he Russell family didn't pay much attention to the garden when they moved into their new house.>

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You can garden in shallow soil and avoid earthmoving

The Russell family didn't pay much attention to the garden when they moved into their new house. Sylvia was excited about moving into a house at last after years of living in a single-floor flat and husband John was pre-occupied with the thought of all the decorating that needed to be done, including two flights of stairs that needed carpeting.

The garden was neat and tidy, most of it down to grass with a couple of straggly forsythias in one corner.

It could wait until the main indoor jobs had been completed.

That was some time ago, three or four years in fact, during which time the only real gardening effort came in an occasional trim for the grass which had never looked quite as good as when they moved in.

There came a surprise when John decided to dig up part of the lawn to convert into a vegetable bed.

Four inches down he hit solid concrete; the garden had been laid over what was once part of a car park.

The Russells wrote to me seeking advice about what they should do. They really would like a small vegetable bed and a fruit tree or two but the thought of excavating an old car park is uninviting to say the least.

It may not come to that, of course.

My first suggestion is to dig a trench right around the garden to see if the whole of the area has been laid on concrete.

It shouldn't take long if the soil is only a few inches deep and it might save a lot of time and effort if at least part of the garden is free of underlying concrete.

Given bad news, I would suggest digging a hole or two, breaking up the concrete base to see how thick it really is and, perhaps even more importantly, what lies underneath that.

The deeper these holes can be made, and how easy or difficult it is to dig them, will determine what sort of trees can be grown there.

Fruit trees will be possible, no matter how deep the soil.

It is possible, after all, to plant a mini orchard of dwarf or columnar fruit trees in containers if necessary and a bottomless container placed over even a shallow hole will permit something quite sizeable.

The more holes that penetrate the concrete the better, of course, and the wider and deeper a trench can be the more suited it will be for a vegetable bed.

All holes and trenches should be filled with a rich and moisture retentive compost. There is plenty of scope for raised beds by building up the surface soil layer.

Raised beds are enormously popular these days and they can be no-dig affairs if fairly narrow so that the gardener can step over a bed rather than walk on it.

The soil will be of a free and fairly loose construction as a result and this should make it easier to grow good vegetables. In the circumstances described, with obviously restricted root runs, it may be necessary to avoid growing some of the bigger vegetables and those that require deep soil, such as long-rooted carrots, leeks, etc.

A great range of mini vegetables may be grown, even carrots, provided the choice is from stump-rooted, or round-rooted varieties, or those that are to be harvested finger thick as salad carrots. There is a huge selection of salad vegetables to choose from.

I sympathise deeply with the Russells and although it may not be much consolation I can say that theirs is not an uncommon problem. It happened to me once with a front garden that had been laid over what once had been a roadway. I found gardening there to be difficult but not impossible.

After a few years we moved again, to a much bigger garden which is an absolute joy, but I occasionally pass by my old garden and marvel at the wonderful job its present owner has done. There are trees and shrubs there, including a couple I planted myself so I know the bulldozers haven't been called in!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.