[ash777]

HI,a neighbour has offered me a patch of his garden measuring 5 m x 7m do you think this patch is wort the effort of growwing veg and if so what do you think the plot could produce . i was thinking of raised beds made from scaffolding planks.
any ideas ?
thanks-ash

[DavidT]

Good evening Ash and welcome to the site.  The plot can produce whatever you want to grow, as long as you give the plants the care that they need. Raised bads are one way of gardening, but to save yourself a bit of work and expence why not try the traditional way of gardening first. Dig the plot over and get it ready for planting. There`s still time to get some garlic and japanese onions in before winter sets in.

[savbo]

I had a good veg garden on 5mx5m... but a plot is better!

M

[Goosegirl]

Hello and welcome to this great site! If your plot is heavy soil that might waterlog in winter (and any other season going by the weather we've had....), raised beds would be better and you can also plant more closely if you've double dug first and don't walk on them. It would depend on how much you can afford to lose with pathways.

[Trillium]

I agree with Goosegirl. I see far too much wasted space between raised beds, space that could be better used for cropping if walkways were narrower. Definitely check your soil to see if its heavy and needing to be raised, or loose. Either way, with all the rain most of the UK gets, you could still mound up the soil a bit into 'beds' rather than plank it and that will give you drainage. I mostly dig up path soil and toss it onto the mounds.

[ash777]

thanks for your replys- i was thinking of 6m x 1m beds with 0.5 m or 18inch paths which would be flagged so no earth would be walked on , also i have read on the web veg can be planted closer together so more veg produced, is this true ?

[sunshineband]

Welcome to the forums Ash 
 5m by 7m is certainly worth the effort   

I am one of those people who swears by raised beds in smallish spaces as they can be so intensively cropped, but as you already know, there are lots of ways of organising your plot. Raised beds look great in a garden setting too IMHO. Mine are 2m by 1m, with a path bewteen wide enough to take a wheelbarrow, or bend over without tangling with the crops overhanging from the bed behind you    6m by 1m would be great.

The paths are grass and are easily kept tidy, and don't get waterlogged either. Flags would look good but are an expense to start with.

You might also like to think about how you are going to lay your beds out so that rotating crops from year to year is easy l(ots of info on the Information Section of the Site  )

Good luck -- good time of year to start too 
 
 

[DavidT]

Try it my way first, THEN go for the raised beds, see how much more it will cost you  in time, effort and money.

[sunshineband]

Each to their own David 

[mumofstig]

thanks for your replys- i was thinking of 6m x 1m beds with 0.5 m or 18inch paths

Unless you have long enough legs to step over a 1m wide bed you would have an awful long walk to get from one side to t'other. Most beds are about 3-4m long for this reason, or you could put a fixed board across the middle of the bed so you can step over on that ...just a thought

I have 3 beds of 4ft x 12 ft (sorry don't do metric ) and 1 of 4 x 7 and i grow quite a lot so you should do well on your plot!
Good luck

[birmancats]

Hi.  I've got 10 raised beds, all 12ft by 4ft with slab paths and they are just great.  You keep your rotation clearly marked out if you have 4 or more beds, you can crop so much closer together which keeps down the weeds and with the minimum of effort and time when things are busy it still looks really tidy. 

There was a lot of comments when I put them in but each and every year more and more allotments are turning into all raised beds.  This year's best plot - an all raised beds one. 

Give it a whirl.  You'll find they are great. 

[Elcie]

I would say definitely go for it.  When I first got my plot it was only about a third bigger than that and we got a lot out of it.  If you are careful it is amazing what you can get out of even small spaces.  For example, my front garden is much smaller than the space you have been offered and we used the square foot approach there, here is a pic of it last summer:



No space is too small!  And yours will give you a great deal of pleasure and plenty of veg.