On Saturday, Sean from patchworkveg.com came over to the garden to install 3 raised veggie boxes. Sean set up the company only very recently as away to diversify from his other company Galcon, where he works as a building contractor. The company grew out of Sean's love for growing veg himself, and throughout the whole installation process he was full of tips on what to grow and when to grow it. This guy knows his veggies!
When I grew veggies last year, my patch was a little disorganised and was basically a sprawling mess, so this year I think by getting these raised boxes it will just give the garden itself a little more structure. Even with them installed there is plenty of room to grow even more veg in the ground around them.
Sean arrived with a trailer full of dirt and 3 heavy duty boxes all assembled and ready to go. Once the boxes were in place, it was a case of levelling them so they were completely flat on the ground and unfortunately the garden is a little bit irregular so there was a big decision as to which wall we would have them opposite too. When the boxes were in place, the real hard work started and the lads, got stuck in lugging basket fulls of the really great quality soil which Sean told me is full of organic matter which is super for growing the best veggies!
The raised beds are perfect for first time vegetable growers because you split the boxes into square feet and grow a different veg in each square foot. Sean has a link to great website on his blog where you can plan each vegetable box so that you know what is growing where and when to plant it.
I did offer to help with all the lifting by the way, I promise! When the lads had finished filling the boxes they compacted the soil and made them nice and snug. The beds are quite deep so you can plant quite a lot in each square foot! Sean makes the veggie boxes custom made so you can order whatever size you want really and I just think they make super feature in the garden. If you want to check out pricing head over to Sean's website patchworkveg.com where he has all the info about the beds and even offers lots of growing tips for first time growers!
Finally take a quick peak at this interview I recorded with the man himself!