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Vegetable garden design help

 
Posts: 2
Location: Bristol, UK
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I have been studying crop rotation and companion planting non-stop for a week now. This is the first time I have ever done anything like this and doing it in a section of my parents garden where there is grass lawn that has never really been used. I have designed a plan for a four year crop rotation (that I have attached) for a non-dig vegetable garden from information I gathered of various sites over the internet and was hoping some more experienced (anybody) that could give me some advice on my plans and to make sure they will work.

Garden-Plan.jpg
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The plan I came up with
 
steward
Posts: 3999
Location: Wellington, New Zealand. Temperate, coastal, sandy, windy,
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Welcome to permies Ben
I'm a pretty, shall we say casual gardener, and don't do a lot of planning. (There's a lot to be said for planning; I planted Jerusalem artichokes right where I'd like to grow...actually, I'll just leave it as "I planted Jerusalem artichokes"!
btw, JAs are great, just not in the middle of a very small area...
That's a beautiful plan; I've got a couple of suggestions, but be aware my vision's not great, sop I might be missing something.
If I'm reading your plan right, the legumes are before the carrots? I'd do it the other way round: roots right at the end of the rotation, then legumes to pump some nitrogen back in before the greedy crops.
I'm a massive asparagus fan, so this is personal preference: three plants wouldn't be enough
Maybe look at more intercropping? For example basil really likes growing amongst other plants.
I'm also aware this garden's not for you, and needs to be comfortable for those using it.
I love nasturtiums, but I keep them away from the garden: they're really rampant, seed everywhere and feed new generations of all sort of things, especially cabbage white butterflies.


 
pollinator
Posts: 11853
Location: Central Texas USA Latitude 30 Zone 8
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I think Asparagus should be planted along the edge, because it is perennial and might get in the way of the rotation.
 
ben thatcher
Posts: 2
Location: Bristol, UK
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Cheers Leila and Tyler, I have altered my plan slightly. I have now removed the Nasturtiums at the top of the plan and replaced them with Borage and at the bottom of the plan I have replaced the Borage with Asparagus (6 Plants) so that the Asparagus is planted along the edge (Do you think six is enough? And will I have to replace the Asparagus at the end of a season with something else? or can I now just grow Asparagus their continually?)

Where the original Asparagus (3 plants) was located I have just grown a few more Tomatoes, my parents love Tomatoes.
I have also swapped Plot A (Roots - carrots and onions) with Plot D (Peas, Beans and Potatoes) in the cycle, is that what you meant Leila? (I have confused myself a bit here). So the order now is:

• Carrots, Onions

• Peas, Beans
Potatoes

• Tomatoes
Basil, Tomatoes

• Broccoli
Rocket, Radish

I will try and attach the new diagram.
Garden-Plan.jpg
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New layout
 
pollinator
Posts: 4437
Location: North Central Michigan
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you may like to do more polycultures in order to prevent insect infestations. You can find lots of information on polyculture in permaculture books like GAia's garden by Toby Hemenway

also perennials such as asparagus do not generally produce the first year and should not be moved around unless they are a perennial that needs to be divided..so they should have a permanent, preferably polyculture bed like a food forest..also can get info on that in the same book
 
Posts: 415
Location: Georgia
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I am an advocate of planning but I plan with a big eraser on my pencil. Things change and I might even
dare to change my mind. So I plug garlic in here and there and it doesn't even show up on my plan. What is
important as I see it is to do a physical layout and run several copies off for each successive year. Then draw in
how you want to rotate the various things that are supposed to need rotating. I draw a circle for my tomato cages
and it is easy enough to move the circles up and down the row. Look at my layout and understand that when the
corn came out, I erased it and wrote in its replacement. It is old school for sure but you can get some detail in it.
2012-garden.jpg
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