How Does Your Garden Grow!? - Garden Pics Thread

wreckless

first toms of the year, F1 variety





did i show you me onions?

simonj

John mac wrote: »

Before (18th june)



and 1 week later

I take it thats a polytunnel?

deisemum

Oh they look lovely.

We tried our first mangetout and courgette in a stir fry this evening and they tasted soooo good, cooked within 10 mins of being picked.

Jumpy

My first time building a vegie garden. I dont think I did too badly.

deisemum

That looks lovely and neat.

Jumpy

Which is odd, because I am normally a bit messy. I had it pictured in my head first, so it was sort of easy to do.

wreckless

good job jumpy, its really not that hard eh? put the seeds in the brown stuff, add the wet stuff every so often, pull out the green stuff that you didnt sow and hey presto!!

JIZ

gsxr1

JIZ wrote: »

need a bigger pic

simonj

Borlotto Firetounge flowers
Dwarf Haricot



Squash flower


Mr Littles Yetholm Gypsey Flower


Pickling prep (recipe here)


Early Blackberies for Connemara Chutney

HxGH

Finally got around to transforming my back garden this summer.

All the digging! :eek:

Making 3 veg beds so I may be putting up pics next year

Corsendonk

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corsendonk/4865904561/in/photostream/

Second pick this week. Heritage mix of tomatoes, 4 variesties on display. Baby orange toms have excellent flavour.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corsendonk/4866523918/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Pumpkin plants, hanging them this year instead of growning on the ground.

kylith

After years of laziness, I finally imposed some kind of order on my front garden a month ago

It's now had bark chips put on and looks rather snazzy, if I do say so myself.

Then I tackled the tree taking over the back garden (pyrocanthus, if anyone's interested.



I'm going to finish the job tomorrow, then I'll be trying to think of what to put in there. It's the only bit of the garden that gets any sun, so I'm looking forward to having some colour.

gsxr1

Corsendonk wrote: »

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corsendonk/4865904561/in/photostream/

Second pick this week. Heritage mix of tomatoes, 4 variesties on display. Baby orange toms have excellent flavour.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/corsendonk/4866523918/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Pumpkin plants, hanging them this year instead of growning on the ground.

WOW!!:)

thats a fantastic crop

Budget Marketing

wreckless wrote: »

first toms of the year, F1 variety





did i show you me onions?

Thats Beautiful

lrushe

Hurrrraaaay, my Chillis are starting to flower!

The tallest ones are mild Pablanos but the smaller ones are Naga Jolokia aka the hottest chilli peppers in the world :eek:

So much can still go wrong so I'm dying to see if I get any peppers off them

Anyone have any pearls of wisdom regarding Chilli growing I'm all ears!!


Chillis 001.jpg

Chillis 005.jpg

Chillis 006.jpg

wreckless

not really veg pics, but they are helpfull around the garden. was watching this guy for 5 mins having a 5 course meal the other day, pictured using an iphone!!

me likey, especially the close up cropped one 2nd pic

HardyEustace

Update on progress

walls built at last! wrecked from it all but an end is in sight

redser7

Fair play to you, looks like a lot of effort you put in!
I'm planning a block raised bed myself and am just looking into the materials etc. Did you lay a concrete foundation? Did you have a cement mixer or did you mix the concrete by hand? Not sure how to approach the foundations. Buy premixed conrete mix/ mix it myself, do it by hand/ can you rent a mixer? Can you get small amounts delivered ready to pour?
Thanks for any advice anybody ...

(Bed will be about 8 meters long rectangle along a garden wall, three or four blocks high)

HardyEustace

redser7 wrote: »

Fair play to you, looks like a lot of effort you put in!
I'm planning a block raised bed myself and am just looking into the materials etc. Did you lay a concrete foundation? Did you have a cement mixer or did you mix the concrete by hand? Not sure how to approach the foundations. Buy premixed conrete mix/ mix it myself, do it by hand/ can you rent a mixer? Can you get small amounts delivered ready to pour?
Thanks for any advice anybody ...

(Bed will be about 8 meters long rectangle along a garden wall, three or four blocks high)

Yes, I laid a concrete foundation. For the walls it was six inches deep, for the raised beds about four. It also has a woven web of steel rods through it as well. I couldn't get mesh for such a small size so I got steel rod cut offs and used some wire to make a mesh of them.

I did have a cement mixer. There's no way you could have mixed the concrete by hand. I'd DEFINITELY rent one. I was able to borrow one but would have rented one otherwise.

I ordered 8 tonnes (in total) of gravel, sand and dust and paving blocks from roundstone and got the whole lot ordered together. then I bought small bags of cement from woodies and used those. For the foundations I used a 4:1 ratio along wiht batch instead of sand (basically a rough gravel/sand mix). For the mortar I used a 5:1 ratio with some plasticiser and sand instead of batch.

It is very, very hard work. You'll also benefit from having an electric saw in order to make the footings and the pegs for the foundations. Woodies have six inch planks but they're expensive 9euro each - I used two. Otherwise I made my own from the pallets that the blocks arrived on from roundstone.

A cement mixer is a must for a wall your size - your heart will be broken otherwise.

Be very, very nice to your friends - you'll need there help. You 'll need at least one other person there.

Clean up after mixing the cement will also take a very long time. I reckon I was cleaning up for about three hours each night (no exaggeration).

I also had to hire about three wheel barrows to move all the material to the garden as well. The day it arrived I had about ten friends come and help at various stages of the day and evening. Overall I'd say that we worked for about six hours straight.

There's literally hundreds of hours in the garden and it's still not finished! Make sure that if people are helping that you have nice food and refreshments for them. I know it sounds silly but it's a nice way of showing your appreciation. I ended up cooking dinner for about ten people at eleven o'clock at night but that's also nice as well.

redser7

Thanks a million for the detailed answer! And the reality check :-)

dh0661

HardyEustace wrote: »

Be very, very nice to your friends - you'll need there help.

There's literally hundreds of hours in the garden and it's still not finished! Make sure that if people are helping that you have nice food and refreshments for them. I know it sounds silly but it's a nice way of showing your appreciation. I ended up cooking dinner for about ten people at eleven o'clock at night but that's also nice as well.

LOL - that's what we call a garden digging party/BBQ, some of them take 2 weekends to complete :eek:

HardyEustace

dh0661 wrote: »

LOL - that's what we call a garden digging party/BBQ, some of them take 2 weekends to complete :eek:

If only it took two weekend! I'd be a happy camper.

redser7

HardyEustice, did you put in any drainage for the beds? Been reading that french drain or weep holes should be used and not sure if my bed will be deep enough to need drainage. Also, did you line the inside of the beds with anything? Cheers

jezko

You wll need some sort of Drainage for your Raised Bed.

HardyEustace

redser7 wrote: »

HardyEustice, did you put in any drainage for the beds? Been reading that french drain or weep holes should be used and not sure if my bed will be deep enough to need drainage. Also, did you line the inside of the beds with anything? Cheers

Basically left gaps in the mortar in the wall construction and may even drill a few weep holes further up the wall as I think that we covered up some of the upper ones when we re-pointed the walls.

Lined the base with large stones, then put in a gravel clay mix for about the bottom third. Then a third of manure, then topsoil.

I didn't line the inside of the beds with anything as all you'd be doing is creating a big wet heavy bag of soil which would put huge pressure on the walls. (though I could be wrong in my thinking)

redser7

Great, thanks. I'll go with a stone and gravel layer and weep holes. I plan to render it so pity the holes will show :-(

HardyEustace

redser7 wrote: »

Great, thanks. I'll go with a stone and gravel layer and weep holes. I plan to render it so pity the holes will show :-(

Are you a plasterer by trade or do you plan to get someone in for it?

Would love to hear how that goes as I want to render my garden walls.

redser7

Nope :-) Never done any sort of construction work before so it's a big challenge for me. I'm still at the stand and stare stage, working out straight lines and curves. It's going to be a lot of effort whatever the design so i want to take my time and come up with a nice idea before i start.
A lad has been doing some rendering work nearby and i've been watching and getting tips from him. Apart from that it is youtube videos. It's a highly skilled job so I'm resigned to not getting it perfect. I plan to use wall edge beading which should help me scrape the surface down with a board and get a reasonably level and smooth look.

Thinking along the lines of this, 1st pic on second row of photos, only higher (0.5 mts) ...
http://www.gardenviews.ie/Ratoath-Full-Garden-ReDesign.html
Might have it as an L shape, with a 'box' at the end. Long section will be for flowers and plants, the box will be a mini-salad garden (lettuces, carrots, spring onions, tomatoes). Hope to lower a poly-carbonate frame over the boxed area to make a cold frame in spring and mini-greenhouse in summer to help the tomatoes and extend the season. Would like to have the wide enough somewhere as a seating edge.

To many ideas maybe :-)

Sonnenblumen

An attaractive Raised Bed/Planter with Drystone finish, features double wall construction: Donegal Quartz (Outer leaf) and 4" Concrete Solid Blocks (Inner leaf). The wall capping is Sandstone (mint).

The plants include Himalayan Birch (tree), Libertia Gold Leaf, Stipa Gigantica and Euonymus Blondii.