Does anyone know anything about gardening?

you could try airbeeNbee instead

#coat

#taxi

Something something Buzzfeed

are you taking (the) apis

d'apis

Is anyone going to suggest the beekeeping thread?

D'ya mean the tube of tubes for Mason bees etc? They're good if sited right but kids won't see much in way of bees coming and going, just spot the tubes that have been filled and sealed etc.

Tip: Plant Borage nearby.

Some bastard caterpillars just ate all my mint. All of it.

Was not expecting that.

Was not expecting that.

They came to your ends and disrespected you, though.

Now you have to roll up firm handed and plunge them or something.

Catch and eat them they should taste lovely.

Yeah, I'm sending the boys round for a "quiet word".

They've done you a favour.

Turns out that they were muscling in on the basil and sage as well. Cheeky loopers.

Showed them a bowl of water with a tiny bit of washing up liquid.

Now they ain't hanging so tough.

Does anyone have any experience with the new Vaxer hydroponics setup from Ikea? Considering getting the house + light only and using it with pots and compost (rather than water) over winter.

Pros and cons of doing it like this? Around £40 for the light + small house

I was looking at them while there last week. Was very keen, but couldn't spend any more time there trying to work out what bits I would need to get.

Harvest time!

Those small chillis are viscious

The place we just moved in to has a small garden. It's currently all paved over. I'd like to dig up all the paving, add a new small patio for table a chairs, add some flower beds, a pathway and astroturf about 2 thirds of it for the wee man to play on.

Where / how do I start?

Buy a pneumatic drill to dig up rocks, then panic when I have no idea what to do next? Pay someone to dig it all up then someone else to make it look like a pretty garden? Call a landscape gardener to do the whole thing? I have no idea what plants and stuff I'd like yet. Ideally I'd just like some flower beds to actually exist so we can have a go at gardening, rather than getting someone in to do everything.

An idiot's guide to gardening tells me I like 'woodland' gardens. I don't know if 'woodland' is a bit ambitions for a space that's 3 metres wide by 8 metres long (ish).

Any tips on where to start or people to contact greatly appreciated.

I'd see how the paving is laid first - if it's laid on sand/ash then it might come up with no more than a bit of jimmying, it could be anything from a couple of inches of sand/ash to remove to several inches of hardcore underneath. I'd probably start with lifting one slab and seeing what it looks like.
My parents took up slabs and had roughly 8cm of ash/sand mix under their garden. But when my dad put the new patio in he laid it on 10cm of hardcore

Good idea. Pretty sure it's on some concrete, but I reckon I might be able to hammer the edge of it or something to try to understand what's going on.

Thanks

If you were thinking of DIY, we're having our foundations dug at the moment and the builders have one of these which is impressive and at only £150, less than a labourers daily wage. Skipping the crap is the expensive part, I hired a mini digger for a week and buried ours in a trench at the back of the garden!

http://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb280drh-15-5kg-breaker-230v/67819

DIY against man in will also depend on how you plan to get rid if the waste, do you have somewhere to put a skip? off road? do you have easy access? a back gate? could you get a mini digger in? They are fun, a couple of hundred quid and will rip out a garden in a weekend even with a first timer driving...

Mini diggers are awesome, I decided to grade our sloping 100' x 30' garden seeing as I had it for a week...

3 Attachments

What is your access like? Clearing the debris and bringing new stuff in is what you need to plan for. In my old house I had to bring two tonnes of sand, paving slabs and bricks through the front door, hall/kitchen and lounge to get to the garden. Luckily it was dry when I did it.

Yep... have spent the last few weekends on a digger, but mine wasn't a mini one! but then i have 2 acres to clear...!

I wish we had space for a digger. That looks awesome

There's a back gate into a very small alleyway between gardens with a locked gate at the end of the alley, i.e. easier access than through the 1st floor flat, but still not that easy.