We transformed a weedy pasture into an easy to manage market garden. Here is how.
It can be hard work st first, removing regrowth of perennial weeds with a trowel. After two years, we have clean soil and productive beds requiring little management time.
See this playlist of the first year in 2021 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7WDfop74y-k1a3lMA0ooD5m8bhiKu5sR
00:00 Introduction
01:15 I explain the ‘new area’
01:47 First work done on the area – a new bed
01:55 3-pallet compost bay
02:25 How we cleared the wild growth
03:00 Apple trees
03:17 A rosemary hedge
03:48 New pond, just made
04:04 A sunberry
04:29 Apricot tree, and how to protect from frost
05:05 Main garden area from the land purchased two years previously
05:44 I demonstrate removing field bindweed
07:14 A bed with mustards just finished, soon to have beans, plus overwintered spring greens
07:25 Broad beans soon to finish, to be followed by purple sprouting broccoli – some spottiness (possibly chocolate spot) on the leaves – plants were covered with mesh
08:16 Fleece over ruby chard, very few weeds, homesaved seed
08:55 Purple sprouting broccoli just cleared
09:22 Another type of cover – Thermacrop over celeriac and interplanted spring onion seedlings
09:59 Wood on the beds – from homemade compost, not woodchip
10:39 Courgettes/zucchini, survived a slight frost (covered with fleece)
11:22 Polytunnels with tomato plants (was winter salad)
12:04 Sideshooting a Sungold tomato – how to know which are sideshoots
13:03 Garlic interplant, and when to harvest
13:23 Changes made to one top the Homeacres boundary edges – a bed, a cabin and a new hedgerow with ornamental seedlings
14:14 Veg that were under Thermacrop – peas for shoots, overwintered spinach Medania plus new plants – I harvest some leaves
15:20 Lettuce – plenty of cropping
15:54 Beetroot Boltardy transplanted end of March, fleece removed a week previously
16:58 Asparagus, planted in a bed originally full of perennial weeds, and a newer planting of asparagus – great results from the plants grown from seed, Ariane F1
19:!4 Rhubarb in area originally mulched with black plastic and woodchip, an experiment
20:07 An area of bed with woodchip removed – was cabbage, now potatoes
20:24 Trees – grafting on rootstock, I explain the process
21:45 Kale gone to flower – stem covered in aphids
22:10 A compost corner – cow manure, mushroom compost and green waste compost – I explain how much compost we use at different times
23:15 An experiment to protect against carrot root fly (and removing bindweed), and advice on filling a deep bed
24:53 New beds, made last spring – I describe the dimensions
25:22 Kohlrabi and cauliflower – growth affected by nearby ash tree, lack of moisture
26:02 Rye plants for making bread
27:31 Flowers – ornamental alliums and lupins
28:10 Potatoes in ground that was covered in black plastic last year – how we use plastic repeatedly – squashes grown here previously
28:54 Potatoes earthed up with cow manure because of late frost – wood in the manure from bedding
29:54 Area currently under plastic, with squashes and sweetcorn growing
31:32 Another new bed, mulched with cardboard and compost
32:23 Other new plantings in this area – hazel and birch saplings, wild flowers, willows
33:17 Hawthorn, also called ‘may’
33:47 The old pond, and bees
34:31 The wormery, and new shed
33:25 Outro
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Thank you for this lovely video. We have 1.5 acre pasture we're starting this fall (only a small area to start). 47' 36" latitude, so similar weather. My question is about how the black plastic affects the microbes in the compost. My mind wonders if it might be better to add it immediately after pulling the plastic instead. I'd be very grateful if you shared your thoughts on this. Thank you.
Don't understand why we can't do 3 sisters here? You grow corn, beans and pumpkins so why not together? It worked fabulously for me last year????
Hi Charles! Does your bindweed method work for ground elder? And could it be stopped by digging in vertical plastic barriers, do you think?
Thank you!
You wrote Solanum retroflexum under the sunberry.
Is that right?
The genus solanum is in the nightshade family, not the rose family which raspberries and blackberries are from.
My disabled neighblor has a yard full of brambles –that try to creep into my fenced growing area. I have found the brambles really hard to get rid of. For me the cardboard sheet mulch has not worked very well but perhaps I've not done it right. If I understood how to get rid of them I would volunteer to help my neighbor remove these. Also I had read that just nipping the green tops of bindweed, not digging, would eventually starve the roots off. I've been trying with mixed results! The theory was that if you dig (and break) the roots they spread from the bits left.
@21:51 In my garden aphids seem to be having a bumper year unfortunately, they've hammered my blackcurrant leaves (this is the second year that it's fruited and though the currants have already formed, I'm a bit worried about how they will mature to eating stage with such a ravaging of the leaves; the plant lost at least two thirds of its leaves though it is bouncing back a little bit. Interestingly, for a couple of nights I saw slugs and snails joining in as well, climbing the stems, something I'd never seen before. Perhaps they sensed it had been weakend by the aphids?). My strong young hazel has shrugged them off, the leaves seem fine despite there being so many aphids on it that the gravel footpath beneath is visibly dampened with their 'honeydew'! All the leaves in that little corner of the garden are sticky.
Charles Downing you are my hero Sir ❤
I love your pond????
Inspirational.
Great Video! Thanks
You do hard work but you don't feel it because you enjoy the work.
The previous owners of our place put landscape fabric. It stops no weeds at all. In fact, it makes it more difficult to pull them. It's covered with bark mulch. The worst one is the the prostrate spurge that the native ants plant themselves, as it will grow above the mulch, in my pots, raised beds etc. You can't mow it, because it's already flat. Grr.
How do stop the grass encroaching into your beds?
Good morning, Charles, from Windermere, Florida 9b ????????
We don't seem to have Bindweed, but my nemesis is Artillery plant.
It grow wild and in everything. It's spreads like fire. Most people spray Round-up to control it. I'm constantly Weeding it, year-round!
And the more healthy and organic my soil grows, the bigger it grows. Oh well, it is a lush looking weed????
Your new plot looks like it's going to be a perfect squash plot.
Take care, My Friend
❤Peggy❤
Stick a bench next to that pond and invite me over for a cuppa please ❤
It’s always a treat to get a new video from you, Charles, but this one was extra special with so much detail of the newest areas. The flashbacks dramatically show how much things have changed in such a short period of time. The drone shots are my favorites – I pause the video and study each area, familiarizing myself with all the different gardens, sheds, ponds, compost bins and meadows so that when you show a garden from the ground perspective, I can see in my mind’s eye exactly where you are. I look forward to all your videos; they are so inspiring and informative. Thank you! ????
great garden. it is chocolate spot or botrytis on your broadbeans. it's a fungus that affects yields and is very persistent in loaf and beans. it comes from rain, much like potato and tomato blight, so I'm thinking they got their fair share of rain , only earlier than blight, I wouldn't compost affected leafs though. Shame the lake or pond is still "leaking"
Our persistent weed here is field horsetail. It's really a tough one! After constant removal with a trowel I'm seeing a noticeable decline after only a couple of months which gives me confidence that one day we will be free of it. Homeacres is looking great btw. All the best ????
Thank you CD! Love the tour videos and really well done with the edited in historic clips. Garden looking great ????