4 Large Raised beds - what to put in each?

[Iwantgreenfingers]

Think the title says it all.
I am very excited we have finally got our school garden up and runnign - well built at least and have 4 wonderful timber raised beds. 10x6 each.

Now I dont want to go ahead and plant in things I shouldnt in each but I know that their should be crop rotation but what should I start off in each this time of the year?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm off to the nurseries tomorrow to pick up what I can to plant with the children next week.

[Alison]

Do you mean 10ft x 6ft or do you mean metric?

Either way, they're very wide beds and you'll need to think about how you can reach the middle crops.

At this time of year, you can plant overwintering peas and broad beans which have nice big seeds for the kids to manage (I'm not sure how old they are) although will take a very long time to come to maturity. You can also plant out cabbages and other brasicas, some nice coloured ones always go down well. Can you get a choche arrangement as this would mean that you'd be able to grow lettuce and winter raddish also.

[glut]

Having a had a small school garden before I know the benefit of quick wins! I would consider some spring onions. They will take far to long to grow properly but you can pick them and eat them (guessing what they taste of!) when they are still teeny tiny sprouts and not spring onion looking at all. As they are so easy it might be worth a scattering just so you can taste something while all the real stuff is growing...

[Eyren]

Hmm, basic four-bed rotation...

Beds 1 & 2 - winter greens followed by summer crops

In these two sections you could start by growing some hardy winter salad, such as lamb's lettuce, chicory, winter spinach and oriental salad leaves - lots to choose from, and very attractive and quick-growing! Kale and chard also come in some very decorative varieties - try red and green curly kales and/or one of the rainbow chards.

1. In one bed follow with potatoes in March/April. Best to pick a blight-resistant variety to avoid disappointment!

2. In the other, follow with courgettes and squash in May - they grow well and quickly, and have impressive colourful fruits.

Beds 3 & 4 - overwintered crops

3. Broad beans can go in soon - not quite yet, though, or they will grow too much before winter. Add runner beans (very easy to grow) in April - a dwarf variety might work best in a raised bed - and/or dwarf French beans in May.

4. Overwintering onion sets (e.g. Radar)? They should put on a bit of growth before winter, then you could sow carrots in between them in the spring - they grow slowly but are very popular with children

Good luck - I'm sure they'll have a lot of fun!

[Iwantgreenfingers]

Thankyou thats great. Will be going tomorrow to the nurseries so hopefully I can get everything on that list!

[Iwantgreenfingers]

Sorry Alison to answer your questions. The children are 11 years old onwards so older ones. The beds are in ft yes so are quite large. Is a cloche really necessary then for growing lettuce over the winter - would you need to cover spinach plants?

[quark1]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to plant 3 up with veg and do the rotation thing and the 4th could be turned over to fruit and flowers with the flowers chosen to attract insects to polinate and also to provide colour for the classrooms and/or assemly hall.

[nick the grief]

I wonder if it would be a good idea to plant 3 up with veg and do the rotation thing and the 4th could be turned over to fruit and flowers with the flowers chosen to attract insects to polinate and also to provide colour for the classrooms and/or assemly hall.

better still dahlia's and Chrysanths ... but then I'm biased

Don't buy a cloche it will cost an arm and a leg and then you won't be able to dig. Go to your local pumbers merchant and get some of the blue alcathene pipe and make your own permenant structure then you can cover the whole bed (NA Kays for plastic).

I'd plant 1 with some winter stuff Broad beans - The Sutton (short grower) and Peas ( any early variety - Avola is OK) if you get the ground nice and warm you may be able to get some carrots in make sure it's an early variety as it will mature quick (Amsterdam forcing). These will all go OK under a cloche then the others I'd sow some green manure on and then you can dig it in in the spring and it will improve the soil no end. Get hold of a copy of Square foot gardening and you will see that you can produce a hell of a lot from two beds, have one for fruit (strawbs etc) and then one for cut flowers ( Sarah Ravesns book is a good one for Ideas then you can rotate the flowers with the veg and every 4 years move the strawbs on

[Eyren]

The BBC book "Grow Your Own Veg", by Carol Klein, is another good one for raised bed gardening - it includes a project by the RHS on growing veg in a 3m x 3m plot, similar to square foot gardening but less technical. Whereas the series focused on the fun of veg-growing, the book is packed with facts as well - sowing and harvesting times for lots of different veg, all nicely laid out.

[Two_Sheds]

I'd be putting stepping stones in the middle of your beds, otherwise all your soil is going to get trampled and compacted.
4 ft is a more manageable width for raised beds (so you can reach to the middle without ever stepping on the soil), but hey ho, work with what you got.

[Kristen]

I agree about the width. An old scaffolding board down the middle will give you two 3' wide raised beds and might work better (with the kids) than stepping stones?

Important that they understand they should not - NOT EVER!! - stand on the soil in the raised beds - the idea is to keep the soil fluffy and let the worms "dig" it, and that won;t happen if it gets compacted.

[Iwantgreenfingers]

Thank you all for the advice - I have just been to the local nursery and was hugely disappointed - only spring cabbage remaining apparently. The owner told me in no uncertain terms that I could not get hold of white sprouting broccoli, kale, rocket or spinach. Is this true or have I just come across a bad tempered man working at the weekend? Could I order online perhaps?

[Alison]

Sounds like you got a grumpy garden centre guy. Possibly they don't sell them but you can get them but might need to look a bit. Have a search on the internet and am sure you'll find something.

[Eyren]

I would order online - they have big centralised stores, so are not limited by what the individual shop owner knew he could sell locally. Probably your local chap has never even heard of mizuna

The Organic Catalogue still has the full range of oriental vegetables for sale:

The Organic Gardening Catalogue

and I suspect that the other big companies such as Suttons, Kings and so on are similarly well-stocked.

It tends to be only the perishable (e.g. onion sets) or very popular stuff that seed merchants sell out of...

[Muck_n_all]

Real Seeds

Also take a look at
Real Seeds

A lovely little 'not for profit' company whose aim is to get us back to enjoying what we had

Can't wait to see what comes up