Please help the new gardener!

[jenmac]

Hi Everyone,

I have recently bought my first house, which comes with a small but very overgrown garden(its not been lived in for 20years) The house has a 30m2 terrace and then a 47m2 garden on a different level with steps down. In the garden so far (apart from all the weeds, vines and grass) is a very dead lemon tree, some manky chicken coops and a ginormous plant/tree right in the middle (someone told me it was a poinsettia but its at least 4/5m tall and looks more like the Audrey plant in the little shop of horrors to me!)

What I would like to accomplish is this:

1. Remove Audrey plant (preferably without getting eaten) by sawing down the branches and then some how getting rid of the stump which will be around 1.5m in diameter.

2. Remove the lemon tree also removing stump.

3. Build waist height raised beds around the outside in which to plant flowers and veg.

4. Deck the rest.

5. Build a compost bin

My questions are plentiful but some of the most pressing are as follows:

When I cut the tree stumps to the ground do I have to remove them before I can deck on top? Will they grow back? Is there a organic/natural way to kill the root?

After I have cut all the grass and other plants do I also have to treat this area before decking it, to stop unwanted growth underneath or is the lack of sunlight sufficient? If so what to treat it with, plastic matting or only some kind of spray?

In your opinion which is the best wood for building raised beds?

I want my raised beds to be around hip height but this will be a huge amount of soil to fill them up, can I fill the bottom of them with rocks or gravel and should there be a layer of something between the raised bed and the ground underneath?

As I will have a mammoth amount of plant waste from clearing the garden(the weeds now come up to my shoulder) I would like to put it to good use, can I compost it and then use it for the raised beds or will I then get weeds in the beds? Do I need to put anything in with it or will it just be fine if I leave it alone in a big pile?

Any advise would be very much appreciated, Thanks

[tomc]

The structure of and cross bracing of a raised bed waist high will be significant. Unless you are persuaded your limited mobility demands this structure think shorter-lower.

Once your Audry tree is a stump. Strip off the bark and drill many holes with an auger and fill the holes with 10-10-10 fertiliser. In a few years it'll be punky and you can nibble it away with a mattock or hachet. Keep suckers pruned away. The roots will starve and tree die.

If you do get a flat-top a ring of garden edging nailed on will hold soil and will also speed up decay.

Punky wood is a fine addition to garden soil, see hugelkultur.

Once your bed is taller than a couple two-by-eight, you will need cross bracing and four-by-four (or bigger) beams to build with.

[rainbowgardener]

You would need literal tons of soil for beds like that and then the pressure of all that wet soil would quickly burst the bed. If you are handicapped and need the height, build them with a bottom:


https://www.walterreeves.com/wp-content/ ... 00x332.jpg


https://www.gardenista.com/files/img/sub ... n-legs.jpg

or a false bottom:


https://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/elevat ... beds-3.jpg

These cool new Elevated Cedar Raised Garden Beds bring the garden right to your patio in a decorative way, while at the same time making it easier to plant, tend and harvest without any kneeling or bending. These stylish, space-saving elevated gardens are made from naturally rot-resistant cedar with rustproof aluminum corners, have false floors made from marine-grade plywood set 10" down from the top, vents in the sides for proper air circulation and holes in the floor for drainage
https://www.thegreenhead.com/2012/03/ele ... n-beds.php


but the false bottom one wastes an awful lot of wood just for decorative illusion.

Browse around in our composting forum for more ideas an info. If your garden clearings are mostly green stuff (soft, moist), you will need a lot of "browns" (carbon rich, hard, dry) to mix with it. Mix them up and pile them in some kind of bin (to keep it all contained). Keep it just damp and in 6 mos to a year, you will have finished homemade compost.

Another way to get rid of old wood stumps is to cover them with a big pile of charcoal briquettes. Light the briquettes and let the whole thing burn. I did that one time and the fire smouldered for a couple days and when it was done, even the roots were burnt out.