A different way to grow?

[Jay-ell]

OK so these 4 beds would have plants that you harvest completely and that are ready in 4 months.
Cut and come again crops, perennial crops and crops that need to be in the ground longer (e.g. sprouts, parsnips, onions etc) would be in other beds not in this growing plan.

Although you replant the beds after 4 months I'm assuming that you would change the crops sown to be in line with the time of year, e.g. no sowing of spinach in the middle of summer, so that your diet would vary through the year.

Are you planning of integrating this into the fruits, shoots, roots sowing method? How would the different sowing times reflect on the harvest and would there be a difference in the maturity of crops in the different weeks- e.g. the lettuce being in longer than the carrots, would the lettuce bolt with being in linger or the carrots be too small as they could have done with three more weeks?

[Cadalot]

I tried sorting out bed plans for Successional sowing attached is one I will look for the others

[veggiechicken]

Yes, I would adjust what I sowed to match the seasons.
If a lettuce was about to bolt I would pick it, whatever bed it was in and adjust the sowing times for future beds.
The Roots, fruits etc sowings will feed into the beds although I may modify it slightly.
Its really a suck it and see experiment. I'll still have backup crops elsewhere but if this system works for me, it may take over eventually.
Ideally, I would have 6 beds, 5 sowing beds and one a chook bed which would be moved through the rotation; the chooks coming in after a bed had been cleared for a month, to dig it over and eat any remaining veg.
I'm taking the idea from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcL2fFQO54 and adapting it a bit as I don't want to build a 6 bay structure in the garden.

[Jay-ell]

Hoe you going to work in the manuring of the bed? Manure part and leave part un-manured for the roots? would you switch the parts for the next planting so that the entire bed is manured/composted gradually? Would 4 months growing leafy green in manured soil be enough to drop the nitrogen down so the carrots don't fork? Do you really care about having straight carrots?

[veggiechicken]

Can't be doing with this manuring stuff - or sowing in straight lines.
Planning what to grow when is as much as I can cope with - after that its bung 'em in anywhere time. I like random

[Snadger]

Sounds a bit like my 'Broth' bed!

[veggiechicken]

Next step is to clear some ground for 4/5/6 new beds. It'll be 6 if I can work out a way for the chooks to access a bed from their existing run. ? Pophole into a flexible tunnel with a movable, bed-sized cage on the end?

I'm going to start by clearing the raspberries/brambles/hazel out of this area - see how much space that gives me!



Wish me luck

[Snadger]

Chooks will soon sort that lot out. Love the idea of a flexible tunnel! Is there not a kids toy that works on this principle?

There ya go!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&...l_6yaz867rch_b

[veggiechicken]

Chooks have been helping me today as I chopped the raspberries down - until rain stopped play. Problem with the chooks is they lose interest quickly and wander off, usually in 3 different directions. I guess all us chooks go off on tangents

[vixylix]

This sounds way too much like organisation to me - I like that you're giving it a go. Full feedback please, and if it works, instructions for me for how to do it

(see what happens when you have more time on your hands?!)

[veggiechicken]

Dug up some raspberries & brambles and finding soil
There was a GH here until a tree branch from next door, fell on it



Rain and aching arms stopped play but I'm getting there!

[Snadger]

Dug up some raspberries & brambles and finding soil
There was a GH here until a tree branch from next door, fell on it

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Rain and aching arms stopped play but I'm getting there!

You're not working hard enogh VC. Doesn't look any different from before!

[veggiechicken]

You wouldn't want me to overdo it, Snadge. Why do you think there's a tortoise in my signature? Slow and steady - with a hard shell

[Snadger]

You wouldn't want me to overdo it, Snadge. Why do you think there's a tortoise in my signature? Slow and steady - with a hard shell

Like a nut!

[planetologist]

Someone has already pointed out that different plants take different times to harvest.
So you can put plants together that need sowing at the same time or that are harvested at the same time. You take your pick.

I'm not very organised (like you I think) but I do have a notebook with one line per vegetable where I note when it got sown indoors, when it got transplanted or sown direct, when it got eaten, and when the seeds were ripe. I also note how much area I used and whether this was too little, just right or too much. I use a different color every year. Several years can fit on the same line. Because of lack of organisation not everything is kept track of, but after several years eventually this information is recorded, and eventually I even get a visual overview of the interannual variability.

... Then my plum tree died, and I had to start figuring out how to fill that gap with other fruit.

And nothing in the garden is completely predictable, but some things can be left to be eaten later, and other things can be bottled, so there's never nothing to eat and gluts get renamed to seed saving plants.