As fencing contractors, we spend a lot of time in the open air, and especially in people’s gardens. Whether we’re replacing or repairing fencing, something we’ve noticed is the popularity of self sufficiency is growing fast (excuse the pun!).
Generally people grow veggies to the side of their gardens, unless they’re real enthusiasts, and turn their back garden into one large allotment. As we’re a little nosey as well as hard workers, we’ve noticed that people are going well beyond potatoes and tomatoes, the typical produce that you would expect to find in the average household’s veggie patch. You can learn more about these plants at http://www.vegetablegardenplanner.co.uk. There’s also been a marked increase in the ingenuity people show in making the most of a relatively small space, such as the limited size of the gardens in new build properties.
Thanks to the strong winds we’ve seen in the last year or two, we’ve been called out to more new properties than ever before, not that we’re suggesting for a second that the builders put up cheap fencing. It’s just that it seems particularly vulnerable to the wind – take from that what you will. In these gardens, we’re seeing a sort of three dimensional gardener – with plants climbing upwards as well as in the ground:
As you can see from the above video, it’s more than possible to work direct from a grow bag, but a more popular option seems to be raised beds in timber frames. These mean less back ache, normally an occupational hazard for gardeners, as you don’t need to bend down so far to tend to your produce.
When we’re erecting new fences, we sometimes struggle to save these raised beds, as some people are using the fence as the back ‘wall’ of the box. This means that when we remove the panel, there’s nothing to stop the soil falling backwards, usually into next door’s garden. In one instance, we filled next door’s pond with top soil, probably not great for the health of the fish. So, make sure your raised beds are self contained, not reliant on your garden fencing for support!