Really interesting lazy bed method which still involves a spade but sounds very exciting as a way of dealing with new ground!
visit lazy bed page here – the site is fascinating

This is one of my favourite Youtube channels – he does loads of interesting videos, but here is lazy bed making in action!

So what’s a lazy bed?

You pick a plot of land – untended grassed land. Which is often what people start with in their own gardens or on brand new allotments. You cut the grass as short as possibe. Mark off an area into thirds. Somewhere between 2-3ft seems to be a good width – so 6-9ft section of grass. The bed can be as long as you like.
You can lay on the central section manure or rotted compost.
You then cut a straight edge at the far edge of the marked area and slice under the turf and fold it over on to the middle section. Ideally you’ll keep a hinge of grass intact as this helps the appearance and action of the bed.
You then cut a straight edge on the left edge and fold this egde over on to the middle section.

So now you have a middle section that is considerably higher than the two side edges, but all the grass is inside and the roots are exposed. This should kill off the grass.
This might not work for nasty couch grass but it’s so simple in theory that you might want to risk giving it a try.
These beds work best with something prolific growing that will help smother the grass and weeds that might grow out of the folded turf.
Potatoes, oca, even nasturtians could all help smother the grass with foliage

To me this sounds like a great way of starting off a growing patch in your back garden. This is assuming you have a reasonable lawn. Couch grass infected soil might work – but couch grass is pretty persistent so it’s going to keep going I think.
Doesn’t look as hard work as actually double digging and certainly solves the issue many people have with what to do with turf they remove when digging.

There will be a photo as soon as it’s dry enough for me to take the camera out. We’ve had thunder and lightening this morning and now it’s lashing it down. Have stacked the bails and covered them with a tarp for now!

A simple photo just wasn’t enough! I was out playing with my video camera!

The man who delivered them asked what we were going to be doing with them. I told him mulching the potatoes and trying out straw bale gardening where you wet the bales and add fertiliser and then plant in them.
He told me they used to plant potatoes on straw when he was young. Put down the straw, put on the potatoes and earth over. The straw all disappears by the time you come to harvest the spuds too!

Straw bale gardening site in the USA – instructions on soaking your bales

Amazing plastic greenhouse made from bottles

PDF file – right click file save as
Instructions on how to build a plastic bottle greenhouse using 2ltr plastic lemonade bottles. This was produced as part of the Greenspaces project with primary schools in Moray.

Jersey Plants Direct has these great hostas.
I’ve always found the slugs like young hostas so it’s worth either putting pellets down too or getting some nemaslug

The nemaslug product just waters in and allows all your plants to get a really good start without any slugs eating them! Well worth the money if you love your garden.
You could create a permanent bed of hostas as they look great together. They’re happy in shade too which makes them a wonderful plant to have.

Hosta Blue Angel 1 Plant 2 Litre £9.99
Create a great base for trees or shrubsThis variety of Hosta makes a tiered mound of fantastic leaves that is great at the base of trees or shrubs.

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This collection at Jersey Plants Direct is designed to be well at home in a shady border.

Bergenia Pink Dragonfly, Heuchera Black Beauty, Hosta Fragrant Blue, Tiarella Pink Skyrocket, Heucherella Sunspot, Pulmonaria Trevi Fountain.

They’ll be happy in Full to partial shade so ideal for that border that you’re always stuck for ideas of what to put in.

Shady Border Collection 6 Jumbo Ready Plants £13.99
Gorgeous colours and fascinating foliageThis Shady Border Collection produces gorgeous colours, fascinating foliage and long lasting displays.

Jersey Plants Direct have this rose available either as a bare root plant or in a 3L pot.

A rose makes a fantastic addition to any garden. They’ll be happy on clay as long as you dig in a bit of compost when you plant them.

Climbing Rose Golden Climber 1 Plant 3 Litre £10.99
Excellent climbing roseThis bright yellow rose will help cover those unsightly walls, fences and sheds.

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Jersey Plants Direct has these last minute offers on Spring bedding plants

There is free delivery on all orders at JPD too!

Geranium Parade 100 Plants + 60 FREE £12.99
Beautiful Geranium Parade Plug PlantsGeraniums for just 8p per plant! It’s an industry first and an unbeatable offer. Now we can offer Geraniums as quality guaranteed plug plants.These beautiful Geraniums will bring lasting colour to your garden throughout the summer. The large flowers in reds and pinks will brighten your borders from June to October. An old favourite and a well loved Geranium!

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Garden Innovations Growpot is what you need to make a growbag better!
A growbag used for growing tomatoes has a few issues – one is whether there’s enough soil for the roots (Something most gardeners worry about as growbags don’t come with a weight on!) and whether you’re watering them enough.

Garden Innovations Growpot – Pack of 3 is a pack of 3 growpots.

This is a pack of 3 growbag growpots. They have been designed to help ensure your tomatoes have a good water supply, and because they add extra soil to the growbag you get better plants. You can water more accurately using these and it’s easier to apply the liquid tomato feed when you water the growpot.
They have a special cutting ring for a quick and easy fit into growbags – this is a unique feature to the growpots and makes them so easy to fit into a growbag. You don’t need a knife or to spend ages cutting round anything to get the right size hole.

The pots have an outer trough that holds four pints of water or feed which then gradually seeps into the compost taking a constant supply.
This is perfect for ensuring your tomatoes have a steady supply and is great for the hot sunny days when you might need to water several times a day.

If your tomatoes have had blossom end rot – where the end of the tomato goes black, then you’ll know just how important watering is. One of the contributory factors to this problem with tomatoes is inconsistent watering. Using a grow pot ensures the plant gets the water it needs. It also reduces your stress levels when you’re away from home during scorching hot days worrying about your tomatoes!
You’ll need one pack for each growbag – as you can grow three tomato plants in each growbag. Whilst this may seem like a big investment (They work out about £3 each) you’ll discover that the extra crop you get from your tomatoes year after year soon pays for itself.

After all if your tomatoes dry out then the crop can be ruined – so this small outlay prevents crop loss ensuring your time and effort is well spent.

You’ll love growing tomatoes again once you’ve got these on your growbags! They’ll ensure safe and easy watering from now on which means you’ll have more tomatoes than ever!

Should last for years as they are good quality plastic. Just wash and put away at the end of the season until next year. A fantastic addition to your greenhouse!

The Fiskars Weed Puller is the easy way of getting dandelions and other tap root weeds out of your lawn.

Fiskars Weed Puller

Great invention for removing weeds, such as dandelions, from garden without resorting
to chemicals
Deep-reaching stainless steel claws
Leverage point from ground level
Ergonomically designed to ensure comfortable working posture
Ejection system for clean and efficient result

How big is the fiskars weed removal tool? Dimensions: 998 x 300 x 95 mm
It weighs 920 g

Removing dandelions from your lawn is tedious. You can do it with a knife and cut out the plants. This involves crouching down and that’s hard work especially if you’ve got a lot of dandelions to get rid of. This tool takes away the backache of removing weeds.

You stay stood up for the weed removal process. Position the tool – just surround the centre of the weed with the lopper-like teeth at the end of the pole. You then just press your foot down on the pedal, and angle the pole towards you and pull.The weed then comes out without the need to pull any straps/levers. You have to angle the pole when you lift it out of the soil/grass otherwise the teeth don’t grasp the weed.

To eject the weed from the tool’s teeth you just slide the orange cuff in the middle of the pole downwards – it glides very, very smoothly – and the weed is expelled. Done!

You should fill the gaps in the lawn with a mix of sand and compost and grass seed. You can go round and do this after. This helps any gaps fill in and encourages more grass to grow. The gaps aren’t very big left by this tool which means you don’t need huge sacks of compost or sand to fill in the holes. By adding sand to the mix you ensure the seed can drain well and this should encourage good growth.

The task of removing dandelions is now simple and easy. And the best bit is all your friends and family will want to have a go to test it out – just make sure they are trying it on your lawn and they’ll do the work for you. This really does remove the back breaking choreness of getting a good looking lawn.
The circumference of the fiskar tool’s teeth is about 7″ (18 cm) so the puller can cover the heart of most weeds and it does get most of the root up. This reduces the return rate of weeds and if you reseed the holes then the grass can then compete better to keep the weeds away for good.

Whilst regular mowing is considered a good way of removing most annual weeds (They can’t compete with keep growing every time they’re cut, unlike grass in your lawn which loves being cut to encourage it to grow more healthily) it won’t touch dandelion weeds. This is why they’re the worst! They should also be removed to prevent the yellow heads turning white and creating clouds of seeds that just continue the problem.

The fiskar dandelion weeder is a great tool that every gardener should have to help keep their lawn looking good.

Whilst the tool isn’t cheap it does take the backbreaking work out of removing weeds from the lawn, and it is a chemical free method so if you’re after an organic garden then this is a must have. Avoiding weed killers is also a good idea if you have pets or children as you don’t have to worry about their safety with this tool at all.

Buy it now – Fiskars Weed Puller
Watch the video now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c84_oPBy7pU