And then there were four

Raised bed number four has been added to the kitchen garden!  With the four main beds now in place, we can decide what size the last two should be.  The first are all 6'x4', but the remaining two beds will have to be smaller so that it will still be comfortable to work around them easily. We have yet to measure up properly, but the space on the right will most likely have to have either a 6'x3' or 4'x4' bed.  As for the left-hand side, I'm leaning towards putting in either a 3'x3' or 4'x4 bed to use as a cold-frame.  Decisions, decisions!  

This area is still on the kitchen garden side, higher up behind the nature pond.  It's where we had one of those very unsuitable sycamore trees which had to come down when we first moved in.  We were so busy with the lower part of the garden that we more or less left this area to it's own devices over the summer ~ hence all the weeds wildflowers!

Adrian worked very hard clearing and levelling the ground on what is going to become our fruit cage.  

And here's the finished result ~ a sea of weed-suppressing membrane at the moment!  Needless to say we managed to choose a somewhat windy couple of days to lay said membrane, which made the procedure a tad tricky 😉  Three raised beds are going in here, although they won't be as tall as those in the lower garden.  The plan is to cut out and peel back the membrane in the beds once they are in place so that more soil can be added for the bushes/canes to be planted in and, of course, they will be able to send their roots down into the soil that's already there.  

I emptied out this little border earlier in the summer, putting the plants in the kitchen garden borders.  The border was already here when we moved in but it's not in a very good place as it's so easy to trip when coming round the corner with a wheelbarrow.  We've decided that the whole of this space will make a nice patio area so the border will be filled with concrete in due course, as will the ground currently covered with the blue tarp in the photo above this one.  An expanse of concrete doesn't sound very attractive, I know, but I already have a pair of narrow wooden planters that I'm going to place at the front edge, along with an old galvanised water tank.  They should look very pretty when they are planted up, and once we have a bench and table there too the concrete hopefully won't be so dominant!  It will just be so nice to have an area to sit and relax, and watch our garden grow 😊