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Toby Arnold's forum posts
Total number of forum posts: 5
Blackberry
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Blackberries could be another option, depending on the look of your garden. You can get (mostly) thornless varieties and go for a thicker hedge or something spiky and quick growing that you can keep trimmed thinner. Plus you get a nice crop of blackberries.
My Dad planted Himalayan Giant to stop sheep escaping through hedges - it is very thorny and pretty quick growing.
- Posted: Thu. 6th March 2008 00:30
Thanks
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Thanks Chris
Yes its a fair bit of work - but I need the exercise and its beats running at lunchtime.
I take your point about the stones - the deeper the good soil the better I suppose. I am making a raised(ish) bed - to get a level patch and stop the topsoil moving off downhill.
I tried rinsing the sieved stones in a tub after the earth dropped through and it seems to be quite quick. So I guess that's a new path round the bed then!!
Do you think that burying the grass at the bottom of the patch could be storing up any problems? The rest of the roots are coming out in the sieve so I'm no more worried about strange weeds there than anyone else (who else has some sort of geranium smothering out the dandelions in a lawn??).
I attached a photo if you fancy a laugh. There's a half size bed still to go in next to it.
- Posted: Tue. 4th March 2008 21:22
Getting the ground ready for a Veg plot
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I'm creating a veg plot from scratch, in a corner of a garden had been left to run wild for years. It's not a huge plot (say 5 square meters) but the soil isn't great - it grows grass and ivy, but is so stony its hard to dig. My question is about what you can do to new plot to get the soil to a point where you can start digging manure in.
Half the plot was lawn growing on clay with an awful lot of stone (I sieved out over barrow load yesterday). I dont know what the other half was used for - before it got covered in ivy that is. The soil there is very dry and light and seems to have a lot of broken up woody matter / roots in it.
I'm planning on digging fairly deep to bury the stone at the bottom bringing the depth up to 1 1/2 spades. On top of that goes the turf taken off the top. I will then mix up the sieved soils and cover the turf, add manure and new topsoil to bring it to the required level.
So my question:
1. Does this sound like a sensible plan, or am I creating further problems for myself?
2. Any suggestions for things I haven't thought of?
- Posted: Mon. 3rd March 2008 15:06
- Last reply: No timestamp set
Bird Tables
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Does anyone have any advice on where to site a bird table or what food best to attract birds to one? I always assumed my cat was repsonsible for the lack of birds, but the cat is long gone and still no birds. The last seed I saw eaten was by pigeons when I sowed the lawn in september!
- Posted: Sun. 13th January 2008 21:35
- Last reply: No timestamp set
Layout tool
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Nice tool - have had a go and am starting to get somehere, but have found a couple of things.
Have a look at the zoom function. I set my garden plan to about 25 M high. When you zoom in over 120%, the bottom few meters cant be viewed as the scroll bar wot go down that far. Also, when I used the rotate tool on a couple of 19M fences, they disappeared as If I had deleted them.
- Posted: Wed. 7th November 2007 22:44