Carré potager

I’m starting a new chapter in my gardening adventures. We left our old garden at the end of the gardening season last year. The new growing season approached quickly, and I was still in doubt what to do in this new garden. I was pretty sure I was going to garden this year, but I wasn’t sure that I was also going to use our own garden.

winter garden

Why was I in doubt? Well there are many uncertain variables that complicate the decision-making process. We have about 150m2 to use in the garden, but most of it is packed with cement. That’s a bummer, but not a dead-end. Raised beds can be a very good solution for this problem. It’s not the only hurdle though.
The other problem is that the plumbing of this house (and all the surrounding houses apparently) needs to be renewed and part of the plumbing is right under our garden. This could mean that the garden will be opened somewhere in spring. I’m not sure which part will be opened though. We think that it will be only one the part of the garden that is closest to the house and we wouldn’t use that part anyway for our veg patch. But we are not sure about the work it will entail to open up everything.
Then there is the problem of that this soil (with our without cement) doesn’t look as healthy or clean as the soil in our old garden. I’m not sure if that is really true. The owner is cultivating a veg patch himself on similar soil next to our garden. But somehow I’m not very confident about using our part. And to wrap everything up and make things even more complicated. Is it worth the time, money and effort to set up a vegetable garden at a temporary rented place? Milkwood has an opinion on this last thing.

garden groceries

Many things to contemplate about. I’ve done just that the last couple of weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I will make a raised bed garden in this garden. I did some research on the internet on raised beds. I found out where I could find the most affordable wooden frames in France. I planned to go and buy them somewhere in the upcoming weeks, but as always I found a cheaper option when I went out to do the groceries. So I came back with a car load of gardening stuff yesterday, including four raised beds of 120cmx120cmx30cm.

A photo posted by pakovska (@pakovska) on


Eventually I’m thinking of having eight or ten beds like this, surrounded by many small boxes and pots. I will have to see how they will fit in the garden and I have to figure out which part of the garden will be opened in the event of changing the plumbing. Hopefully I’ll have figured out a setup this upcoming week as my hands are itching now that I’ve made a breakthrough. Consider this post a short introduction to my plans. You can follow my updates as per usual here on the blog.