A weekend in the garden at last!

I have been suffering cabin fever recently, I have been looking out at the garden under a blanket of snow thinking of all the things that needed to be done out there. So when I got up and saw a lovely sunny day on Saturday I couldn't wait to get out there.

One of the things I have been meaning to do was sort out the greenhouse. I have always planted directly into the beds in the greenhouse, but to be honest the soil in there is not that good, a mixture of the natural heavy clay, compost and John Innes 1,2, and 3 that have been added over
time. To sort it out I decided to build a raised bed in there which could be covered to make a giant seed tray.

The first thing to do was cut the wood I was going to use, treated gravel boards are ideal. It also meant I had an excuse to use one of my favourite toys!


I made the first of the 2 levels and placed it in the greenhouse it's about 2.2m long and 0.5 m wide. Rather than fill the bed with seed or potting compost I filled the bottom with a mixture of my partly rotted compost and leaf litter. I did this as the leaf litter will provide good drainage and will slowly rot with the mixed compost, this will produce heat warming the soil above.


I then placed the 2nd level on top of the first, I didn't fix it in place this will allow me to lift it off in the autumn making it easier to replace the soil.


I then topped it up with fresh compost


I have sown a mixture of salad crops already, so hopefully we with have some fresh produce in a few weeks.




Now I have got my new bed I have decided to rethink how I use the greenhouse. In the past I have used the floor beds for Tomatoes and Chillis, this year I am going to grow these in pots on the staging and use the bed for salad crops.

My next job in there is to build some new staging, lets hope it's sunny next weekend.