#2 - Taking Shape

February is almost over, and while I haven’t done everything I set out to do just yet, the garden is really taking shape and I’m excited for the weeks ahead as I begin to sowing my first seeds of the season.

The Garden

A view of my garden from above

Clearly, there is still lots of work to do but I’m delighted with how this is looking now when I compare it to how things looked at the start of the year. Initially, I had 4 raised beds set up but filling them all with topsoil was becoming a real chore. I decided to remove 2 of those and set up one long bed directly on the ground with a layer of cardboard beneath.

The area covered in plastic will eventually be the lawn area. It’s currently covered in plastic to try and suppress any weeds from growing. The plastic will stay until around April when I will put down some grass seeds and hope for the best! Once I get the remaining rubble moved from the right side I will do the same there.

I have also built my greenhouse! I put down a double-height raised bed and built a timber frame on top of that. I then covered the whole thing in perspex cladding, adding double doors in the front and a little hatch door at the back. I also added some shelving inside so that I can pop in some seedlings before planting out.

DIY Greenhouse

Planter Boxes

Train Carriage Planter Boxes

One thing I’m keen to do is to bring colour to my garden. With that in mind, I’ve started making some planter boxes to sit out on the edge of the patio that will act as a break between the patio and the garden. I’ve made two so far and filled them with colourful flowers. When I made the initial box I was happy but I had the idea that I wanted to tie all the boxes together somehow. That’s when I came up with the idea to make each box look like a train carriage. I will then have a train-shaped box at the front of the line. I love the way they have look and I think it adds some fun and interest to the patio area.

Sowing Seeds and Planting Trees

Over the last few weeks, I’ve managed to plant a few fruit trees and bushes. In the break between the lawn and vegetable garden, I have planted an apple, pear, and fig tree. As well as blueberry, raspberry, blackcurrant, and gooseberry bushes. I can’t wait to start to see these grow throughout the season.

In terms of sowing seeds, I’ve done some indoor sowing to get a head start on the vegetables that I will be growing in the greenhouse. I have, chilis, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, and aubergine seeds sown into trays and left inside on the window sill. I have also sown some sweet pea and cauliflower seeds. Almost all of these seeds have germinated and the green shoots are growing by the day. I’m so happy as I check these multiple times a day to see the growth each time.

#1 - How do I start a new garden?

Over winter I have a few objectives for my garden that will hopefully see me start off on the right path. I’ll lay these out below and go into some detail on each.

• Set up an area for composting.

• Clear out the building waste from the garden.

• Create a rough layout for how the garden should look.

• Set up a water butt to collect water from the shed roof.

• Set up some raised beds.

• Set up a greenhouse.

Setting up a composting area.

I have now ticked off this one on the list. One of my main considerations here was making sure I did not spend any money on setting this up. Therefore I wanted to use all leftover or waste timber to create a compost bin. This means the look of the bin is going to be very rough and ready and to be honest this is exactly how I want it to look. I love the idea of having the garden look as though it’s been cobbled together with whatever was lying around… mainly because that’s exactly what it’s going to be.

Another consideration I had was Irish weather. Given how much rain we get here, I think it’s important to have a cover on the bin. From what I understand I don’t want excessive moisture in the compost and I believe there should naturally be enough moisture from fruit and veg peelings that will go into the bin. I’ll keep an eye on this though and may remove the cover if I feel it’s needed.

Here’s my cobbled-together compost bin made out of whatever leftover timber I had lying around:

Homemade compost bin with cover.

I’m very aware this is no work of art but It’s functional and it cost me nothing so I’m happy.

Clearing out the building waste

My progress has slowed with the bad snow and frost that hit us early in January. I planned to hire a skip in the first week of January but we have some work left to do out in the front driveway that I want get finished before ordering a skip as everything can all go in together then. Skips aren’t cheap! Hopefully when the weather improves a little I’ll get moving on this.

In the meantime, the section of my garden that I have planned for growing is mostly cleared already so I can get started on the other elements.

How should my new garden look?

I’ve decided to split the garden into 3 sections.

1. Lawn area. This will just be a nice, clean lawn area.

2. Growing area. This is where I’ll have my raised beds and greenhouse.

3. Compost/storage/maintenance. This is an area for water storage, composting, equipment storage and the shed etc.

Here is a VERY rough outline of what I have in mind:

Proposed garden layout.

How can I collect rainwater?

Well, I live in Ireland so the rain part won’t be an issue! I already have guttering setup on the shed so I plan to get a water butt on each side of the shed and direct water from the downpipe into each. This part will require a bit of an investment. I’d like to get a fairly sturdy and fairly large water butt and these aren’t cheap. Something like the below from Woodies would be perfect but €70 feels like a lot to spend to collect water.

https://www.woodies.ie/210-litre-water-butt-set-1081504?objectId=30662&queryId=8c77bdb66d54deb357e8aa29d0609938&indexName=prod_default_products

I’ll try to find something similar for cheaper. That said, I am trying to create a vegetable garden from nothing so some investment is going to be needed!

Raised Beds

This part should be easy. I have set up one bed already with some 7 x 2 timbers that were pulled out of the old house. These were originally floor joists and are the same timber I used to build the compost bin.

Raised bed for growing vegetables

The bed is 4ft by 8ft and I have weighed down a layer of cardboard to hopefully keep any weeds from growing through. The plan is to fill that area with 3 more beds of equal size. I hope to do that over the coming weeks.

In terms of actually filling the beds, I don’t have much topsoil to fill these so again I think another purchase will be needed here! To fill 4 beds this size could become expensive if I just buy individual bags from the garden centre so I will probably look into getting a tonne bag delivered.

Do I need a greenhouse to grow veg in Ireland?

Yep! Obviously, this doesn’t apply to all vegetables but we eat a lot of tomatoes, peppers, and chilis and from everything I’ve read, these will grow much better and will have a much longer growing season if grown in a greenhouse as they thrive in a higher temperature. I also think the greenhouse will be useful for starting seedlings before planting them out in the beds and exposing them to the weather.

I’m clearly no expert but this is all based on reading the likes of Charles Dowding and learning from YouTubers who grow in a similar climate to myself.

I’ve mentioned cost a few times already and this is one area I know I will need to spend. However, I’m contemplating building the greenhouse myself to cut costs. This way I can also build it to my exact requirements and spec and build a much more sturdy greenhouse than what I’m seeing for sale in local garden centres.

So that’s it. That’s how I plan to start my garden. I’m sure as I get into it, some of the above plans may change or be abandoned completely but I guess we’ll see how it goes. Hopefully the next post I make will show some real progress.

#0 - Getting Started

So. Here goes nothing.

In December 2022, my wife and I took on the daunting task of renovating an 80-year-old, derelict house. To say a lot of work was needed is an understatement. For almost two years we have spent every minute of our free time working hard to build our home and in November 2024 we finally moved in. The house itself is a mid-terraced house in an estate in town. After an extension to the house, the garden is roughly 12 metres long by 7 metres wide which is quite big for a mid-terraced house in an estate. However, the garden was mainly used as a dumping ground while the building works were going on and so now the task of cleaning up and preparing for the new year of gardening has begun.

Here’s what the garden originally looked like when we took on this mammoth task.

The state of the garden before any renovation work began.

I don’t think this picture justifies how overgrown the garden was and how difficult it was to clear out. What looked like just thick, tall grass was actually a dense layer of nasty, spikey brambles and weeds covering every inch of space it could find. After a couple of days of hacking, sawing, and digging, we eventually uncovered most of the garden.

Here’s what the garden looks like today. Bear in mind, some cleanup has been done but there is obviously a lot more to do.

The state of the garden today.

As you can see we have built a shed down the back of the garden. One of the things I’d like to do this winter is get some water barrels set up to collect the rain water from the roof of the shed to be used throughout the growing season.

So this is where we are now—very much starting from scratch. I have some plans and milestones I want to reach over the winter, but the main objective right now is to clear out the garden, set up a composting station, and prepare some raised beds for sowing. In time I’d love to have a thriving garden with fruit trees, vegetables and herbs growing to be used in the kitchen.

I’ve numbered this part 0 because this is just an introduction before the real journey begins. I’m sure nobody will ever read this. I don’t plan to advertise it or spread the word about it. I just want to document the process for myself. But if you do happen to read this please feel free to email me and let me know if you have any tips or advise for a new gardener. Email me!

Thanks,

David