[jimmytheshed]

Wish i had that much space. be carefull about drainage (everywhere is soaking at the mo.) you wouldnt want it to dry out in the summer and have to water that lot.

[Kristen]

The field is currently full of long grass which has gone flat and is a nightmare to get through. I was thinking of hiring a rotovator to turn over what I need

Long grass will wrap around the rotavator tines and you'll have to stop and clear it.

So best to get the grass mown as short as possible before rotavating.

If you are going to rotavate the field make sure you get a powerful rotvator. If a walk-behind type it needs to be the sort that powers both the wheels and the tines - not the ones that you take the wheels off and the motor only powers the tines - that will be very hard work to break new ground.

As I said above my preference (for a decent sized area) would be a mini tractor with PTO driven rotavator - but even that may struggle with virgin ground, and it won't work with wet ground (hence perhaps get it ploughed first).

With a beefie rotavator I suggest you do as large an area as you reasonably can - e.g. if you are hiring it for a weekend.  Leaving the soil opened, but fallow, will cheer it up and make it more usable over time. You can put weed killer on any grass / weeds that appear (if you are happy to use weedkiller) and if you want more area it won't take a lot of trouble to get it going where it has already been rotavated - whereas hard packed land in the middle of Summer is definitely hard to convert to a flower bed!

Christine's point about Raspberries is a good one. Some things take a year or two before they come to anything. Raspberries probably won't give you anything in the first year (Autumn fruiting ones might give you a bit). Ditto Rhubarb. Asparagus won't give you anything for 3 years, maybe more. Fruit trees will take a while.So you might want to plan to get those type of crops in sooner, and maybe raising some from seed (Asparagus for example) in "Nursery" beds to save money rather than buying "mature-ish" plants.

Not sure about herb: My Chef tells me that the herbs have to be right by the back door - let alone 2 miles down the road!!

[Claypit]

Thanks Kristen,

I'm planning on using a brush cutter to get rid of alot of the grass, so hopefully the rotorvator jaming wont be an issue once the grass is down. But I'll try to get the driven type Rotorvator you have mentioned.

What do you think will be my best options for the timber regarding the raised beds. I had a look in B&Q as they advertise a square timber kit (veg patch) for just over £16, but it could do with being three times the length as it's only around 1.5M in length.
I've got a load of logs stored in the field and wondered if I could use these as the edging of the raised beds. Has anyone used logs as edging and do they do the job? What would be the best way of fixing them?

[Kristen]

Sorry, can't help with the timber as my lazy-beds don't have any

[mumofstig]

I can't help with the logs question...but I made my raised beds from pallet wood.....cheap and cheerful. I won't last for years and years, but when you are starting out there are lots of things to buy so didn't want to spemd loads on wood.

Or why not just mark out beds, without having any wood!

You can have flat beds or raise them without wood, lazybeds, as kristen and Bob Flowerdew do

[Claypit]

Nice idea about the pallets mumofstig, I should be able to get these from work....

Sometimes the answer is in front of your face without realising it!!!......

[Claypit]

Here's another one for you then....

What's the cheapest and best material to use for the underlay of the bark paths?

[sunshineband]

Cheapest = cardboard 
Best = weed suppressant membrane 

IMHO



not carpet  because of the chemicals that leach out into the soil

[upert]

too many exclamation marks do my nut it. also ones where they're not needed.

ex-scaffold planks are reasonably priced; i recently bought 13 foot ones for less than two pounds.

[Claypit]

Not using capital letters after full stops does my nut in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for the scaffold idea, but I like the cheaper option of pallets as per mumofstig's note.

[upert]

i'm so sorry! i feel your pain!

[JayG]

I think Claypit and upert are going to get along just fine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Nearly laughed my nuts off. propper speling and punctuation were drilled into me at school even more than multiplication tables!)   

[Claypit]

I do appologise upert, I'm not on here to have abuse competitions. Just to gain some veg  growing knowledge.