Starting a new garden or taking one over, throws up many things to consider.

Do you grow veg or flowers or both?
Put trees in? Have a lawn?
Raised beds? Fencing?
The list is endless.

Two questions, for me, stand out by a country mile.
1, How will I feed it?
2, How will I get rid of the rubbish?

How will I feed my garden?

Luckily, mother nature has many solutions.
Comfrey (knitbone), nettles, etc. can provide ample ingredients for the soil and feeding your plants.
They are numerous and free, simple root pieces for comfrey, and nettles are abundant.
Pull off some leaves, leave on top of your beds where you want feeding, they will rot down and feed your soil.

How will I get rid of the rubbish?

Once again, frugal ways to get rid of garden rubbish and waste comes in. The good old compost heap!
Grass cuttings: A compost heap can be started anywhere, on grass, soil, even cardboard.
My favourite way of disposing of grass cuttings is to dig a small hole in your garden, mine is in between a young plum tree and a weedy rhubarb plant, fill in with grass cuttings and leave it. The following year, the rhubarb that was struggling is now growing like a good 'un!

Using the compost heap, green on top of brown remember to mix it up, is working wonders.

Household food waste: Uncooked fruit and veg, weeds, grass cuttings, cut tree wood, etc. are all very good for the compost, but add in household waste and the heap really takes off.
Eggshells, used tea (ripped open from used teabags), potato peelings, carrot scrapings, even old out of date fridge veg, cut into small pieces, all work.
Then we have plain brown paper bags (given out with fresh veg from a proper greengrocer), cardboard (corrugated), newspaper (ripped up), ash from the log burner, packing paper, etc.

Pile it all on, cover over, let it go.

Many areas have the "Brown" bins, but councils are now charging for them to be emptied (£35 a year here), why give your perfectly good waste away, when it can be turned into food for your garden with very little effort?

Not only have I now got a place to put garden waste, but also removing lots of household waste and feeding my garden for free into the bargain, it's a win/win!

Happy gardening...

Word from my local farm shop / come garden centre, is that strawberries are in very short supply this year.

"We've tried everywhere for strawberries, no suppliers have them!"

They normally have a half of a poly-tunnel full of them, up to five layers high. On my visit on Tuesday, they were just selling their last three.
So what can you do to improve your strawberry plants this year?

Cuttings:
You've missed the boat this year, ask neighbours if they have smaller plants they don't want/need.

Existing beds:
Your plants should have been starting to come through in the past couple of weeks. Separate them and get them fed on compost.
Weed those beds out early.
You could even move their bed for this year to a different area of your garden, this may improve the yield.
I have been told a few times, that strawberry beds should have new plants mixed in every other year, as over three seasons growing, the plants grow weaker and smaller fruit may come off the crop.
This is why I let mine shoot off and push in the off shoots, so new plants come for free.

One tactic I won't be using this year, is to apply stray/hay around the base.
Under the guise of, "It helps protect the fruit," I tried it last year, all it did was provide plenty of hiding places for slugs!

Happy growing.

Comfrey cuttings into plants must be one of the easiest ways to feed your garden.
If nature didn't make it, someone would have invented it.

Dig out root, break into 2 inch pieces, plant horizontally, cover with compost, water well and leave it alone.

Some say better to dig up in Autumn, but I've dug it up and planted at all times of the year, without issue.

Leaves can be added to water-butt, stirred and (a bit smelly) but break down nicely to provide watering feed (1 to 100 parts water)
Leaves and stems can be cut, left to dry out for a day where potatoes are being planted, covered with compost and feeds well.
Leaves and stems can be cut and laid as mulch around tomatoes/potato plants, providing good feed.
Flowers are a great attraction to bees and other pollinators.
Slugs I've found, are not a fan of comfrey.

Don't buy it!
It can grow in dry and wet conditions, have a look around ponds, etc.
(I've seen comfrey cuttings advertised for £5/£6 - it's readily available for free, naturally)

If watering veg is a problem, then it's a great way to feed.
Some cut leaves and shred them into a drainpipe with some broken stones, so rain water runs through the pipe and into water butt, I've always added leaves directly to water butt.

It's also great for keeping down wild grass as it provides ground cover (ideal for around a pond) and helps prevention of ponds that dry out, where frogs hang out.

The comfrey roots deep, drawing minerals from as deep as 5 foot down, bringing it to the surface in it's leaves, which can provide natural food for plants.

I feel a bit of a gardening fraud!

My no dig garden patch, is sat there slowly growing, all I've had to do is water it every other day.
The tomato, pea pods, lettuce, sweetcorn and cucmber plants, brought on in the recycled greenhouse, are doing fine.

One thing I have noticed, is the reduction in slugs, there are little to none.
Worms a plenty though when I took the carpet off to plant in.

Touch wood it stays this way...

My no dig, front garden patch is making progress.

Around 3 weeks just leaving the old carpet and waterproof cover on, I pulled it back to reveal most of the weeds / grass has yellowed and was dying out.
Next up, a tonne bag of black, rotten compost. Not enough coverage, so found a local farmer who keeps horses. Another three tonne, of almost rotted down horse manure, raked over the top and recovered for 24 hours, to help flatten it all down and settle.

Next up, start planting out.

Planting out seeds and greenhouse started seedlings...

Sweetcorn (seed), cucumber (greenhouse grown), carrots, spinach (sprog2's request), golden onions and red onions all planted in, half a patch still to fill with lettuce, tomatoes, garden peas (all greenhouse grown), along with spring onions and something I've grown in the greenhouse but can't for the life of me, remember what heh.

More progress, if any, to follow...