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Originally Posted by fnc
i would be very interested to hear more about the plans you refer to and also it'd be great if you could explain more about the manure and covering with black plastic?
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I built my beds nearly 9 years ago now and planned the garden so that I had concrete slabs between in paths. This had been a god send as the land is so wet in winter. I can go out in my slippers and garden.
I split the beds in my plan into 4 rotations
1. Potatoes, followed Kohl Rabi for the goats
2. Onions + sweetcorn followed by Brassicas - followed by winter bunching onions, parsley and miners lettuce.
3. Beans and Peas - pulses and courgettes, squashes, marrows, pumpkins etc
4. Roots and salads.
I plant squashes, courgettes, marrows, pumpkins and other bits and pieces where there have space, though they like the shade from the beans and peas.
I also have permanent beds for Artichokes - flowering green globe and edible flowers, Asparagus, a seed bed and a perpetual garlic bed. This removes 4 of the 28 beds leaving me with 24 beds.
I also have not listed some non raised beds 4 = 1 rhubarb, 2 herbs, 1 perpetual brocoli.
I rotate so everything gets 4 years minimum before its back in the same bed.
I came to this arrangement by trial and error using the type of food I like to eat and what would grow in this environment.
Suppose my year starts around November when I much out the goats and put the bedding straight onto the raised beds, I stack it quite high and spread it out well, then pull black plastic over and fix it down. I leave one bed half open and on December 21st plant garlic.
By the time the end of March has come around I look under the black plastic and I am left with well rotted fine layer of manure.
I do sow directly large seeds such as potatoes, beans and peas. But the rest I grow in the greenhouse first and plant out when the frost has defiantely gone.
I usually eat my first salad around May and its now February and I am still eating onions, parsley, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rhubarb, Kohl rabi and herbs from the garden. The freezers are still overflowing. I have my fruit garden set out the same way but with larger beds and with bushes in the beds and trees intermingled around them. I still have plenty of fruit for the coming year in case of disaster, or I will simply one warm summer evening turn it all into wine :)
the veg. beds are 10ft x 4 ft this size suits me. To start with I, put newspaper on the grass inside the bed, put a mixture of horse manure and peat moss in them and then got the goats and took over with their bedding which keeps the beds topped up as the soil inside composts and reduces.
I lay a layer of manure over veg such as Silverbeet, onions, and potatoes who like it when it rains and they get a shower of feed from the manure.
I also have 6 home made wormeries and poultry who contribute to the soil activity.