We aren’t nearly as organized as we appear

We probably grow around 80 different varieties (10 varieties of lettuce alone). So deciding what to plant,  how much, and when,  takes up a lot of space in my brain.

I don’t yet have an effective way to plan out the beds we have.  Some areas have already had two crops harvested and are being planted with a third (arugula, radish, then zucchini),  while others (tomatoes) have only had one so far.  As I’ve mentioned before,  I can’t plant anything all at once because I need to harvest things weekly throughout the season, therefore,  they need to be planted weekly. So our growing areas is starting to resemble a patchwork quit: ten feet of turnips are harvested and 3 of the 20 or so zucchini we need are planted in its place, with the remainder being put in where space allows.

Sometimes I hesitate planting things because I’m not always sure we will have space for all we have planned.  Occasionally we remove a crop from the lineup completely.  Spring broccoli is a good example.  We had a ton of spring stuff planted and I was worried about space for summer crops. So we planted a couple for personal use (they ended up being pilfered by a groundhog).

Green beans went in late because originally I didn’t think they were worth it given our limited space.  During a mild panic a few weeks ago,  I realized there would be a less abundant harvest window approaching, so i planted some, had I put them in when I should have,  it would have eased the transition from spring to summer crops.

I’m working on some better planning tools for next year,  but this is going to be an ongoing struggle given our limited space and our need to maximize production.  Hopefully we will be better prepared in years to come.

The Experimental Garden

During spring planting we were in a bit of a rush.  Our decision to farm was a little last minute and our plans were, at best,  rough sketches. We were talking about trying to grow many types of vegetables that we had never eaten, much less grown, and we were going to experiment with a few new growing methods.

I wanted to try even more new things but I was reigned in, partly by Breanna, and partly from my lack of time.  But one thing I new I wanted to try was block planting.  In short,  it is growing certain vegetables in a very close group.

Spacing is something we gave a lot of consideration to. Most people have seen plant spacing directions on seed packets or in books, but they aren’t written in stone.  There is some play there.  If you plant things closer together, you will reduce the yield per plant, but since you have more plants,  you will increase the yield per row.

It also turns out that some plants do well if you grow them in bunches of 4 or 5, but space the bunches out further.  We tried that this year with beets and onions, and so far its been very successful.

The advantages of this system are many.  We transplant our onions and beets, so by putting 4 seeds in every cell, we can for 4 times the number of seedlings in a tray. Likewise,  we transplant 4 plants instead of one per cell, so it’s a space and time saver.

It is also quicker and easier to weed a bed that has wider spaced bunches than it would be to weed individual onions placed closer together

Next year I would like to grow some side by side with conventionally planted beets to check the yields, but who knows if I’ll get to it. I already have a lot of plans for next year.