London, UK

I thought I'd introduce myself here rather than in the main forum. I've got a small garden and the sunniest part is paved. Last year I grew some herbs and veg for the first time, in pots. This year I'm replacing most of the pots with four 2'x2' boxes (the equivalent of one 4'x4') , with plywood bottoms. I'm a bit late with everything but I've started some seeds indoors and will probably buy a few seedlings too. If it goes well I'll add some more boxes next year, although there's not a lot of space to play with.

This is just to say hello - I'll start a new thread about the boxes.

Hi, Suleika -- welcome to the forum!

I'm LaFee, a American transplanted to France, and doing SFG for the first time -- my first veggie garden since I was a girl, and the first time I even see shimmers of success!

Lots of helpful people around, both here and in the colonies, so feel free to ask anything that comes to mind.

I'm going to post about my own sfg in a separate thread (with pictures!), but I thought I'd park some info here about resources etc, for any UK-ers who might find
it useful.

I got my boxes made up at a local timber merchants. Because they have plywood bottoms, it was quite involved. I costed up the wood at Wickes, but I didn't have the transportation to get the plywood sheets or long planks home, they didn't have a cutting shop there, and the price came to almost as much as getting them made up for me. So I went to Tarrant's Timber, which is near Harrow, and they had them ready in 2 days. It worked out as about £20 per 2'x2' box, including labour.


I saw a few places online to get vermiculite but a local hardware store put me onto Sheffield Insulations, which has quite a few branches around the country, including in Ruislip, near Harrow. They sell coarse grade vermiculite in 100L bags - it was £13, I think. It's called Micafil.


I found "Irish Peat Moss at a local garden centre, Plantations. Another garden centre (Wyevale) told me "we don't sell that here".

I'm sure Wyevale don't sell Irish peat because of the environmental issues. (For those not aware of the issue: Peat bogs are a very unique ecosystem, and continued stripping of peat for fertilizer and fuel are threatening their very existence. Thus many companies have stopped buying bog peat in an effort to help save this special part of our world).

The book, however, is referring to composted sphagnum moss, which is a renewable resource. I bought mine labeled Blonde Peat (if that helps) -- and looking for sphagnum will probably reveal that you have a few more sources than you first thought you had.