Instead we embarked on a project to create a luxury high raised bed which will be very easy for me to manage without needing to bend. I noticed Monty Don on Gardeners World this week has new vegetable beds constructed high like this, and he nonchalantly noted that you can in fact sit on the edge of them while you garden! (Or is the appeal something to do with our age?).
Nigel, my best beloved, whose DIY skills make him a ‘leg end’ in his own time, took on the crafting of this monolith. It was his first day out with our newly acquired girl size ‘Fat Max’ drill/driver, a concept until recently totally unknown to us. (Second child told us about it).
The clerk of works had specified that the new bed was to be built three high of 1” x 6” gravel boards, therefore being 45cms deep, and so perfect for carrots and parsnips.
The magic width of my raised beds is always 120 cms wide as I can reach comfortably into the centre. This bed was made square, 120 x 120cms, creating a total volume of about 0.7 cubic metres of compost and soil. Nigel moved all that as an afternoon stroll, and the woodwork was completed in record time with the help of the new technology. The finishing touch around the edge was weed suppressing fabric (Mypex) with paving slabs and woodchips all completing the weed exclusion zone in my veg garden. This gets bigger all the time – more of my views on gardening without weeds to follow later.
A fantastic job, and now just needing some warm weather before I sow seeds in the new bed.
The new raised bed
Cat testing the jump
eat hay - Helen Pitel 