This has been a short design both in planning and constructing once I finally sat down with a few months of thoughts on what I wanted to do with this small section of my garden and set about laying out this design.

I’ve left the Evaluate section until after the growing season has mostly come to an end to get a fuller understanding of how this design has worked out for me.

Using the SWOC analysis tool I will evaluate this design.

 

SWOC is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Challenges.

 

Strengths

Without a doubt, this design has completed my kitchen garden with regards to creating a tidy manageable area of my garden that before the design was hard to access and therefore became a little too wild to manage properly.

The addition of the three steel beds with excellent paths around them has improved access to this area. Access to the leaf cage has also made my life much easier and I’m now able to turn the leaves throughout the year, I have space to dig them out and fill the cage with this year's leaves without having to fight my way into this space.

  

Weaknesses

Not so much a design weakness but rather an oversight was the quality of the materials I put into the bed to fill them. For a quicker return, it would have been better to have filled the beds with more bought-in compost than using what I had on site. I’m guessing next season once the soils have had time to build up their microbiome, nutrients will be more bioavailable to the plants.

Another small weakness was not removing a goji bush to the left of the post where I access the garden. This bush was constantly in my way when I was trying to walk around the beds, I finally dug it out in late summer. As small a footprint as this goji had in the soil its removal gained me so much space and light, I kicked myself as to why I hadn’t removed it sooner.

 

Opportunities

With a focus on improving the soil fertility for the next growing season, I would like to improve the yields I’m getting from these beds. I also would like to get more creative and use height more in these beds.

 

Challenges

Building the design was simple, I’ve already mentioned the quality of the soil fertility but my biggest problem this year was the birds. The house sparrows seemed to be constantly foraging around in my beds eating the bean shoots, along with the blackbirds pulling the new shoots out whilst looking for worms. The blackbirds also spent hours foraging in the bark chippings and throwing them around that much that some days the gravel next to the bark chip paths would be covered with it.

Bird problems are good problems to have, and both will be overcome next season. For the beds, I will use a net early on to allow the small plants to get established before letting the birds back in. Between the gravel and the bark chips, I will add a small 10” high edging to catch the bark before it gets onto the gravel.

I also had to lay a section of chicken wire over one part of the bark chippings due to a cat leaving me presents which I didn’t appreciate. The wire soon put a stop to this, but it is frustrating when other people's cats do this kind of thing in your garden.     

   

Conclusion

As showcased in the two accompanying photographs in this section you can understand why I’m very pleased with how this design complemented my kitchen garden providing a seamless continuation of the existing design and producing a finished look to the whole garden.

The garden now feels much more complete. I can access every part of it without getting muddy after we have had lots of rain. I’m able to walk around the beds to check on the plants all season long, something last season I could not do.

The garden is a much more relaxed place to spend time. Before this design update, I never felt content with how this section looked. This expressed itself to me during my early morning water meditations whilst sat in my 75-gallon wine barrel filled with water over the winter months. Now as I conclude writing up this design in November my mind is no longer thinking about changing my garden around whilst sitting in the cool waters. Now, I can channel all my thoughts on how bloody cold the water is.