To get the most from a small garden, where plants are put
and when they are started matters a lot. A plant that won’t grow because it was too
close to a larger more aggressive plant that took the available sunlight,
water, and nutrients – especially if you’ve only got room for one or two of
that variety – means that you'll get very little of that vegetable for the season.
It doesn’t take a green thumb to get the most from a plot - I certainly
don’t have one - what’s more important is the feedback loop, a written log of
what went where when, that helps me make a more productive plot every year.
As I’ve learned the hard way, what looks like a good plan
may have a major flaw. A few years ago in the middle of winter I came up with the
annual plan for the beds. The plans called for cucumbers on a trellis
behind (north) of some brussels sprouts.
The brussels sprouts I knew grew about 3 feet high, but the cukes could
climb a six foot trellis to get their sunlight. What I didn’t consider was the
timing – the brussels sprouts went into the ground about a month before the
cukes and were already good sized plants when the cucumber seedlings were set
in. It took a long time for the cucumber
plants to climb out of the shade of the brussels sprouts and grow up the
trellis. I haven't replicated that plan since.
Raised beds allow you to forget about planting in rows and
just pack the space with plants, at least for larger plants like brassicas. I usually plant a 4’ x 12’ bed with cole
crops and give most of them about a square foot. Broccoli gets a little more room since it’s a
larger plant, and since it’s taller it goes on the north side of the bed. I’ve never really put much stock in the
intensive planting idea where cole crops are planted within inches of each
other. Planted close like that I’ve
found that some plants will win and shade out the losers, which end up in the
compost bin.
Then there's second plantings. Many spring plantings like brassicas can be replaced when they are done with another short season crop, like beans or carrots. This is the brassica bed one month ago.
This is the same bed a few days ago. By mid-June enough of the earliest planted
cole crops had been pulled out to leave a block of space for a planting of bush
beans. Now there’s room to plant another patch of bush beans, probably something I’ll do later this week. There's a volunteer dill in the center of the bed and I'll try to work around it.
An example of what almost went badly shows the importance of
getting the timing right. Following the
schedule made this winter I seeded okra and eggplant indoors on April 24. Problem is eggplant has very small seeds,
slow to germinate and slow to get started.
When the okra had already put out sets of true leaves the eggplant was
just a green thread.
In mid May the weather forecast convinced me that it was
time to set tomatoes, peppers and okra seedlings out into the beds, yet the
eggplant seedlings were still way too puny to go out into the big bad
world. They had to wait about 10 days to
be planted and by that time the tomatoes and peppers on either side had gotten
a good head start. Would the eggplant
get enough sun to establish itself as a productive plant, or would they end up as dwarf plants that produced nearly nothing?
It turns out that they got enough sun to put on a growth spurt and are are
now able to compete with their neighbors. They are a little crowded but they will do OK.
Another weeks delay and they probably would have been stunted. I made a note on the schedule to start eggplant
a week earlier next year.
Here’s another example of spacing. I seeded enough onions to fill a 4’ x 8’ bed. Instead of putting all of them in one bed
this year I planted two blocs of onions in the center of two adjacent beds. In the picture below one end of the bed was planted in carrots
and the other end with the first planting of bush beans – plants that I need easy
access to for harvesting. A trellis is on the north side of the bed with four cucumber plants growing up it. I can pick the cukes from
the back side of the trellis. The onions in
the center will be harder to reach, but when they are ready to harvest they will come out
with just a tug. Another bed is
planted in a similar fashion, onions in the center and other plants at the
ends. This approach makes the most of the space available.
It’s all a process of learning by doing. I’m still learning. It sure helps to keep a record of what went
right and what went wrong when I make plans for the next season.
