Ever had a mad urge to have a vegetable garden? I watched a TED talk about incredible Edible and I got the bug. Here’s what I built.
I admit its not huge, but taking the turf off was really hard work and took several days.
It’s a circular plan which may look odd to some but I have a circular sprinkler system so it was built to fit.
Here are the pictures taken as I went along… click to enlarge…
1 I marked out the circle and started lifting turf which I have since stored covered up with wet newspaper and a plastic sheet so that the grass will compost and I will be able to reuse the earth as topsoil.
2 I used some old block pavers to make a border so that I can take the lawn mower right up to the edge
3 I live in an area with soil more suited to making bricks than to gardening so I imported loads of sand and compost. My very kind neigbour Fabrice popped round with a rotavator and mixed the compost into the soil so the whole thing looks black.
4 We built the bamboo supports for the runner beans (seeds sent from my Mum) and put some strawberry plants in.
So far we are growing: 5 herbs, tomatoes, courgettes, red peppers, sweet chillies, strawberries, carrots, roquette, lettuce, beetroot and radishes. Which just goes to show that even a small space can produce food. If you want to see what happens when everybody gets involved and shares the idea, take a few minutes to watch a video about the truly amazing Incredible Edible movement. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/fr/pam_warhurst_how_we_can_eat_our_landscapes.html
PS The radish picture is proof of how proud we are of our first crop.
