Veggie patch border

A new sampler quilt is released every year! Already have an account? Veggie Patch - Block of the Month Club Join ' The Patch! Show more. What's Included: During , The Patch Members will get: A brand new foundation paper pieced quilt block each month during Powered by Payhip. If the water sits there, it's almost certainly clay. Also do a pH test with a kit from the garden centre or send off a soil sample to the RHS for analysis.

This will help establish your soil base line. Once you've got that clear, you can start your soil improvement. Tempting though it is, don't just whack your seeds straight in. If you haven't cultivated your plot before, the soil will need a bit of work. Veg need a loving environment: light, airy and full of goodness. Rather than sowing or planting into lumps like boulders, a small soil-lump-size is crucial for happy and abundant plant growth. For clay without a decent topsoil depth, dig in lots of grit and organic matter.

This is likely to mean large quantities, rather than one or two bags from the garden centre. The grit I use is 9mm pea shingle from a builder's yard rather than the more expensive horticultural grit. This is the smallest stuff for putting on a drive and it does the job well.

For organic matter, I use municipal compost widely available from local councils composting kitchen waste. You can hire a rotavator for a morning. This will convert a ropey topsoil into something instantly good. If you garden on light sandy or chalky soil, dig in lots of organic matter to help the plants grow well, but leave out any extra grit. On chalk, try to avoid disturbing the subsoil — or endless flints will rise to the surface and you'll have to spend hours getting rid of them.

You may be better off importing almost all the soil so you can get cracking. If you're short of space, you'll have to concentrate on the easy and highly productive plants more about this next week , and won't have the luxury of being able to make the garden look beautiful as well as produce food, but if you have more room, you can. Create a high point at the middle of each bed.

Put up a tepee made from eight bamboo canes or twiggy sticks and plant two sweet pea seedlings at the foot of each stick, or just create a tall central patch of some beautiful rich-coloured dahlias, such as the dark crimson, ' Rip City ', ' Chat Noir ' or ' Bishop of Auckland '.

If you keep picking the flowers for the house, these will look good for months. If you have plenty of space, you can also edge your paths with flowers, selecting plants that have a beneficial effect on your productive garden.

Any yellow or orange flower — the poached egg plant Limnanthes douglasii and marigolds Calendula 'Indian Prince' in particular — attract beneficial insects, lacewings and lady birds. Gardening for beginners — 10 tips. The best way to start a vegetable patch is to work on one area at a time. You can sow some seeds direct into the soil from March onwards — read each seed packet for instructions. Pre-warming the soil using a cloche can improve germination rates and mean you can sow seed sooner.

Some veg thrive in dappled shade , but most need sun to grow well. No crops will grow under a tree or in deep shade. Access to a tap or a water butt cuts down trips with a watering can.

Drawing out a plan of your new vegetable garden helps iron out glitches early. You can include flowers for cutting , too, such as gladioli , sunflowers and sweet peas. Prepare the soil well. Dig out perennial weeds like couch grass and bindweed before you start planting your vegetable garden. Where possible, leave the soil for a couple of weeks after weeding, so that any annual seeds brought to the surface germinate. Discover five ways to deal with weeds.

Dig up a small area instead and get that right.