Raspberries

Kate and I have spent the past couple of days preparing the new raspberry bed and then planting a single row of 32 canes.

As ever in the garden, we started off with a patch of land that had been wild meadow for the past couple of years.  The soil here is chalky clay and very heavy.

The berry beds had already been marked out as part of the earlier preparations, 2 beds running north/south,  each 7m (23' 6") by 1200mm (4 ft) with a 1m gap between them.  I quickly decided that it would be better to use the land as 1 bed 15m long by the 1200mm and so changed the marking.  It meant we lost an access into the middle of the vegetable plot but I don't think that matters.

We had already planted a redcurrant bush at the north end of this bed but the change in length made no difference to that.

Next we started to work the soil.   Clay that has not been touched for a couple of years takes quite a lot of moving but we decided to use our power rotovator and soon started to break up the surface.  We had also decided to turn in the existing grass as a green manure.    After several hours of walking up and down the bed following and quietly coaxing the rotovator to work the area I wanted we seemed to be making some progress.     I operated the rotovator while Kate wheeled barrow load after barrow load of sand up for me to work in.

The composition of the soil improved in front of our eyes as the sand and grass worked it's magic on the heavy clay, and by the end of the day we had a bed with a much lighter and more workable soil composition.

The next day we returned and spent the morning reworking the bed a little more before resetting the rotovator to a narrow setting to allow us to work a deeper trench in the middle.   All the time we were adding sand, dry grass and compost to the mix.

After lunch we laid out the planting of the 32 canes.   This involved measuring the position of each cane and then digging a small hole sufficient for the root structure of the individual cane.   Once the canes were set in the hole to the right height the hole was filled with a good compost to give the canes somewhere to start their new life.  The canes were placed 400mm (16") apart.

Once all 32 had been planted we simply cut the canes, where necessary, back to 300mm (12") above the ground and finally spread a well rotted manure and compost mix in between the plants as a top dressing.

The New Vegetable Plot

	The site before we started	One of the changes for 2009 is a new location for the vegetable plot. As you may recall, I started growing vegetables last year in a new plot I created, which then got expanded over the year.
	The first line of tiles defining the edge of the plot	The site I chose turned out to be less than ideal, being shaded for much of the time by trees, and even some of the deciduous trees, like the cherry and walnuts offered a lot of shade even in winter. So, this spring I am intending to plant into a completely new plot and preparations have begun. After a lot of discussion, I have decided to create beds which are about 7m x 1200mm.  I have found that 1200mm is a really good width for a bed as it is easy to reach the centre from either side making everything in the bed easily accessible.
	Quickly aligning tiles	I'm also now tending to start to think in terms of 1200mm squares for planting individual crops, so again, 1200mm wide beds are ideal.  In last year's garden I grew 1200mm squares of garlic, spring onions, leeks, broad beans, peas, red cabbage and strawberries, so this was the starting point for my thoughts about the new plot.
	Minimising the errors	I'm fortunate in that I have a sizable piece of land, not far from the house which is not shaded by any trees, and this where I have decided to locate the new plot. The piece is far bigger than I will ever manage as a vegetable garden but I have decided to create an extensive design and then bring into operation beds as and when I need them and am able to.  I still need to do some soil testing but at first look it appears that a lot of amendment will be needed as much of the land seems to consist of a fairly heavy clay.
	The first bed laid out	Having decided to go with this project, the first thing I did was to decide on a size of plot that will last me for several years.  As I said, the overall plot is bigger than I will manage this year but by knowing the eventual size, I can hopefully avoid having to move things too much in future years. Once that was decided I started to break iup the plot into individual beds and quickly came up with 7m x 1200mm beds as ideal.
	A quadrant bed	There is a path around every bed, 650mm wide, enough for a wheel barrow to be put down.  I have also threaded some paths which are 1500mm wide so that I can get my little tractor and trailer in to garden if I need to move big or bulky items. In the layout of the beds we considered such things as sunlight, prevailing winds, slope and frost, and proximity to things like water and compost.
	At the cross roads	Once I had a drawing of the bed layout and was happy that I had used the space to best advantage and also produced a versatile design that will stand for many years, I started to set out the bed on the ground. The size of the bed turned out to be about 1/3 of the piece of land I referred to earlier and I chose to divide the piece in to 3 and use the centre section. I then cut the grass in this area, keeping the cuttings for use in the soil amendment.
	The helping hand of machinery	Next came the marking out of the piece and the beds. We gave quite a bit of thought to our planting for 2009 at this point and decided to make the beds which were going to be planted and leave the rest fallow until such time as we were ready to progress further.
	UH OHH!!!	I have a load of old roofing tiles and these were pressed into service as markers for all the beds and paths. During all this planning, I also visited the local garden centre who, of course, had wonderful offers on both potatoes and asparagus, which were too good to be ignored, so these two items came home with us, defining the first two beds to be prepared.
	The end of the day.	In the end, the layout gives three beds in a row with 4 rows between the main tractor routes, and I decided to opt for preparing a half of this space with just 2 rows of 3 beds.   We also decided that we would include a circular seating area and a quadrant shaped bed in each corner. Laying the tiles was surprisingly time consuming but in the end we had all six beds and the seating area nicely defined in beautiful old Mediterranean Roman Canal tiles, as well as the outside edges and all four quadrants.

A Cold Frame

Kate, of Hills and Plains Seedsavers has been staying here for the past couple of weeks and has talked me into making extensive changes in the Kitchen Garden.

The first change was realised during last week when I finally finished the cold frame I have been building in time to put our new seedlings in.

You might notice that half of the top frame is not covered in glass but in a piece of plastic.  This is due to a discovery I made during the construction that glass doesn't normally bend or bounce, preferring to shatter into several pieces......   Sadly, the local glass merchant could only then offer me 2 or 4 mm thick glass and of course I need 3mm!!!!!

Kate keeps referring to this thing as a seed frame but I've always known it as a cold frame.  We used concrete building blocks which we then filled with sand, to give us some thermal mass, in the hope that the blocks will hold heat gained through the day to warm the frame through the night.

I've put in a maximum - minimum thermometer to record the temperatures and from day one we made a small  temperature gain over night of a couple of degrees.  I hope that gain will steadily increase as the weather improves and the blocks warm.

The frame now has a few things which I have over wintered in it and is ready to receive some new seedlings as soon as they are ready.