Opinions on My Vegetable Garden Layout and Plan for 2014

So I've had my vegetable patch in my garden for just over 3 years and after several adjustments I still don't think it's running it's full potential. So I thought I would finally swallow my pride and ask for some help on the layout and my plans for next year.

Here is the current layout for my vegetable garden. It's roughly 20' long from the greenhouse to the trellis at the end and about 10-15' wide. It is south facing and has a privet hedge running all along the west side. I decided to keep my 3 vegetable beds roughly 12' long and 3' wide to the east side of this, away from the roots of the privet hedge and put an access path down here instead, as I saw it as dead space. The darker brown boxes around the beds are gaps left between the paving and the beds that I thought I could fill with herbs. I thought this would soften the edges, but has so far been a bit hit and miss in places.



I did once have one large bed to put all my vegetables in, thinking that this would give me more space but I ended up not growing as much as there was no clear cut path. So as it is now, there are paving slabs in between the 3 beds. Access is much better but I'm still not entirely happy with his layout as I think it is more paving than vegetables and would like to change this.

Does anyone have any ideas? I was going to put in a few pots and grow different vegetables but don't have much more room to do this either without them getting in the way. I reckon I could fit in another 5 or 6 pots (the orange circles on my plan below) and grow carrots and courgettes in the summer and some more carrots in the winter but in the greenhouse.



I've had other ideas about perhaps growing some blackberries or another fruit/vegetable up the trellis behind the compost bin but do wonder if I have enough room to do so. I have a bare patch between my pear tree and the trellis which is always full of weeds and wondered if I could plant something here or would it effect the growth of the pear tree? On the other side of the trellis is a clematis which is starting to take hold and wondered if this would also block out too much light and nutrients for the blackberry plant to establish itself.

Another idea I've also had is perhaps growing a step over apple tree along the picket fence and lifting up one of the paving slabs at the end of one of the access paths to the veg beds and planting one here. The only problem I have is that this would mean that the step over would be planted not in the middle of the fencing and so one arm of the step over would be longer than the other. Would this be a problem? All the pictures I've seen of step overs seem to be symmetrical with both arms the same length.

Now onto my plan for next year.....

I've had an ok run so far with my vegetable growing but I always seem to have a bed empty, where something has simply failed to get going and my beds are always empty in the winter time. I made a thread about this a few months back and hope the problem has been solved. Anyway, I like growing shallots and vegetables that are not in for a long time. Maximum 6 months at best. I've grew second early potatoes for the first time this year and would like to again but want to try and grow first earlies instead. I'm hoping to get them out of the ground by June or July time so I can then get my winter crops going.

Here is my plan for Spring/Summer 2014. I would like to grow carrots, courgettes and french beans in the pots that are dotted around. I do however have the middle bed free and would like some ideas on what to plant here that would be out of the ground by the time I come to plant my winter crops. I do have a few broccoli seeds that I did try to grow last year but never succeeded to get going.


My plan for growing crops for the autumn winter is less certain. I certainly intend to grow some carrots in some pots and over winter them in the greenhouse. I was wondering if I could do the same with potatoes? I don't expect massive ones, little ones do, but wondered if anyone else does this at all?

I really would like to grow some parsnips too, however a internet search said that they seem to do much better in open ground, taking up a large amount of time too. Has anyone grown parsnips in a container successfully yet or are there special varieties out there for this purpose?

This is my plan for the winter. But I'm finding that some of the harvest times of the summer crops are overlapping with the planting of the winter ones. How do you get round this? I really want to grow leeks this year but don't know if it's really a good crop for such a small space.


Sorry for the really long thread. I should also add if anyone has any recommendations for any vegetables that I could squeeze a higher yield out of in such a small space I would love to hear them.

Thanks everyone

 

JJ it looks like a good layout you've got there to me....

Re Parsnips ....my own experience with them in containers was a disaster and i'd definitely advise growing in open ground....

If you like Sweetcorn your central bed would be ideal ...'Sweet nugget' F1's are good for our climate...you could under plant with beetroot chard and lots of salad crops too

 

You could also use the "three sisters" method too, this involves emptying your compost heap into your bed (ready or not) then drawing the soil back over the top, and you plant your sweetcorn in that, then grow beans up your sweetcorn and squash as ground cover/mulch. Same principle as Lol speaks off.

http://www.almanac.com/content/companion-planting-three-sisters

Steve...

 

Leeks take a long time, that's why I usually put them in a holding bed.

http://gardenerscornermagazine.blogspot.co.uk/2011_06_01_archive.html

Looking good though Jane

 

Ermmm ... several points JJ Thanks for the diagrams, helps a lot to visualise your plans

Ideal width is 4' - maximum reachable from either side.

Yes and no. The plants at the edge of raised beds have the benefit of no neighbours / competition, so they are likely to be more productive. Some things are tricky though - 2 rows of spuds in a 4' wide raised bed doesn't make total use of the space. For other things I plant at plant-spacings, rather than in rows. I use a triangular spacing to cram in as many plants as possible, without prejudicing their spacing too much.

One thought is that the space at the East end of the paths, between beds, is not well utilised. You could put a pot there, as you have marked, or you could change the beds so that there was 2' - 2'6" of bed at the end of each path, joining the two adjacent beds. Plants will grow better with a free root run, and need less watering.

Skip that idea. Very VERY hard to grow half decent carrots in Winter. T&M's wonder variety of Winter carrot seed, of a few years ago, has all but disappeared, and very few people had success with that. (I gave some seeds to JWK last year, if he has had time to try them would be interesting to know how he has got on. It was called something frubund from memory)

Carrots grow well in containers. I use spent multi purpose from other crops, and mix 50:50 with sharp sand. Resist the temptation to let them grow thicker than a forest!

I don't see why that wouldn't work. Cultivated Blackberries grow pretty much flat against their training wire / fence, so won't take up much width.

Is anything going to have enough light, water and nutrients to grow under the pear tree? If its an eyesore cover with woven mulching fabric, and cover that with gravel / bark and forget about it

No

I only have garlic in mine. Green manure crops is your best choice I think, or if it is heavy soil rough dig it and let the frost and weather at it.

Hmmm ... not sure about this. Potatoes need a lot of space. I don't think they are a good value crop. First Earlies I can understand, expensive in the shops and taste a million dollars fresh from the ground (sugar starts changing to starch as soon as they are harvest, so 2 - 3 days later, after travelling to the supermarket and then your home, is not the same as straight from the garden). Yields are not brilliant though, but if nurtured early (cloches maybe) they will be out of the way before Leeks and other some crops.

Do you have much in the greenhouse over winter? I start some First Early spuds in potato-bags in Jan/February for the earliest crop. They don't need to be in the light until they sprout (and as they break the surface in the bags you top them up with compost until the bag is full), so they can be in utility room / garage until then - that's probably a month. Later on they can move out of the greenhouse on warm spring days - only need to come in on frosty nights, but later in the cropping season fleece would do. Yield low, but you get the earliest of the early spuds. Put 3 or 4 canes around the edge of the bag - the plants flop over when they get big, particularly if you move then in/out of greenhouse, so you can run a string around the canes for support.

I would plant the courgettes (and any other squash) on the ends of the beds and let the sprawl over the paths. I don't think they will grow as well in pots (although I've never done it) as they need so much water. Dunno about French beans in pots ... Carrots would be fine in pots IME.

I don't think that's a good crop for you. I think you need several plants to get any sort of decent harvest - you need enough for a meal each time you harvest, not one sprig for one person. They need to be planted 2' - 2'6" apart each way so they will take up a lot of space. They are a long season crop too ... You can interplant with Lettuce or the like when they are young though.

Someone grew Parsnips in containers - Loli perhaps? They were a disaster. They need a deep root run, I don't think it will work. However, they don't take up a lot of space, so would be a worthwhile crop. Long season though, and dense foliage so no inter-cropping possible.

I start everything off in pots. That gains me 6 weeks or so before they have to be planted out. Its more faff than sowing direct, but I get exactly the number of plants I need, no gaps in the rows, and control over when I can sow - I can sow in the evenings, indoors, regardless of weather. Planting out is quick - I hoe the bed and mix in some fertiliser at some point before planting, then I use a bulb planter (its the same size as a 9cm pot) and make holes like a machine gunner then fill them with water (so the water is under the new plant to encourage roots downwards), then knock out the plants and bung them in. The pots will hold the plants for a week or so, so if the weather isn't kind at planting time there is some leeway.

Parsnips and other roots are more tricky, they hare being transplanted, so I grow them in tubes made from rolling a newspaper around an aerosol can, and plant them "whole". (Tear off any paper sticking out above the ground as it acts as a wick drying out the paper under ground). But that's the only particularly tricky one. I do sweetcorn in newspaper tubes too, it doesn't like transplanting much, and has a big root system, so a 9cm pot isn't enough IME. Joy of newspaper tube pots is that they are skinny (mine at about 5cm) but long - as long as you like depending on your aerosol can template!!)

I think its a good crop. Spacing for them is very tight.

Maybe have a Google for "Square Foot Gardening", although I think you have enough space to do it conventionally.

Focus on:

• High value crops - e.g. Runner beans
• Crops that have the best flavour fresh - e.g. Sweetcorn and First Early spuds
• Cut and Come again crops - that will fill in amongst other plants, and that you can harvest a couple of mouthfuls - as an alternative to buying a huge Iceberg lettuce in the Supermarket and making it last a week, by which time its very tired!
• Varieties that you like, but are impossible to get in the supermarket / greengrocers

You might need to look closer at the Summer crops like Beetroot, Kohl Rabi, lettuce, Mizuma, Pak Choi - maybe even Mooli radish.

Cauliflower might be worth a look. They need a fair bit of space, but if you raise them in pots you only need to grow a couple at a time. They will only "stand", once ripe, for a week or so, so it is better to sow 2 every fortnight than a whole row of them. I've had a lot of success with Candid Charm - lots of folks on Veg forums have said it was easier to grow well than conventional varieties. Depends whether you like something like Cauliflower cheese or not

 

Sorry, I was typing as Loli said that Parsnips hadn't worked for her

I personally don't think this works well outside the American mid-West ...

Sweetcorn is short-stemmed in the UK, so that it ripens in time, so doesn't provide the same climbing frame as the American variety. I think they plant wider in the USA because of poorer soil / water availability, so if I've got that right I don't think it translates well to an intensive allotment plot where the corn would cast shade.

However, I think that the Two Sisters of Sweetcorn and Squash is viable, and a good use of space as the Corn is out of the way by the end of August just as the Squash is really starting to sprawl and then set & ripen its fruits.

We love Sweetcorn, nothing matches it for flavour if freshly picked and immediately cooked. However, its a low yield crop :( and thus perhaps growing in-with Squash makes it a contender for a small plot?

 

Before I had the luxury of space of my allotment plots, it worked very well up here in Cumbria, I'm sure if it works well in this climate it will work very well in most other parts of the country, I only ever recommend something I have tried myself before. Yes runner beans will not have the height to climb on our English grown corn, but the first year I tried the method I just let them scramble ad-hock and got a brilliant crop of beans none the less, second time I added a wigwam of canes over the top of all..three crops from one space...

Steve...

 

Helpful to know Steve, thanks. I've seen it discussed many times (on other dedicated Veg forums) and the consensus has been as I described. Not done it myself, so appreciate having your personal experience to add to my knowledge I can see that it is A Good Thing when space is tight.

Any downsides do you think? The things that have always bothered me were that the beans might be up the corn plants before the corn were ripe and thus perhaps robbed the corn of some light? Also the Beans crop continuing long after the corn and then taking some light from the Squash? Particularly as Beans tend to have a pretty dense leaf canopy IME

 

I have 3 beds and have Broad bean Aquadulce Claudia in one, garlic and onions in another and Spring cabbage in the third. It's the first year I have grown anything except cabbage through the winter, but they all seem to be doing ok at the moment. I grew dwarf runner beans in pots last year with a good yield allied Hestia and I have grown courgettes in pots with good results for last 2 years.

Rusty

 

Re growing parsnips in pot's, when I was showing veg at local shows we grew them in 40 gall.drums with the bottom knocked out.you can also grow them in drain pipes' say 3ft long .the drums where filled with sharp sand ,then you make a tapered hole the depth of your drum and fill with fine compost, same with the drain pipe.watering from the bottom only as this makes the parsnip go down for a drink and you get nice long clean parsnips.

 

Thank to everyone who's replied so far. I'm going to have to reply to some of these in separate posts so I don't get muddled up. Mod's please feel free to merge if need be.

I'm just curious by what you mean by disaster? Did they fork or not grow as big as you had hoped? I don't have a problem with giving some space over to parsnips it's just I'm not that confident with the ground I currently have. I have clay that I have tried to improve but it's still not great. I must have double dug the beds several times and still keep coming across pea shingle and builders sand at the bottom. I just concluded that it would probably be easier if I just grow root crops like carrrots in containers as a result.

An interesting concept but while I like sweetcorn the other half doesn't and to me, at the moment I would like to grow plants that we both enjoy. Is there another plant I could use for the main support instead of sweetcorn?

I took some butternut squash seeds from the seed swap this year but I assumed I didn't have enough room to grow them. I seem to remember reading somewhere they take a lot of space. I do like the idea of them growing along the paths but as long as the main perimeter path is kept clear which links both gates then I don't have a problem with that. Would the squashes be ok with growing onto concrete then? Would I need to put something underneath the squashes once they start to grow?

Although a quick google on how to grow squashes came up with this

I now wonder if I could build some frames at the end of each bed and grow the squashes up there instead? Has anyone tried this and is it worth a go? Or would it require more bed space than growing them on the ground?

I grew a courgette plant in a pot this year as I had nowhere else to put it. It did sulk a lot as it needed a lot of water but we got a fair amount from one plant. I have been growing french beans in pots for about two years now. They probably don't give as many beans as ones in the ground but again I decided to do this because my ground was so poor and to save space. I installed an arch (made from an old ladder) above the main entrance to grow runnerbeans up too, which worked very well and saved a lot of space.

I'm not sure if I can do this. I would like to though. You say that it doesn't have to be a small space. How small could I go? Could I use a large pot filled up with soil instead? I suppose perhaps I could use to very small patches of ground surrounding the vegetable beds perhaps? If they can be bunched together. How long would you leave them in a holding bed for? It doesn't say in that post.

 

Not tried it, but I have read of people who have done it, and I'm sure it would be fine. Biggest problem will be supporting the weight of the fruits. Having said that, I love to grow large Butternuts ... but ... when we come to use them there is far more than necessary for a meal, even with friends round, so perhaps the answer is to grow a variety with more, smaller, fruits. Can't be any worse than supporting Melons growing vertically in a greenhouse; old stockings/tights as cradles works fine.

I think so. Mine are on the ends of my raised beds and sprawl across the adjacent lawn. They don't root through it ... so presumably are just resting there. Many people grow them using plastic / old carpet as a mulch, so they are on top of a fairly non-permeable material - not unlike concrete. I think I would be inclined to put a softer surface under each fruit - bit of straw, or a bit of some sort of matting, but that may be completely unnecessary.

You can "encourage" the vine tendrils which way you want them to go, so they don't have to block your main path. Even a single tendril will take up most of your path between the beds though ... I think it would be better if you had an adjacent crop, in the raised bed, that they could grow "through". (Unless you try the vertical idea)

Good point. They produce a lot, even at 50% production its still going to be a decent harvest

This is to start them off, before planting out in late June / July?

I grow mine in a polystyrene box - like fishmongers use. I carefully space the seeds 1/2" apart, so they don't overcrowd and don't need thinning, leave them there until its time to plant them out. There are always plenty of plants on eBay around planting time ... you could just buy some of them (packet of seeds is cheaper though ) A fish-box will be way more plants than you need, but the volume of soil makes it a bit easier to bring them on than a pot IMO. You could do the fish-box thing and flog the rest on eBay

 

I should correct this having measured the depth of my beds. One is roughly 2' wide while the others are 3'.

Triangular spacing sounds interesting. What does that involve as I can't visualise it for some reason.

Interesting idea. I will have to look into this one. But what could I grow in such a small space? The space between the beds is roughly a foot wide. I was thinking of just planting a step over apple tree and letting that run along the picket fence and having a pot in front of that.

I'm confused. What I meant was that I was intending to grow carrots in containers in the winter sorry not the beds. Could I still grow carrots in containers in the winter? My greenhouse is practically empty until about March time

Do cultivated Blackberries need more nutrients and water in the soil than the wild sort? As I was thinking of perhaps planting them in my confrey bed which is next to the privet hedge. Although I am having second thoughts about this now as on the opposite side of the trellis is a lot of bird feeders and I don't want the birds taking all my blackberries from me.

I currently have some Rhubarb growing on the outer edge of the pear tree, that's about it. I'm reluctant to just leave it bare, but I suppose I could always use it as a dumping ground for my canes when they are not in use.

Does that mean because I have heavy soil that my crops in the winter are more limited? I grew come garlic last year and found the taste rather disappointing. Do you pull your garlic out in the spring time or when it's ready in the summer (I think mine was from memory)?

I quite like the idea of growing them in the greenhouse. This time of the year I have a lot of room in the greenhouse (as I've already mentioned). Could I keep them in the greenhouse all the time instead of having to take them outside? Would that speed the crop along or hinder it somehow? I'm not being impatient it's just I have a lot more space in the greenhouse than do outside and wonder if I could use this to good effect. Could I do the same with carrots in containers as well?

Scrap that then. I do intend to have an allotment one day band will grow them there instead. But it makes sense to have my own vegetable plot running at full capacity before taking the plunge. Also if I can work out what vegetables to grow at home then I would have more space on the allotment to grow more bulky plants.

 

Interesting idea. Do you use a wooden paper pot maker? I have ones of them lying around somewhere but I have never used it in anger. Do you harden them off before planting them out too? I have yet to build a cold frame in the veg plot but wonder if its a worthwhile asset to have when I could be growing other crops there instead.

That's great advice and I will look into this when I get some time in the next few days.

I used to love cauliflower cheese but found that the cauliflower I bought was suddenly starting to taste like coffee or something very similar. Mind you it was the frozen stuff and I went over to eating Broccoli with cheese sauce instead. I picked out of the seed swap parcel a packet of Cauliflower snowball so reckon I will have a stab at growing that this year.

I noticed in the T&M catalogue that you can buy miniature vegetables, like cabbage and cauliflowers. If I grew these would it mean that I could fit more into a smaller space or would they still need the same root spacing? Also would taste be compromised as a result?

 

P.S.

Has be ever eaten sweetcorn straight from the garden? It might be a hatred from childhood borne out of school meals of watery tinned sweetcorn ...

IMHO nothing competes with Sweetcorn in terms of difference in flavour between shop-bought and home grown. Must be grown in a block of plants though, at least 9, so not something that you can just grow a couple of for yourself. Low yield (per unit area) too, so a bit of a luxury for a small plot. Sadly!