[joegray]

Think we posted this on the wrong section last time...ooooops!

Now then everyone!

First of all hello and glad we came across this really useful site, hope its ok it's about a garden and not an allotment.

Me and my friend angus hail from north yorkshire but have moved to london and angus has luckily wrangled a large garden and we want to grow our own. the space was very, very packed with rubble and overgrown and it has taken us two months to dig out the rubble and sieve the soil. Now we have a very large hole with a big pile of sifted soil and a separate pile of rocks.

We believe the soil is clay based and is full of worms (which must be a good sign). Everything we have done so far has relied on native wit and now we really need some expert advice on how to continue.

Our plan is to fill the hole back up with some of the rocks and pebbles for drainage. But we don't know what compost, feed, order of filling up etc to do, other essential jobs??? before we can plant. any advice? The hole is approx 2m/3m and at the moment about half metre deep.

also what varieties of veg would be good in a garden like this? we have some beetroot seeds and garlic bulbs at the moment. 

any help would be fantastic!

thanks,
Joe and Angus

[surbie100]

Ayup!

It sounds like you've both put in a lot of work! It might help to let us know which way the garden faces, if there are trees nearby/regular bits in shade and whether the soil drains well.

Personally after sifting out the stones I wouldn't stick 'em back in. I'd add a few bags/barrows of compost and a sprinkling of fertiliser (blood, fish & bone or growmore or something similar) and pop some seeds in.

2m x 3m might sound like an awful lot of space to begin with, but when you start planting you might find out you run out of room fairly quickly. It might help to look up square foot gardening or vertical veg to get the most out of your space. There's an awful lot you can grow in containers too.

Good luck and let us know how you get on - someone will be along in a minute with completely different advice. Ask 2 gardeners a question, get 3-4 answers....

[Eightball]

Is the whole garden 2mx3m? or just the hole?

[Trillium]

I'd be reluctant to add the rocks as well. You can add small, pea-sized grit to soil for good drainage, but stones and rocks will always be a headache, especially after all your work to get them out.

If you need to fill the hole, now is the time to hunt around garden areas of various shops to find reduced bags of anything useful: compost, potting mix, potting soil, vermiculite (way better than grit), etc. They may have used/broken bags of growbags they'll either toss or sell dirt cheap, and these can be mixed into the hole as filler. If you have transportation, you can try for free loads of rotted animal manure and carry them home in lidded waste bins.

In such a small area, vertical growing would be ideal so you can get loads for way less space. It can even be combined with grow buckets as suggested which could run along fence lines or whatever.

[diospyros]

But if they don't put the stones back in the hole, what ARE they going to do with them???  Presumably "rubble" is not nice rockery stone that will go on ebay or freecycle...

See, post a question and get even more questions!

[joegray]

ta everyone for the posts! ... seems to us you all need some more information.

the garden is south-facing and in between two other gardens with trees, but still gets a decent amount of sunshine.

the garden is much bigger than the hole described with room for another two beds of the same size. the plan is to dig these up later on in the year.

half of the rubble is small stones and pebbles, the other half are whole or partly smashed bricks. Its the pebbles we were thinking of chucking back in as the soil we dug out would nowhere near fill the hole if we didn't! i've heard of raised beds but could we have sunken beds?  and using the larger bricks and rocks to make a kind of border.

should we buy/scavenge equal parts fertilizer/compost to soil to fill it?
cheers again!
Joe and Angus

[JayG]

To some extent raised beds can be created by using the soil excavated from around them - whether that's going to be enough or appropriate in your circumstances I obviously don't know, but I wouldn't recommend putting the pebbles back in no matter how short of 'scavengeable' material to fill them up you are.

[surbie100]

Sounds good - one minor point, how long are your arms? I know yorkshiremen are often tall, but if you're planning on not walking on the beds now you've gone to all the faff of digging and sieving, you might want to make sure you can reach to the plants in the middle without falling in. It was one of my first mistakes...

[joegray]

Sounds good - one minor point, how long are your arms? I know yorkshiremen are often tall, but if you're planning on not walking on the beds now you've gone to all the faff of digging and sieving, you might want to make sure you can reach to the plants in the middle without falling in. It was one of my first mistakes...

we're strappin young'uns but not particularly tall. we've got long planks of wood we've inherited to put through the middle to reach everything....

[sunshineband]

You have done masses of work already, and if you now mix your sieves oil with cheap growbag compost etc as suggested, you will have a good growing medium there.

Can I suggest you set up a couple of compost bins, either the plastic 'dalek' or ones made of pallets? (which can look perfectly OK in a home garden) Add every bit of green stuff you can, mixed with a good dose of shredded paper. In this way you will get free compost to add organic matter to your soil in the future.

And as for what to do with the rubble.... perhaps you can use it for hardcore for a concreting project, or advertise it on freecycle as hardcore, and someone will take it away for you 

[3759allen]

how heavy is the clay? i'm assuming as you've been able sieve it it can't have too much clay in the soil.

unless there is or has been a problem with water logging i would get rid of all the stone and rubble (freecycle and gumtree freebies would prob be the easiest way).

back fill with the soil and add any organic material you can get. it's worth asking on freecycle and gumtree for material that can be used as a mulch or rotted down.

i personally find you end up wasting a lot of room with raised beds, however they are easier on the back. i just plant in rows and if needed delicately walk up the rows to get access.

[Eightball]

The whole or partially smashed bricks you could use to make a path? If I was starting a new garden I would probably level it off and cover with cardboard or newspaper (several sheets thick) And add layers of organic matter on top. Maybe a layer of wilted nettles (not the roots!) and some compost/rotted manure on top. Lasagna or no-dig gardening is its name.

[strider84]

Personally I'd leave the stones out if you want to grow roots later on in this particular bed then you'll want all the stones you can get out otherwise the roots will fork.

In regards to what to grow if you like the following I would suggest them as they are either fast to mature or yield well vs space taken up:

Spring onions
Lettuce/chard/spinach
Beetroot
Radishes
Runner beans
Courgettes yield very well but take up a lot of space

As suggested previous making some compost bins out of pallets is easy and you can usually get pallets for free and this will help to improve the soil structure which is particularly important if you have a clay like soil.

As for the garlic bulbs I'm not sure what others thing but I would say its probably to late to plant these if you were after a crop of garlic cloves as I believe garlic needs low temperatures for several weeks for the bulbs to seperate into the individual cloves but you could grow them and use them as 'green' garlic.

[Goosegirl]

Hello there and welcome to this wonderful site. It doesn't matter whether you have your own garden, an allotment or a window box and a couple of tubs, the Grow Your Own forum applies to any methods of veg growing. Explore the other forums (if you haven't already) - some are for info, and the Chatting one can be fun as well! There is no such thing as a daft question on here either - we are all learners at this game, so enjoy posting, reading and contributing. 

[joegray]

Now then everyone!

Thanks so much for the advice.

After weighing up the comments we've decided to use some of the rubble for paths and borders and get rid of the rest.

This saturday we're going out on a mission to grab as much compost/organic material we can to fill up our hole to prepare it for the week after when we will get some seeds and get down to planting!

We'll post pictures of our progress as we go along and will, no doubt, be back to ask further questions as the season continues.

Cheers,
Joe and Angus!