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Very impressive Phil, something to aspire to, thou I am unaware of awards in our borough.
So far I have seemed to haven’t got on well, 2 months in now. 4 beds, 1.2m wide, totaling about 40 metres in length. Imported municipal compost, 9 tonnes at £100, of which i have shared half (keeping people on side). All paths are woodchipped, all beds planted with potatoes, squashes, sweetcorn and celeriac.
Everyone has been very welcoming. Giving me free seed, plants, strawberries, broad beans and other bits (plus digging wisdom). The committee said that in this first year they wanted to see some weeding and digging to see that I am serious. In my head I laughed at this concept, and proceed to sort it in the first month. Well, they seem impressed, as the former chairman has offered me another piece of her plot that she can’t keep on top off.
My current challenge is trying to rid couch grass. I wish at the beginning I gave it more respect, and dug out more of its roots. I hoped that large amounts of compost would deal with this (and skipped cardboard in the rush). I am currently spending 10 minutes a day pulling couch (and other weeds) out, but it mostly snaps 95% of the time. I am hoping this will tire the root system in time.
My next challenge will be how I finish of the beds. I had a lot of municipal compost, so felt like using as much as possible. The result is beds that are very domed to say the least. It means that the edges are unstable and easily fall away, making them unplantable, so only 60% of bed width usable. I did want to go sideless, but realising this may now not be an option. Based upon cost and access to materials, I have three options. One, tree trunks, maybe 4-6 inch, staked in place, but eats into my fire wood efforts. Two, using pallet materials, produce standard wooden edge beds, but time consuming. Three, large pebbles, the size of dinosaur eggs, thou it will take me ages to forge this many pebbles.
All options will enable me to level compost to a sensible domed level, enable all of the bed width to be utilised properly. Works can happen as crops finish, in Autumn/Winter, so no rush currently.