Miscellaneous - 1
Any Questions?

Q. We have just bought a house with a tired, 45ft back garden. My wife & I know absolutely nothing about gardening or gardening costs. I have an idea of the design I want but have little money.

What do I need to know and ask ?
How do I choose a gardener / landscaper ?
How will I know what price is correct or fair for the job?

Hope you can help a clueless young couple getting into Gardening !

A. There is no easy answer to your question, it varies according to where you live, what time of the year it is and most of all according to precisely the garden that you have. I used to spend ages doing detailed landscaping quotes for particular circumstances, I did try to break it down to shrubs £x per square yard, perennials £y per square yard, patio £z per square yard etc. - but it never worked properly.

The best advice I can give is to ask neighbours or friends who have had work done, how much did theirs cost and were they happy with the result? How will you know what is a correct or fair price? Send off a plan maybe (fax) to at least 3 contractors and ask for an estimate. Then get the best to come round and see your garden and give a real estimate.

What do you have more of, time or money? If you want to cut costs, then do as much of the unskilled donkey work yourself before the contractors start. You said your garden is "tired" are you going to sweep the slate clean? or keep bits. Contractors like it better - charge less and do the job quicker - if there's less clearing and preparation first. But don't bother digging it all over or doing work that a contractor will do in a fraction of the time with the correct machinery.

If you dig them into your veg patch every year, I would expect it to reach a certain level of acidity and then not get any greater, as you add more leaf mould, so another lot will rot and the acidity of that bit will reduce.

The overall effect won't be great however. If you have lots of leaves every year, it would be a real waste of valuable organic material not to use them. What I would do is add some lime to the heap when you gather them up in the autumn. This will help the pH of the leaf mould and also help the microbes to break the leaves down, they operate best in slightly alkaline conditions.

The lime will also help your compost heap when the leaves are dug in as most vegetables prefer alkaline to acidic conditions.

Leaf mould takes longer to break down than ordinary compost, so don't dig last autumns leaves in until the next autumn, they usually need at least 12 months, longer if possible.

Q. Raking back the gravel in my front garden I discover Tarmac. Attacking the Tarmac with a pickaxe revealed about six inches of hardcore. The plan now is to go for a raised flower bed! How deep does a raised bed need to be? I plan to plant climbing roses, clematis, small conifers.

A. For planting shrubs you need a minimum of 18" to 2ft for a raised bed, the deeper the better really. However for a lower bed, you could dig out the tarmac and gravel beneath the shrub and replace it with soil before planting above the hole you have made.

You need a minimum of a 6" diameter "plug" through the tarmac/gravel into the soil below, the bigger the better, 12" would be good, 24" better. You have to bear in mind that dryness will be the main problem and drainage will be good (excellent in your case) down to ground level, once the plant roots get below this, they'll be more self-sufficient.

Q. We have 4 dogs but we also like to grow herbs etc. At the moment we have the herb collection in pots, either perched precariously on bricks to keep them above dog leg height, or on a bench. As our collection grows this is becoming less practical. Short of banishing the dogs from the garden, can you suggest a practical, economical and hopefully attractive way to keep a large herb collection safe from canine contamination?

A. The best bet I think would be to build a raised bed. You can do this easily by using railway sleepers, a low brick wall or thick marine ply held in place with stout stakes. About 18" high would probably be adequate, and the herbs will like the extra drainage provided by the raised bed. You would probably like the fact that you will need to water less than you do in pots as the soil volume is much bigger.

Q. I'm looking into buying a rotavator but unfortunately I know very little about them and their problems. Could you shed some light on these machines and any issues associated with them like how long it will last for and whether they dig in etc?

A.  Rotavators are not deep diggers, they will reach the top 2-4" of the soil. They can be very hard work to use (but a lot easier than a spade for the area covered). How long will they last? Well like a lawn mower, they should be matched in power to the area to be covered, and when used they are better doing a little and often than a lot every now and then.

I tend to think of them more as a sort of heavy-power-hoe rather than a spade substitute. They are best suited for actively used vegetable / flower plots or market gardens where "crops" of various types are grown. They can be used to incorporate compost / manure that has been spread on the surface, they won't get it down deep, but they certainly will get it down under the soil.

More on rotovators

Q. I have a garden with a rounded edge and want to put up a fence to make the garden private, as it backs on to a public pavement. I want to now if you can get any curved fencing that would bend round or am I stuck with a brick wall. (I'm looking at about 5-6 foot).

A.  I've never come across anything resembling a curved fence. If it's not too long a curved stretch, you could make it up from scratch with 3x3 or maybe even 2x2 posts dug into the ground and placed say a foot apart. It would be a lot of work, but maybe less than a brick wall.

Q.  What is the usual useful life of standard bark laid in a domestic garden? The garden isn't played or walked on to any great degree. Should bark be replaced regularly or should we get a few years out of it?

A.  It depends on a whole range of factors, where it is, what the weather's been like, does it get wet and stay wet, how big the bits were, how do you want it to look etc.

There's not usually any reason to replace it as in lift the old and put new down, but it will need topping up every now and then. You should be ok for 2 years before a top-up, maybe 1 if you're more fastidious about appearances. Just add more of the same to the same depth as how it was originally.

Q. Hopefully, the trees in our yard are Chestnut Crabapples. From internet pictures, these match. I tried making jam from the fruits. My fear, is that these crabapples are not edible. I used honey and 'reduced sugar content' for diabetic purposes and still am concerned about the final product. My question is: are chestnut crabapples edible? Are they consumed by another process, like pickling?

A. Yes Chestnut Crabapples are edible, they're one of the best types for making preserves with. Did you make the jam this year or last? they won't be anywhere near ripe yet (July) they're not ready until about mid September. What's this with jam? I thought I was learning to speak American properly and you called it jelly? Or is that the clear stuff without bits?

reply - Thank you for your response. OOOPPPs! Our crabapples (chestnut size) are red and falling from the trees now, So, I thought that they were ripe. Perhaps I was a little impatient. I made jam. Jelly is clear, no fruit particles or chunks and of course sweet. The process I used was from the county extension office here, which states to cook the crabapples until they pop; strain through a sieve; use that pulp with honey, lemon juice and apple juice to mix the jam. My jam is very thick...it took all Sunday afternoon to do! The nursery man here told me this morning that most people do not use this size of apple because it is such a time consuming 'pain'. I know the product is sour. Using LOTS of sugar would have changed the taste, but I followed the recipe to the letter. I have now decided to just make up blackberry jam for the Christmas presents.

reply / reply - Thanks for that reply, I've been avoiding the word "jam" thinking Americans will wonder what I'm on about, I shall now use it with abandon.

Your trees are showing the "June drop" which often happens in July(!), it's the trees way of thinning out the results of a very successful pollination. If all the fruits remained, the tree would wear itself out trying to set so much seed (it's the seed that are the effort, the fruits are easier for the tree).

Though they are sour for direct eating purposes, crabapples ripen like any others and will be ready for jam making later on. If you really want to make jam as Christmas presents, then grow a damson tree, they're really easy to look after and fruit like mad (usually) and the jam is the best in the world, IMHO!

I'm sorry to hear about your wasted Sunday, I've had similar experiences myself going off on a tangent. Let the thoughts mature and you'll come up with a wonderfully amusing anecdote as the real fruit of the days labours.

Q.  What are the best tomatoes to grow in a greenhouse? I mean ones that have a good flavours.

A.  I'm not a great vegetable grower, but the old-fashioned varieties are consistently amongst the best.

Gardeners Delight is a cherry tomato that is reliable, best under glass and has a wonderful flavour, another I'd recommend is Ailsa Craig a normal-size tomato with an excellent flavour. Given limited space I'd only grow Gardener's Delight, they always get eaten as fast as they can grow and they're very prolific.

One's I'd recommend to avoid are hanging basket tomatoes - can't recall the name, but I grew some a few years ago and while they're very prolific and impressive, the skins are tough and flavour disappointing.

Also to avoid are yellow tomatoes, or any other colour than red. I've heard they have good flavour and the yellow ones I grew a few years ago tasted ok, but the colour just doesn't meet expectations. The family all tried the yellow ones and declared them tasty, but would ALWAYS go for red by preference, I haven't bothered trying to be different for the sake of it since.

Tigerella are much vaunted by celebrity chefs.