(soft acoustic guitar music)
- So, here, we have one
of the very few wooden-sided beds that remain at Homeacres.
I don't generally like wooden sides to beds
because I find they cause more problems than they solve,
and they can harbor pests, like slugs,
we'll probably find a few.
So, what I'm proposing to do now
is remove these wooden sides,
and give you some ideas
about how you can do that.
Like, for example, I've been noticing
over the last few months,
this bed is only five years old.
We made it five years ago
with treated timber from the builders' yard.
I don't know what's in these treatments,
and I can't be totally sure they're safe,
but I'm told they are.
They used to put arsenic in, actually,
until 15 years ago, but they don't anymore.
So, even though it's treated,
it is starting to rot.
I mean, look at this here.
That's only five years old wood,
and then we have slugs,
so, this is a very common pest for us,
slugs like this, and, yeah,
well, I'm just gonna throw them in the hedge.
Anyway, so, this reduces habitat.
So far so good with not having wood,
but then you need to work out, well...
Aw, there's another slug.
(Charles laughs)
What am I gonna do to stop the grass invading?
In this case, we have grass and weeds
like dandelions, buttercups,
nothing too pernicious, but even so,
it's all vegetation which doesn't stand still,
and that's why I've got this pile
of cardboard here ready. I'll show you in a minute.
So, I'm just gonna take off
all the sides, actually, in turn.
They were very simply held together
with screws at the corners,
and, oh boy, wow, that's beautiful.
There is a gorgeous, that's an earthworm,
so it's a pink, earthworms are pink,
whereas as brandling, or compost worms,
or tiger worms are red, bright red.
That's a nice sign, when you see an earthworm.
Things are good.
I'm seeing quite a few here.
So I'm just gonna slide this out,
and you could also see, actually,
this one's not quite so rotten.
Quite a lot of plant roots.
They're showing how roots go right to the edge of a bed.
And I'll leave this here,
because I'm gonna...
Actually, no, I'm not gonna use this one.
I'm gonna use the other ones
to keep some cardboard down.
I'll just put it out here for the moment.
Could be useful for something.
Now, if we take this one off...
These plants, by the way, here are brokali,
B-R-O-K-A-L-I, and it's a late form of broccoli,
and you can see its roots there, on this side,
lots of woodlice or tiggy-winkles.
There's a slug, another one, for example.
See how it was hiding in that little gap
between the slightly decaying wood
and the edge of the bed.
I mean, I've got nothing personal against slugs.
They have a role to play in nature,
but they don't generally go too well
to have lots near your vegetables,
and that's, this is habitat for slugs, or can be.
Is that one?
No, that's not.
There's one.
So, you know, it's,
successful vegetable growing,
vegetables are not that easy to grow,
and, to be successful,
you've gotta give yourself every chance,
reduce pests, and give them best conditions.
So, let's have a look here.
Yeah, see, again, quite rotten there, not brilliant.
This, by the way, is not rehearsed in any way.
You know, I didn't know what I'm gonna see
when I take these off, but I have an idea
from doing it before.
And this is one of only three beds now at Homeacres
that have wooden sides.
The other two are on my dig, no dig trial beds up there,
which we're thinking to remove
in the next month, actually,
and we'll probably make a video of that,
so keep an eye out for it.
Again, there's another slug,
and it's not too many, what I'm seeing,
just more than I'd like.
This plant here is a chicory,
and that's for making a small heart
for salad or roast,
and here, we have some parsnips.
I thought you might find this interesting,
because these parsnips I sowed back in February, actually.
That one's got a big fork,
maybe from being on the edge,
but you can see how no dig...
Wow.
It's coming.
Ooh (chuckles) yeah, look at that.
That's a very nice example of a no dig parsnip.
I've found, generally, you know,
this had some compost on the surface of the bed,
and the compost on top is what you sow into.
It's often said that you shouldn't spread compost
before sowing parsnips 'cause it makes them fork.
Well, generally, it doesn't, actually.
I wouldn't call that a fork.
Little root, but it doesn't matter, actually,
if they do fork.
I mean, that one's still good.
But basically, they grow fine,
and they grow very nicely straight down.
There will have been, on the end of that,
even more root going way down into the soil.
It illustrates the point, with a bed like this,
that, although we're sowing and planting
into compost which sits on top of the ground,
the plants are rooting into the soil below the compost,
which is why growth can be so good.
You're just giving the plants a fantastic start
in the compost.
The compost is feeding the soil life,
like the worms we saw,
and generally, things go well.
So, all that remains now is edging,
and we had some cardboard boxes from my books,
and we just took them apart,
and there's slightly wider bits,
and slightly narrower bits,
and some of the edge here I don't want
to be too sticking out.
The reason I had a wooden edge here, actually,
was just because this is a major thoroughfare
for the garden, we're walking past all the time,
I didn't wanna lose too much ground for walking on,
so I'd have a narrower path along this side,
and a slightly wider path along this side.
And, when using cardboard to kill weeds
in lots of pieces, you wanna just make sure
you overlap the edges,
and even, seems I've quite a lot of cardboard here.
(Charles chuckles)
I think I'll double up,
and that will just make sure that everything dies.
So, luckily, today is not windy.
It's a bit noisy with all the neighbors
doing their strumming, unfortunately,
but, because it's not windy,
makes it a lot easier to do this.
Can be done when it's windy.
I'm just making sure
that the grass is all tucked under the cardboard,
and then I'm going to just put a piece of wood on top.
So, what this'll lead to me having here
is a nice, tidy edge.
It makes a straight edge,
and then, like, for, say, cutting the grass
with a lawnmower, or however you're doing it,
that is quite straightforward.
So, what I can do now is, very simply put this back on top.
You know, put it that way round,
have the clean edge without soil close
to the grass edge.
If this was summer, this grass would be growing very fast,
and even tend to push up the cardboard,
and that can be an issue,
so that's a reason for keeping this a bit closer.
Then I've got options.
You know, what are we gonna do with this side here?
I think what I shall do is put a bit more compost in there,
have this as a temporary wooden side.
This piece of wood will not be here
for more than, say, six months,
by which time the cardboard will be decaying,
the grass underneath and the weeds will be pretty well dead,
and I can take away the wood,
there'll be just a sloping edge
to the bed where, at the moment, it's vertical,
and that'll be clean soil, no weeds going into the bed
with no wood involved anymore.
And, up here, I don't mind having a slightly wider pathway.
I'm even gonna shape it around this corner.
You know, this is an advantage
of not having wooden sides,
because, especially, like, using cardboard in this way,
you can be creative and make nice shapes in your garden.
And again, I'll put a piece of wood on top of this.
So, the final bit is that.
So, with wooden sides,
you can look on them as temporary.
They have a use.
I wouldn't say for one minute
that wooden sides are a bad thing altogether,
but, in this case, for me,
they've definitely outlived their time,
and use, and need,
and I'll be confident now of growing
with fewer pests like the slugs,
and if you don't use wooden sides,
you know, these could still serve.
For example, if you were making new beds from scratch,
you could just put them on the ground like that,
maybe with a stone there to hold them up,
and they can be a temporary wooden side,
even without any screws at the corner,
or anything like that,
and then you remove them later,
just lift them off when they're not needed anymore.
So they might've been down between three and four months.
And I gave a talk about this once,
explaining to the audience, you know, how this can work,
and that you don't need, for raised beds,
that famous phrase, raised bed,
you know, what does that mean exactly?
They don't have to be wooden-sided beds.
They don't have to have straight sides.
They can be more mound-like.
I explained this to the audience,
and then, I was giving another talk
about six months later that same year,
and at the end, there were questions,
and the lady stuck up her hand,
and said, "Yeah, I just wanted to say
"that, after you workshop in the spring,
"I went home, and my husband said,
"'Do you know, I'm so happy,
"'that's the first time you've been
"'to a gardening presentation
"'which has not involved me spending lots of money.'"
So, you know, this can be a saving of money as well.
And, yeah, have fun.
You know, be creative.
Find ways that work for you,
and maybe not so many wooden sides.