Big IS Beautiful

Wow - our salad is really coming along. In no time at all, or so it feels, the rocket and the lettuce have shot up and look good enough to eat right now. Expert advice though, from the MD, tells us we're still a few days away from being to gather our first harvest. 

Still, it won't be long now, the EasyBed raised bed is doing us proud !!

To Russia with Love (Привет Россия !!)

We are getting a large number of visitors to this blog from Russia. We do not have an agent in Russia at the moment but goods can be bought direct from our agent in Finland.

www.siistipiha.fi

Thunder & Lightning Very, Very Frightening

A grand thunderstorm just swept through our little part of England dumping hailstones and driving rain outside our office.

Despite this freak weather, the EasyBed raised bed frame survived easily. If this was an attempt by the God of rabbits to blow down our netting it failed. 

Sorry bunnies, that lettuce is for us !

Growth Spurt !!

Not much to report - we're not doing anything but watering today.

However, we wanted to get a picture up to show the growth. According to the packets of seeds, we should only just be seeing the first green shoots around now but our lettuces are already over an inch and a half half high and looking great.

If only we could find someway to plant the British economy in an EasyBed raised bed we'd grow out of the this recession in no time !

So Pretty - it should be framed !!

Every great work of art deserves to be framed, if only to keep the rabbits out !

EverEdge can supply a frame kit to go with the EasyBed raised bed to keep out the birds and rabbits. Essentially, the kit is made up from some flexible plastic rods and some rubber balls. The rods are connected, using the balls, to create an arch over the bed which can then support a net.

One vital tool, not supplied by EverEdge, is a bottle of washing up liquid. The holes in the balls are intentionally very tight to prevent the frame coming apart. The washing up liquid lubricates the rods making connecting them considerably easier.

Step 1 : The frame will slot into the corner pieces of the EasyBed. To make this possible, first hammer down the corner pins approximately one inch.

Step 2 : Simply connect the rods and bend over the raised bed. The rods should sit comfortably in the corner pieces of the bed.

Step 3 : Join the arches together with a horizontal rod along the top.

Step 4 : Once you have a solid arched frame, the netting can be slung over the top and pegged down to the ground.

Step 5 : Watch the pesky birds and rabbits look mournfully through the netting as your delicious veggies grow unmolested by the outside world.

The Good Life (Race for a Salad)

It may not be straight from the gardeners handbook, but today we fashioned a mini greenhouse for our raised bed using an old shower door.

The glass door is simply propped up with a few wooden stakes and, hopefully, will allow our lettuces to grow even quicker than they have been.

We won't need our greenhouse to be up the whole time, in general it has been much warmer recently. However, this is just another bow in our quiver and gives us a little extra control over the  temperature.

What our Heath Robinsonesq addition to the bed means is that, as the temperature drops in the coming weeks and into the winter, we will be able to add our glass top and grow for much longer - at least that's the theory!

The Shower door itself came from our MD. He's moving house and hates to throw anything out, so we thought we could at least recyle this for him!

UPDATE - The green shoots are still shooting upwards, it won't be much longer before we'll need to get our hands dirty and space them out a little (and not long after that we should be able to harvest a few baby leaves!!).

Green Shoots !!

Our first green shoots are appearing all over the raised bed !!

We are a few days ahead of where the packets said we should be which is a testament to the benefits of a raised bed.

The EasyBed, by encasing the growing area, keeps the soil much warmer than it would otherwise be. This allows for veggies and plants to grow sooner in the year and keeps the growing season going longer.

At this rate, our EverEdge salad will be with us in no time at all !

EasyBed Overseas

We've noticed a lot of visitors are finding our blog from overseas, and from the USA in particular.

The EasyBed raised bed is sold in the US through the below mentioned suppliers who both hold good stocks.

Kinsman Company http://www.kinsmangarden.com/

Backyard Farmers http://www.backyardfarmers.com/store/p/95-Rooftop-Garden-Bed-System-.html.

EverEdge EasyBed is a UK product. All EverEdge products have been invented, designed and made in Britain. However, the product range is expoted to all corners of the globe. Please contact us for information about where this can be bought overseas.

You can email us on info@everedge.co.uk

Raised Bed Planted !!

  

And in go the lettuce seeds !!

Our raised bed is planted and watered and now we wait. According to the packets, we should expect to see growth anytime in the next 7-14 days. We're hoping for sooner rather than later.

Either way, as soon as we see greenery, we'll let you know. 

I'm the one with the beard by the way. The pretty one with the watering can, that's Emma!

Raised Bed Filled !!

The raised bed is full !!

We used a mixture of chicken poo, compost and topsoil to fill the EasyBed raised bed and to give our lettuces the best possible chance to come up big and strong.

As soon as my fingers stop typing here, we'll get planting.

The EasyBed Raised Bed takes just minutes to assemble. The bed comes in a flat pack system of individual 1m long pieces. Each piece is simply connected to the next by slotting a galvanised steel bar through the corner join.

The corners are a hinge system, exactly like you would find on a door. This makes the EasyBed modular and allows for a variety of shapes to be formed. Some examples of what you can do can be seen on the EverEdge website by clicking the link at the top of the page or by visiting www.everedge.co.uk.

Here we have constructed a 2m x 1m bed to give us plenty of room for our lettuces.

Building the Raised Bed

Job one is send out the EverEdge Managing Director to prepare the ground. He has to rake away the gravel outside our office to create a suitable place for the EasyBed raised bed.

Next up, we'll build the bed!

The EverEdge EasyBed Project

At EverEdge we've decided to grow some veg for our office lunches. As we're so late in the year now, we're sticking to growing a few lettuces.

We'll try and do at least one update a week to show the progression of our efforts. Day one (today) we'll get the bed built.

This shot shows where we will put our EasyBed and begin growing.