Allotments 4 All

One was a sample and I thought it was so easy to click together that I bought one for £4.50 ish.  You can stack them but I chose to use them singly as my salad had grown so fast in the first box that I thought if I added another it would block the light.  I then bought a bigger version to save me backache and that cost me about £43.  An indulgence I know but I'll get me hammer and saw out when I feel better.  The timber raised beds I made were quite dear though as I bought tanalised gravel boards and had to make stakes and then the whole thing so there wasn't that much difference in price in the end.  The product is called Link-a-Bord (if you Google you'll find the company which is Armillatox based in Morton, Derbyshire.  I collected the stuff myself to save the £10 delivery charge.  I am pleased with my boxes and apparently they won't rot, distort, discolour or crack and apparently they retain moisture and heat better so the roots develop quicker (according to the sales blurb)  You buy dowels as well to support fleece or netting

Tim   Here are my boxes now.  They've come on a bit since my first pic  :)

.......and split into 2  ;D

I've posted this on another thread somewhere, but if you can get hold of any of these 'sides' for pallets, they are useful for raised beds also.

Great box there pete!  Lotty bloke near me doesn't grow much just breaks up pallets for a hobby.  I think I'll pay him a call  ;D

For raised beds, DO CHOOSE YOUR VARIETIES CAREFULLY!

Another stupid mistake.

Tim - this is where a lot of my budget went this year - lovely link-a-bord.   8)   I bought them direct from the manufacturer - very friendly, efficient service.  Their web site is:

http://www.linkabord.co.uk/

I have 2 raised beds, 3 x 1 m of link-a-bord.  Another good idea is to use the large square plastic storage boxes available from pounds shops, Wilkos, etc - I have my toms in those, you can just see on the photo below (red and green boxes).  They are dirt cheap, just need to drill holes in the bottom for drainage.

Yes -  they look great value. Ours are just planks.

But my point, of course, was that one lettuce is hogging most of a metre square bed - not a good choice??

Heh.  I think I must have posted at the same time, I didn't see the lettuce!  Bit extravagant, yes.

Planks are great - traditional look etc, but then you have to have someone to nail then together for you.  Someone good at carpentry.  Someone who won't take several months to do it?!  ;)  In other words it was much easier to get the link-a-bord, lol.

Not only easier, but actually cheaper than pressure treated planks.

Quote from: tim on July 14, 2005, 16:46:22
But my point, of course, was that one lettuce is hogging most of a metre square bed - not a good choice??

But Tim, that one lettuce looks like the happiest lettuce in the land!  ;D ;D

A better picture?

I know they grow things big in Australia - where this comes from - but this is ridiculous. That's a 4' bed!!

Raised beds are a blessing they have solved our probs of waterlogging just need to wait for the winter for the real test as soil is relatively dry at the mo.  We used scaffold planks - 6(used) were donated and even dropped off by friendly scaffolder looked up in Yellow pages (he got a crate of beer for his efforts), we bought 12 more from a company in Ware (Herts) for £6 each.  We think this was well worth the investment this year.  Each board is 13ft so we used 2 complete planks for the sides, then chopped up one to make the ends (plus a bit left over) so our beds are now nearly 4m long and just over 1m wide.  We then filled with top soil (about 2 tons spread between them) - but this was just a treat really as had worked in sharp sand and grit into existing soil to help drainage and plants still would have quite happily gone into that.

There is a scaffold company over in Loughton that also do them for much the same price.  It is cheaper than buying timber from DIY stores and the quality of wood is so strong they aint going anywhere for the next 50 years!  We joined them at the corners with blocks of wood salvaged from skips/industrial estate recycling place.

Best thing we've done this year I reckon, took about 2 weekends to do and a very sore hammered finger - not mine he he he - my boyf's! Everyone has remarked at how nice is looks but not just that, everything is growing so well this year.

good luck and mind your fingers and thumbs!

Thanks for the tips SPea!
I think we will give that a go on our lottie.  Shame about your boyf's thumb, I wrote to someone earlier about that and said that you should get some herbal remedies on it to get the swelling down - they work a real treat.  hope he's feeling better now :)

BP

Quote from: Baked potato on July 20, 2005, 18:12:31
Thanks for the tips SPea!
I think we will give that a go on our lottie.  Shame about your boyf's thumb, I wrote to someone earlier about that and said that you should get some herbal remedies on it to get the swelling down - they work a real treat.  hope he's feeling better now :)

BP

it was his finger and is a lottie better now ha ha! :D :D ;D ;D thanks for asking

H Ha but you get the idea.

Going pottie on the lottie  ;D ;D :o :P ;) ;D

My 6" gravel board raised beds aren't high enought so have to look at making them higher.  The link a bord bed (although an extravagance for me) is working well and the produce in it is going great guns, considering the soil was just piled in complete with weeds (which has proved a nuisance)  My husband filled the bed I just get to do the maintenance  >:(

After much thought, I've gone for Linkabord -for my next  bed - 1mx2m - price seems the best.

Now - knowing that I don't have access to lots of bulk things, what are the suggestions for the best fill for the bed?

Welcome new member.

:) Fellow Essex Girl here EJ, near Wakes Colne. Blooming high heels stick like mad in this Earth its heavy clay with about 25-30% flints in some pockets. No carrots grown this year so next I am on to some raised beds.

My link a bord bed has been successful and I'm still cropping Paris Market carrots,  spring onions, beetroots, red onions and managed to get a row of nigella Jekyll Blue all the way round the edge.
I made the raised bed as my back was v painful at the start of the gardening year so I sited the link a bord box over where I'd had a bonfire and then put thick cardboard in the bottom and then weedy sods which I'd taken from the first raised bed I'd made last November.  I got as many of the nettles and couch grass stems out as I could.  I also added my own homemade compost and leaf mould.  My husband sieved some of the soil and I raked it and levelled it off and it looked quite a good tilth for quite a bodge job.  The only problem with it and I envisaged it were weeds which were in the sods to start with.  It meant I had rather more weeding to do than I'd have liked as the veggies started to develop.    My link a bord box is two runs high with braces which go across the middle to give it extra support.  I now have to think what goes in when the first lot of veg has all been cropped - late potatoes is an idea  :)