Building a Garden from the Ground Up

Last September, I embarked on a fairly significant project, to completely change the way I grow flowers in my growing space in the garden.

For years, since we first moved to Devon, I have grown in no-dig beds. These were created over five years ago by laying sheets of cardboard over the grass and piling compost on top. Over time, the growing space has evolved as I’ve learnt more by adjusting bed spacing, refining layouts, and improving the practicalities of working within it.

In the beginning, I created very large beds in an attempt to maximise space. In reality, they proved difficult to manage, hard to weed, awkward to cut from, and inefficient to work within. Early last year, I began breaking these down into narrower strips, which made planting and harvesting far more manageable.

Even so, last year proved particularly challenging.

We experienced an exceptionally wet winter, and my beds sat under water for long stretches. Here, on heavy clay soil in the West Country and high levels of rain fall, drainage is always a consideration, but last year pushed things to a limit.

Then came a hot, dry summer.

With it came drought, and moles.

I’ve always had moles here, and in many ways I welcome them. Their tunnelling helps to aerate the soil, and I often use the fine soil from molehills when mixing compost for sowing seeds or planting out.

But last year, their impact tipped from helpful to disruptive.

They arrived in late spring, just as I was planting out my half-hardy annuals. I would carefully transplant seedlings, water them in well, and return the next morning to find them lying on their sides, pushed up and out of the ground by mole activity beneath the soil.

Transplanting is already a vulnerable moment for young plants. The shift from the protection of the greenhouse to the unpredictability of the outdoors requires a careful adjustment. The repeated disturbance of their roots stunted growth, and in many cases, led to losses.

It became clear that something needed to change.