If you’re every wondering about what to do with a small garden, perhaps it’s worth following the example of our customer, Naomi Crewe, and put it to work with some recycled plastic raised beds.
When Naomi and her partner, Ryan, recently moved to a modern house with a small garden in a quiet part of Lancashire, one of the very first things they did was to get rid of the lawn and to kit out their garden with raised beds for growing food.
We asked her why.
So why she was keen to allocate so much space to recycled plastic raised beds rather than a lawn or flowers?
“I had an allotment at my previous house and raised beds are much easier to cultivate, both for me at 5’1″ and my partner at 6’2” as there’s no grovelling on the ground when weeding. The recycled plastic is the perfect material as there is zero maintenance, so that thing I always used to do of looking each spring to see how much wood had rotted away during the winter just doesn’t happen any more! I just know that the beds will be perfectly fine in 10, 20 or 30 years time.
I love flowers, but they’re not especially practical, and a lawn to me is just a waste of growing space unless you have a toddler that needs it to run around in.
I was brought up gardening from a young age and got back into it in my twenties. The fruit and veg we grow is always great quality, better even than the shops, and it helps with the cost of living, even with growing some of the lower cost items like potatoes.
As my Grandma used to teach me about growing fruit when I was a very young child, we have also used this opportunity to teach my partner’s (now not so little) little one about where fruit and veg come from too.”
“Just as importantly, I also find it gives me time to clear my mind, to slow down and take a breath, away from technology and the hustle and bustle of life in the 21st century.”
“Just to be clear, the garden isn’t just raised beds. We do also have an area where we can sit with a cup of tea and admire our handiwork. We’re not complete obsessives,” Naomi added, laughing.
As Naomi realises, her raised beds are going to last for many decades as they will not rot or degrade in any way, unlike timber alternatives. Using black recycled plastic will also trap heat more efficiently, resulting in earlier seed germination and an extended growing season.
To find out more about our raised beds and to order your own, please see the dedicated page here.
