Tea, Cakes & Brain-Storming
After unloading the first set of sleepers we decided to head-over the the local cafe at Pride & Joy for thoroughly well deserved tea and cakes ... and for a brain-storming session on our garden design.
Note: the garden plan and Permaculture Design book in the foreground. Proof that this was a working lunch and not an excuse for tea and cakes :-)
And this is what we came up with -
A thin 1 foot wide bed at the top next to the fence. The advantage of this bed is that it'll be south facing so we're figuring we can stack it in Permaculture style and grow things like strawberries at ground level, berries and gooseberries at mid level, and some Espalier trained fruit trees at the top level.
The four main beds will be built from the sleepers. The one nearest the house (next to the patio on the LHS), will be for herbs and kitchen plants. The other 3 will be used for vegtables and be rotated as normal.
The thin 1 foot wide bed at the bottom will be used for ground and scented plants.
The patio (LHS) will have water butts - initially one 100L one, that collects rain water from the roof. Later we'll add more water butts to collect more water. It'll also have a hot composter, some potted planets and our garden table and chairs so we can enjoy the garden.
The space near the shed marked Rec Area is going to be our recreation area and will probably have a fire pit and some benches in it. There'll also be a potting shed and some normal compost bins there. The potting shed won't happen for a while because potting sheds cost £600-£700 pounds and we'll need to save up for that.
Beyond that there's a communal path that serves tha back of the houses in the terrace of which we are one. Although we own it, we're not allowed to do anythng to it as it's shared by all the houses. But there is a stripe of land 2 foot wide that also belongs to us just beyond it. Because it's quite shaded by "The Wild" beyond it, we thought it might be fun to trying growing mushrooms there.
Obviously this will take a while :-)