first time gardener

tonyheaney

I would like to grow some veg in my garden. I haven't done it before so im looking for help and advice. i have included some photos of the area i will use but im not so sure as it has shade and slugs.

There was no real grass near the wall from which i believe was the fault of the ivy growing on the wall. i hit it with a spade and its take a year to die off. it took a while for the grass seed to grow but now its looking good.

In the second pic you can see earth where no grass wants to grow so i just left old wooden planks and stuff to rest. (I have no shed)

I'm not sure if the earth is the best and if im right what do i need to do to make it more fertile?? My neighbour told me when the build the houses in 1999 they bulldozed all the rubble from one finished house to another and as i live 3rd from the end i feel i may had a lot of crap earth below the surface, (or not as im not sure)





So what do i need to do to grow veg? I.E Carrots Cabbage lettuce and gooseberry and BlackBerrys?

P.S

I have included a drawing of my garden with the path of the sun and shaded part of my garden.

looksee

That's a pretty shady spot, ok, and not the best for veg. I think your best bet, if you want to try veg there would be to build a couple of raised beds - blocks, timber, whatever, and put some good soil in them. Just do one to start and see how you get on with the shadyness.

tonyheaney

looksee wrote: »

That's a pretty shady spot, ok, and not the best for veg. I think your best bet, if you want to try veg there would be to build a couple of raised beds - blocks, timber, whatever, and put some good soil in them. Just do one to start and see how you get on with the shadyness.

Right now there is no sun as you can see from the pic, does veg need direct sunlight 100%

looksee

If it is total shade you can pretty well rule out veg I'm afraid. If you could manage maybe 6 hours sunshine you might have a chance. Just raising the bed might possibly give you that bit of sunshine that would make the difference.

It occurs to me that you might be ok with raspberries, they will need some sun to ripen, but they will probably stand high enough for that, and I think they are like blackberries etc, originally semi-woodland plants that will tolerate some shade.

Wild parsnips and wild onions also grow in woodland, so maybe modern versions would not be too upset about shade. Not sure, might be interesting to find out. You will not grow fast-developing things like lettuce, but there should be a few things you could grow, make a raised bed and do a bit of investigating!

tonyheaney

as the earth seems at least to me as not the best soil what can i do to improve it?

looksee

Well if you are going to build raised beds you will probably have to get in a bit of topsoil. You can buy bags of chicken manure etc that will improve it. You can buy bagged topsoil but that would be an expensive way of doing it. A lot depends on how much access you have to, say, a trailer, how many people you know that might have topsoil going begging (builders etc), how much you are prepared to spend, what you have available in the garden that you already have.

baaba maal

Just to turn round the thinking a bit- does the back-of-the-house part of the garden get more sun? A couple of raised beds either side of your access path to your garden could look pretty smart. It may not be your taste but these corrugated steel sheet raised beds look nice to my eye. Easy enough to construct and you can buy in a few tonne bags of the commercial topsoil/compost mixes. If you grow quick succession salad plants and throw in a few herbs they are also right by the door so you will not have to go too far to harvest!

j@utis

looksee wrote: »

<...>
It occurs to me that you might be ok with raspberries, they will need some sun to ripen, but they will probably stand high enough for that, and I think they are like blackberries etc, originally semi-woodland plants that will tolerate some shade.<...>

Agreed. I have tayberries (x between raspberries & blackberries) growing in the shaded part of my raised bed. It doesn't get the sun until around 1pm in the afternoon but it doesn't seem to bother the tayberry bush at all - it's growing like weed! I've got a good few hand fulls of berries this year and yeah, they're absolutely delicious! Also onions don't mind the same shade too - they're growing well, big and healthy. Other veg I tried growing there didn't do so well.

evolving_doors

Aye it's kinda looking like you'll be prepairing for next year when all is in place.
As babaamall said above Id push a few deep raised beds up closer to the house. it doesn;t appear that dark in the photos either and sun at 1pm isnt to bad if it lasts till 6ish in the summer.

In my raised beds (about 2mx2m each) I managed to squeeze in 2 rows of potatoes with tomatoes,pumpkins,peas,strawberries and sweetcorn in between. it's working out quite well cos the potatoes shield the other veg from the wind. In saying all that my soil is quite rich (year 5 of potatoes in the same spot:pac::pac:). Cherry tomatoes are a quicker crop as you could get caught till the end of august waiting for the larger tomatoes to turn red! Get the veg seed now rather than waiting to buy the small plants in B&Q or wherever next june (seeds are probably on special offer at this stage)

If you could start the stuff off in late march/early april on a window ledge or greenhouse (hoping the frost has passed) and then transplant out you should get away with it. But ya get the soil/manure in now to let it settle over the winter. You could also try growing some of the green manure stuff and then digging it in in december/jan. That'll help to fight off the weeds and should hold some moisture in the raised beds (they dry out quick).

The raised beds aren;t that difficult to make though. If you are cheeky enough keep an eye out in the skips for long pieces of timber then just basically make a rectangular shape. have a look on adverts for free topsoil, rotted manure, timber. usual stumbling block is getting a trailer and wheelbarrow (unless they deliver).

Failing all that, just get a shovel out next year, dig a very deep hole and throw in a line of potatoes and see what happens.

pwurple

I'm no veggie expert, just got a few bits, but from my own experience, don't do what the people who lived here before me did... Don't put your raised bed right next to the wall. Leave a gap on all sides to walk around it. I can't get at anything at the back of my beds.

CorkFeen10

Also a good idea to leave room for the lawnmower to pass on the inside. Have a good think about where you are going to put them as it would be a pain move later.

Day Lewin

Potatoes will grow in shade, but slower than in sun. Rhubarb will be happy enough, too: and even some apple tress (but they prefer sun...)
Definitely yes to raspberries, agreed. (and they are delicious and so easy!)
So there is plenty you can grow if you choose carefully. I would google "apples for shade" etc.