Reclaiming another bramble patch – our new asparagus bed

We’re keen to make the most of the space we have in the garden – and grow whatever vegetables we can. While the front and back garden of the farmhouse have been beautifully planted with new flowers coming up every few weeks when the old ones die out, the outer edges of the orchard and the wood have been left to go wild. 

We’ve already spent several weekends on and off digging out a particularly-bad strip of brambles, nettles and stones to turn it into an experimental squash and potato bank – which, if it works, we’ll dig it out properly in the coming years and put a proper wall behind it (it’s precariously balanced with concrete blocks right now to stop it falling back into a stream). Beyond that, with an elderflower tree separating the squash bank, is another long strip of brambles and nettles, edging the entire orchard. We had visitors coming who’d offered to bring asparagus plants, so the next job was to reclaim more of the bramble bank and turn it into an asparagus bed. 

Conveniently we’d not got round to getting rid of the sleepers we dug up from the greenhouse base, and one of our visitors pointed out that these would be perfect for a vegetable bed. So we duly spent a weekend digging out more brambles, and making a frame from the sleepers, using random bits of leftover wood to hold it all together. The double-height back edge is to try and stop the nettles growing through from next door (as it is with the squash bank already) – the patch of land next door is kept for grazing cattle and is completely taken over with cow-height nettles! 

Surprisingly it didn’t take as long as we expected to dig out the bed, and it actually looks reasonably good, given we were about to throw out the old sleepers. We’re just hoping the thick weed membrane keeps out the roots of the brambles and nettles – even though we dug out all the soil before replacing it, we’re fast learning that both weeds have amazing staying power! Now we just need to avoid temptation for the next few years while the asparagus plants get established… a tough job!