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Posted on 9:11 AM by Wanto and filed under
By Jane Courtney
The demands of a single family can vary enormously over a number of years. Where they are likely to be in the same home for sonic time it is important that the garden plan is flexible enough to reflect these changing needs. A young couple might use the garden mainly for sunbathing or entertaining and would want a simple layout which is easy to look after.
The arrival of children would impose many new demands, from pram-standing space to soft play areas and tricycle runs. With a growing family a bigger area of the garden might be devoted to vegetables, with a large terrace space for outdoor activities and family meals.
The level of acidity or alkalinity can be controlled by adding lime, peat and various chemicals such as sulphate of ammonia to the soil. Lime helps reduce the acid level of a peaty or sandy soil while peat and sulphur make a chalky soil less alkaline. One of the best ways to improve your soil is to dig it, using a good spade or a fork for heavy clay soils. Digging will aerate the soil, kill the weeds and break up some of the subsoil so that the layer of topsoil is gradually increased. It should be done once a year, and autumn or early winter is the best time. This is particularly important with heavy clay soils, so that winter frosts will break up the compacted lumps and prepare the ground for planting in spring.
Digging should be done in small spadefuls at a time otherwise the task can be backbreaking. The roots of persistent weeds, such as couch grass, bindweed, dock, thistles or nettles, should be removed and later burned. When turning over a large area the best method is to dig in trenches, working with the last trench in front of you. Digging to the depth of a spade is usually sufficient but with a very heavy clay soil, or for a large vegetable patch, it may be necessary to turn over the soil to two spade-depths, known as double digging. Apart from the extra effort involved, double digging is also more complicated because it goes down to the second layer, the subsoil. It is important to keep the two layers separate, so the topsoil should be lifted out of the trench and kept aside while the subsoil is broken up and turned over. Add any organic materials at this stage, forking them in well with the subsoil.
In the family life cycle of a garden use can grow and expand and then sl reduce its scope again. The demands may vary from, at one extreme, provide a tranquil retreat after a noisy day wor in town to creating the need for phys exercise in otherwise sedentary lives.
Between topsoil and parent bed rock there may be many layers of stone and gravel, but the layer immediately beneath the topsoil is generally the subsoil. Its depth varies according to the hardness of the underlying rock and the amount of erosion it has suffered. The colour and texture of subsoil are usually different from those of the topsoil because it is in a transitional stage, without humus or organic material. For this reason, it is not a growing medium.
The arrival of children would impose many new demands, from pram-standing space to soft play areas and tricycle runs. With a growing family a bigger area of the garden might be devoted to vegetables, with a large terrace space for outdoor activities and family meals.
The level of acidity or alkalinity can be controlled by adding lime, peat and various chemicals such as sulphate of ammonia to the soil. Lime helps reduce the acid level of a peaty or sandy soil while peat and sulphur make a chalky soil less alkaline. One of the best ways to improve your soil is to dig it, using a good spade or a fork for heavy clay soils. Digging will aerate the soil, kill the weeds and break up some of the subsoil so that the layer of topsoil is gradually increased. It should be done once a year, and autumn or early winter is the best time. This is particularly important with heavy clay soils, so that winter frosts will break up the compacted lumps and prepare the ground for planting in spring.
Digging should be done in small spadefuls at a time otherwise the task can be backbreaking. The roots of persistent weeds, such as couch grass, bindweed, dock, thistles or nettles, should be removed and later burned. When turning over a large area the best method is to dig in trenches, working with the last trench in front of you. Digging to the depth of a spade is usually sufficient but with a very heavy clay soil, or for a large vegetable patch, it may be necessary to turn over the soil to two spade-depths, known as double digging. Apart from the extra effort involved, double digging is also more complicated because it goes down to the second layer, the subsoil. It is important to keep the two layers separate, so the topsoil should be lifted out of the trench and kept aside while the subsoil is broken up and turned over. Add any organic materials at this stage, forking them in well with the subsoil.
In the family life cycle of a garden use can grow and expand and then sl reduce its scope again. The demands may vary from, at one extreme, provide a tranquil retreat after a noisy day wor in town to creating the need for phys exercise in otherwise sedentary lives.
Between topsoil and parent bed rock there may be many layers of stone and gravel, but the layer immediately beneath the topsoil is generally the subsoil. Its depth varies according to the hardness of the underlying rock and the amount of erosion it has suffered. The colour and texture of subsoil are usually different from those of the topsoil because it is in a transitional stage, without humus or organic material. For this reason, it is not a growing medium.
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