Soil preparation help!

[angela27]

Hello all, totally new to veg growing so feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the books and magazines I have started to read. My first main concern is how to prepare a small area in my garden (3x6ft) for the best results. I have read that not all veg like rich soil so not to add compost/manure and rotate regulaly. As my veg patch will be small dont know if I should enrich soil on half of it or not at all! and how do I rotate Could anyone give me a bit of advice.

[dave_norm_smith]

Hi
Welcome to the mad house! lol Firstly I would say the plot is too small to worry about crop rotation, just try not to grow the same family of veg in the same place in the bed year after year.
Decide what you would like to eat, stuff like potatoes is probably not a good idea due to the size of plant, but a couple of salad potatoes in bags along side would work.
Type in 'square foot' into the search option as this will give you a wealth of info from old posts which may just be down your street.
Hope this helps as a start.

Dave

[rustylady]

Welcome to the Vine Angela. What do you intend to grow in your bed?

[motherhen]

Catch crops would be a good idea, salad between carrot rows etc also runner beans can go at one end they like plenty of matter in the soil and will grow well up a wigwam made from canes, that arrangement can move up and down the bed each year to rotate, or they can go in a row at the back of the bed if they are not cutting down the light too much and maybe french beans at the bottom of these on the sunny side, spring cabbage are lovely and mature quickly and grow nice and tight so don't take up too much space. I would certainly do it as a raised bed, I've got double teired raised beds, this second layer moves up and down my larger raised beds, I put my courgettes and marrows in this. If your bed is small you could always plant thgese at the edge of the bed and allow your marrows to spread off the bed, rather than take space in it.

[angela27]

Hi Dave, thanks so much for the advice. Do you think I should add lots of compost/manure to all the veg patch and just grow things like carrots in pots?

So glad I found this website, I think I'll be spending a lot of time searching for answers!

Angela

[Two_Sheds]

Angela, as you know 3x6 isn't very big - what do you intend growing? As space is limited, I would grow crops that are expensive to buy (spuds & carrots are cheap in the shops)

[angela27]

Hi I want to grow as much as possible using the veg patch and additional pots, I will be growing potato's in bags so I wanted to grow carrotts, green beans, sweetcorn, lettuce and rocket, beetroot for starters but I know they dont all like the same soil conditions which makes what I choose to grow in the veg patch difficult.

[Pies]

I'd not bother with root crops as TS says they are fairly cheap to buy,plus you can just put manure of fertilizer over the whole area without problems

some veg to consider- shallots,dwarf french beans, a couple of tomato plants, cut and come again lettuce,onions and beetroot,

[rustylady]

Lettuce, carrots, rocket and beetroot would be fine in your bed. Also you could grow climbing green beans up a wigwam of canes. Sweetcorn I think would take up too much space.

[pauco]

Hi Angela, welcome to the Vine from me too.

paul.

[Two_Sheds]

I wanted to grow carrotts, green beans, sweetcorn, lettuce and rocket, beetroot

None of those is especially difficult or picky. I wouldn't over-enrich your soil - perhaps just go with what you have for this year, adding homemade compost as you get it.

You would do well to work out a scale of some sort, square foot gardening might interest you, BigMallly started an excellent thread if you search for it.

Sweetcorn takes up 18" of ground and you only get one or two cobs for that space. Climbing beans are very productive in a relatively small space (I eat a lot of kidney beans so grow lots, 100s of bean plants)

Carrots - choose a special variety, something you won't find in Tesco's. The purple ones are lovely.

Beetroot is easy and I would recommend Cylindra for ease of chopping, and Chioggia for beauty

[angela27]

Thanks for all the advice, I am really excited to get started.

Great advice about the sweetcorn as just so eager to grow everything not really planning very well. I will take a look at the 'square foot' advice.

Angela