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sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales
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 Posted: Sun Mar 27, 05 6:05 pm Post subject: Tackling a sloping plot |
 
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I've largely ignored the garden here over the last six years, it rises from the top of a flight of very slippery stone steps behind the house and is very steeply sloping. I have occasionally had binges on the brambles, and I have kept enough clear for my compost heap and a very small herb patch, but the rest has succumbed to brambles and a spreading patch of white raspberries. Its also very very stone heavy, where at some point a stone wall between us and next door has been toppled into the garden and has slowly become part of it
Its not a bad size, maybe 18ft by 60ft, and the soil is ok where its not stony, and I really wish I could get it into a shape where it could be quietly productive for me, but I need some inspiration and advice given that a) I have no money to have terraces put in professionally and b) time is also in very short supply, I usually have only a couple of hours a week that I could devote to the garden.
Has anyone here managed to tame a similar patch without going insane? I have toyed with the idea of using the stones to create random raised beds, which would give me level planting pockets that I could add to one at a time and make everything in between them into path- but starting is another matter. |
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jema
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28235
Location: escaped from Swindon
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Bugs
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 10744
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 05 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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I'll try and prod TD in to posting as he and his lovely broad shoulders did most if not all the hard work, but here's a brief summary...
Our garden's a long thin suburban thing, at best a foot of soil on top of chalk cliff. If you stand at the top of it, you are above the top of the house, I think. So it's quite a slope, but over a longer distance than yours (I think) therefore probably not so steep.
The first year we removed turf and brambles and buckets and buckets of flint and stones, making 3 then 4 narrow beds in a row. I think we then added to that the next year, and claimed another patch of land. Then put in a greenhouse which involved stealing a levelish patch and a lot of levelling by TD. To make up for the lost space we dug out the paths between the remaining beds to make one veg patch. Then we cleared a very overgrown, brambly patch, similarly full of stones...and planted it with potatoes the first year, peas and squashes and beans the next...not sure what's going on it this year, but it now also contains apple trees, and will have grapes and strawberries this year, as well as rhubarb down one side, so it's slowly edging to being a fruit patch with the idea that when we sell up eventually that will (a) be attractive to purchasers as it will be productive but nothing to mow and only a bit of maintenance (b) discourage them from doing what the neighbours both sides have done, which is finding the ugliest possible way to turn their gardens in to a desert.
I doubt that lots any help but the conclusion is meant to be, it's well worth doing what you suggest and trying to do it bit by bit, especially if you intend to be there for some time. All very well sitting down with your watercolours like Mr Titchmarsh but if you get fed up and run out of time before getting a quarter of the way through you probably won't get any further, whereas if you put in a couple of fruit bushes this year and some herbs in a corner, and next year manage a potato patch and a rhubarb bed, and so on and so forth, it'll come in a fair bit cheaper and easier...
Even if you only get one thing in this year it'll be better than nothing. And I bet you get more than one thing in  |
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Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
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sally_in_wales
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Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales
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wellington womble
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands
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Deedee
Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 250
Location: Surrey
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wellington womble
Joined: 08 Nov 2004
Posts: 15051
Location: East Midlands
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) put in the boards at the back first then worked our way forward to level it.We are almost ready to turf now just need another skip first!
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