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Hand tools; organic compost and manure; young plants and seeds.
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Decide on a layout of the beds in your vegetable garden, allowing you space to employ a system of crop rotation. This means you will need four beds, for growing plants in the following groups: 1. Legumes and Pod Crops - includes: beans - Broad, Dolichos (lab lab), French, Runner, Okra, Peas. 2. Alliums - includes: onions - bulb, pickling, spring, shallots; garlic; leeks. 3. Root and tuberous crops - includes: potatoes; sweet potatoes; sweet peppers; tomatoes; aubergines; celery; celeriac; beetroot; carrots; parsnips; scorzonera. 4. Brassicas - includes: broccoli; brussels sprouts; cabbages; cauliflowers; pak choi; mizuna; chinese cabbages; kohl rabi; swedes; turnips; radishes.
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You will grow these crop groups in different beds each year moving them on in the same order, so that they end up back in their original bed in year 5. It's also worth making space for a compost bin close to your vegetable garden. You'll need to use garden compost as a mulch, and to boost soil fertility between making fresh plantings.
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Adopting a no-dig method of growing vegetables not only saves you time and effort, but it also helps to save your soil from becoming overworked, or excessively trampled. Using a deep bed system, described below, works well with a small vegetable garden. Cultivate your ground thoroughly, digging in plenty of organic material. Use a string and pegs to mark out a system of a minimum of four beds to allow for crop rotation. Make these no more than 1.5 m wide, with a shape and length to suit the size of your garden. This width of bed allows you to work it without trampling the soil. You'll be able to plant very densely, because your soil condition will be so much better than in a conventional bed. Mound the surface of this smaller space using top soil from the area around, so that the growing bed is slightly raised. For good looking deep beds, and to keep soil in position, give them an edging made from treated timber planks. See Workshop: How to make timber edged borders.
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Increasing soil fertility should lead to naturally healthier plants. But you'll still get some pests, however carefully you garden. The following will help: 1. Moisture retaining mulches help to keep powdery mildew from crops. 2. Grow your seedlings on in pots and plant out good healthy stock that will establish rapidly. 3. Practice crop rotation. 4. Some vegetables can be sown once the danger of seasonal pests have passed e.g. turnips and swedes. 5. Low level screens, made from horticultural fleece, around your carrots will help to protect them from carrot fly. 6. Set beer traps for slugs. 7. Pick off by hand pests such as cabbage caterpillars on small areas of brassicas. 8. Give plants enough space to grow without overcrowding. 9. Remove and destroy diseased plant material before making your new seasons plantings.
10. Try companion planting - that is alternating vegetable crops - to reduce the incidence of pests. Planting marigolds with tomatoes is another form of companion planting that can work.
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Green manures. These are plants that are grown to be dug back into the soil as a method of fertilising it, and also add to the organic content of your vegetable garden soil. With all types of organic gardening, soil structure is key to fertility. Green manures are grown at times when your beds would otherwise be empty or fallow, and they can be used to fill in spaces between crops. So, they can be a good way to cover bare soil in your vegetable garden in winter. You can sow the seeds of green manures on cleared, empty ground. When the plants reach a height of about 20 cm, cut the top growth back to ground level and leave for a few days. Then dig this into your vegetable garden.
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Add lots of compost for soil fertility |
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smother weeds in between rows of veg |
Netting spread over hoops keeps pests off veg |
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