With the ever-increasing demand on our fragile environment has come the realisation that we need to give something back to Mother Nature by reducing our carbon footprint on the Earth.

We will leave the factories & lorries that belch out unimaginable amounts of carbon emissions for others to fight over, however we at home can make a huge difference in reducing our carbon emissions simply by thinking more carefully about the things we rely on others to supply for us, i.e. our food.

More & more households now are entertaining the idea of self-sufficiency in some shape or other and a natural starting point is to grow your own vegetables. With an endless supply of seeds, composts, pots and fertilizers just around the corner in one of the many garden centres throughout the country, it would seem that half the job is already done and you are well on your way to growing a small quantity of your own produce.

However to achieve a higher level of sustainability you would need to grow a much larger quantity of vegetables in well-prepared beds, which if properly managed could provide you with a year-round supply of crops.

A vegetable patch has always been seen as the customary way of growing produce however to start one of these from scratch demands a huge amount of work in order to prepare the soil properly before planting your seeds. Raised beds however give you more flexibility and allow you to squeeze a lot more plants together into smaller spaces because the deep, fertile soil lets the roots grow deeper than they would do in the heavier soil of a vegetable patch. Raised beds are also very good if your garden is prone to wet, heavy or clay soils that are ‘claggy’ in winter.

Putting this all together however can be quite daunting especially when you take into consideration the busy lives that we all lead nowadays. We set up “paddyfields” to give our customers the head start they need by providing an all-encompassing service that takes the seed to their dinner plates, via their garden from our custom made raised beds.

Our service can include the construction of your raised beds in whatever shape or size you wish, providing the most suitable soil content for your beds, expert advice on what to plant and when, year-round maintenance & care for your vegetables, testing the pH levels in the soil to ensure your crop is growing in the most suitable soil conditions, construction of compost bins for your garden waste, water butts and even greenhouses.

Take our advice and grow it yourself!

The Vegetables:

Crops can generally be categorized into 3 main groups; brassicas (cabbages, sprouts, broccoli etc), root crops (carrots, potatoes, parsnips etc), and the others (peas, beans, onions etc). Although these can all be grown in one bed we recommend that you have at least 3 beds so that the groups can be grown separately and rotated each year. Crop rotation is a natural way of avoiding root disease because the annual circulation of crops does not allow the disease to get a firm ‘footing’.

The Raised Beds:

Whether you require a single bed or a multi-sectioned system of beds surrounded by a shingle, bark or stone boarder, we will construct your beds for you at an affordable price in a timely & efficient manner.

Our beds are constructed from treated timber boarding which is carefully selected from renewable sources to limit the impact on the environment. In multiple beds we can also use railway sleepers to great effect, especially when creating a tiered system (usually reserved for our more extravagant customers)!

A single bed would normally be about 1.1m (w) x 0.45m (h) so that you can reach your produce in the middle of the bed & avoid stepping on the soil, but any length you care to have; they can or course be made to any size you wish. If choosing more than 1 bed we recommend surrounding them with a shingle, bark or stone boarder to avoid a build-up of muddy patches on the ground where you have been working.

The Cold Frame:

Because frost-tender plants are raised in warm & settled conditions indoors or in heated propagators, they have very delicate foliage that doesn’t take too kindly to suddenly being introduced to the big wide world outside. Instead of prospering they tend to give up & die, even if they are not exposed to frost.

Ideally they should be allowed to slowly get accustomed to outdoor conditions in the relative comfort of a cold frame; this is known as ‘hardening off’. Open the lid of the cold frame during the day & close it at night however during cold, windy or rainy days leave the lid closed all the time.

Our custom made cold frames make a wonderful addition standing to one end of the raised beds and we can make these to any size as required

The Compost:

Every garden should generate its own compost, whether it is piled up in a quiet corner of the garden or more tidily in a purpose-made bin. The disadvantage of the ‘pile’ is that you will need to turn the sides into the middle allowing the material to rot down evenly. For plots generating small amounts of garden waste we can supply compost bins, which trap the heat inside & speed up the rotting process.

For plots generating larger amounts of garden waste however we recommend building timber compost heaps, which again are very tidy, easy to maintain & cost-efficient. A minimum of 2 heaps need to be constructed; 1 for filling & 1 to be left to rot down

The advantages of producing your own compost are endless however the following is a quick précis:

• All the garden waste you generate can be composted rather than ‘binned’ and sent to a landfill site

• You save a small fortune by producing your own compost rather than buying from a garden centre

• It’s quick to produce (about 3 months in the summer, 6 months in the winter)

• It creates its own micro-environment for garden-friendly insects

• It enhances the health of your beds & plants by recycling it back into your garden.

The Seeds:

With such a massive selection of seeds from which to chose it can be easy to get carried away at the beginning so we recommend that you start with the basic necessities (potatoes, beans, onions, carrots etc) and expand to more varieties once you have become ‘acquainted with your bed.’ We can supply you with every seed variety you could possibly think of and provide the necessary information & advice on how to grow the perfect crop.

The Water:

In order to grow, all vegetables require water – it’s that simple. Whether it’s from out of the sky or your rusty watering can, without a regular supply from our most natural product your vegetables will dry up & die.

So many of us seem to overlook the fact that rainfall is a free resource and stick to the so-called gardener’s friend, the outside tap! In actual fact there are more harmful products to plants in processed tap water than there are in rainfall, so rather than loose it down the drainpipe, why not harvest the rainwater in a water butt? Not only will you feed your crop with the natural source of life, you will reduce your water consumption & water bills.

There are a wide variety of water butts available and we can supply you with the right kind to suit the size of your raised beds, whether it be a small 100 litre plastic butt to a large 225 litre recycled oak barrel with accompanying hand pump.

The Greenhouse:

There can be nothing more satisfying than taking a seed from its bag, planting it in a small container or pot in the greenhouse, watching it grow & nurturing it through its early life, before transplanting it to your raised bed as a seedling and finally watching it develop into a magnificent crop. The greenhouse is also a place where you can relax and loose yourself for a few hours as you calmly pot, sow & water the next generation for your beds.

If you are lucky enough the have the space in your garden, we can supply you with your own greenhouse selected from an extensive range that is available to us. However there are some gardens that do not have the space to accommodate raised beds as well as a greenhouse so we can offer this service to our customers by utilizing our own greenhouses to cultivate your seeds in the early stages of development.

The Children:

It is a sad fact of life that many children (and indeed adults) in today’s society are not very knowledgeable when it comes to identifying vegetables, let alone how they are grown & cultivated. Growing your own greatly enhances their understanding of how the food we eat arrives at the table, as well as giving them the thrill of watching their very own plants grow from seed to vegetable.