jasmine and blueberries share space with squashes and salad leaves, irises and coriander, sweet peas and potatoes on the terrace. In the back garden I have lilac, garlic and strawberries, leeks and psb, cabbages and potentilla all surrounded by a lovely geranium (not pelargonium),lupins, carrots, lettuces and tree mallow. There are also nettles and docks, brambles and ground elder!
I couldn't bear a garden all marked out in rows, neatly weeded and utterly controlled. Horticultural hell? Yes!

[NewbieGardenerRow]

As a newbie I really just stick things in when I get them then work around where I stuck the first things in. This year garlic went in first in a line at the side of my shed, then onions in rows going the opposite way, then spinach in a different direction then I had to jump over to get to the back bed to put pumpkins in and the broad beans follow a curve around my lawn edge with some peas behind them doing the same. Basically now its a case of...."hmmmmm where can a put this now?" as I've left a weird shaped space for everything else. I've got pots and troughs and bags allover the place as well as a greenhouse and growhouse too.So 'Other' definitely applies to my style of veggie growing.
Yep I probably haven't allowed enough space for some things and goodness knows how I'm going to reach some of the things I've planted without stepping on something else, but as long as some of it grows and I get to eat it I'll be happy.

[TallGirl]

My worst nightmare would be manicured tiny lawn, gas barbecue, patio heaters and and a hot tub plus "tasteful sculpture" (plastic)

Ditto!! Oh - and planted with nothing but exotic grasses and a few shiny steel balls. Naff, and useless for wildlife.

My ideal plot would be... [goes off into daydream land for a while] bigger than this one (quarter-plot), raised beds, grass/clover paths which I know aren't practical but it's the only grass I get to walk on, and have a lot of wildlife-friendly planting either through intercropping and companion planting, or as perennials in corners.

Of course it'd be wildly productive as well, and in a sheltered and south-facing location with perfect drainage, and would have a row of water butts or a huge below-ground tank collecting water from the solar-powered, perfectly-insulated shed. The shed would have bat boxes, and there would be a resident hedgehog family and thrushes in the hedge. So between them and the colony of toads living in the pond in the corner, there would obviously not be a single slug that dared to get its raspula anywhere near my veg.

Back to reality... I've gotta get on with those raised beds. I might make the current beds a bit wider along the way - need to measure the paths and the mower first though.

[Jelliebabe]

I bung stuff where I can but do have a few rows! I have to admit to to a plastic budda though ! (He's only little though and peeks out from my red hot poker plant!) I like a cottage style!

[susieq100]

I like blocks rather than rows and I am a bit more organised at the lottie than I am at home in the garden. I have built sort of raised beds out of scrap timber so it is effective rather than aesthetically pleasing. the beds are not 'squared off' and I am trying some pocket planting - I have cauliflowers dobbed in amongst the onions and garlic where the alliums failed or birds moved the bulbs leaving a space. I am hoping this will discourage the cabbage whites - I did net brassicas last year, but it's a dispiriting business. Well it gets me down.

In the garden I have shrubs, flowers and veg all in together, raised beds that were taking over the lawn, but since I got the allotment I have stopped stealing the space! I've also got containers of tomatoes, sweet peas, carrots, strawberries and flowers dotted about randomly wherever the sun/shade suits. My horticultural nightmare is ghastly fibre glass statues and water features that include twee animals and or mock Greco-Roman figures!

[Paulottie]

My back garden is à la Geoff Hamilton with things dotted about with lots of cutting flowers. It is an excellent attractive system for the smaller space.

On my allotments however I've become a bit obsessed with strait and staggered rows partly to assist with hoeing and hooping for protection; partly to give optimum spacings and yields but also because I get (a slightly worrying!) satisfaction from the traditional geometric look. As I increasingly save a lot of my own seed, it is always a challenge to fit it all neatly around these random plants.

[gojiberry]

My raised beds go from east to west so the planting goes from north to south which is the ideal. It is all in rows but only 6ft long ( the width of the beds) I think it looks really nice. Some veg don't look to be in rows, like cabbages as I only get 4 in a row, so if I plant three rows it is more a block of 12 cabbages. I do also sow and grow a lot of stuff in pots and containers which I don't think has the same impact.

Ian

[Llamas]

This is my second year growing things, and I'm allowing myself to be messy while I still have the excuse of inexpirence. In summer when things are green and flowering, a bit of chaos is endearing, but in winter it just looks miserable. This year I've put in a border of winter veg in strict rows and layers (chard in front, cabbage and psb behind and leeks in back) to give the place a bit of structure when the garden is most visually vulnerable. Beyond the borders however is a churning froth of pumpkins, squashes, radishes, nicotina, and nasturtiums.