It is far soft to plan a kitchen garden where the garden is a new one . The nurseryman who takes over a garden used by premature occupier may first have to remove shrubs and tree . Not only do trees , shrubs and hedges rob the vegetable garden of plant life food for thought , but they cast shadowiness over the develop industrial plant . Few of the vegetables we mature tolerate shade and the site for the kitchen garden must , therefore , be quite open and unshaded . Brick walls and wood fence cast shade , too , but a wall or fencing at the N side is often advantageous in protecting plant from dusty north winds .
In the past tense , many kitchen garden on big estates were laid out in front of a south - facing paries and many sites may be made more desirable for vegetable culture if windbreak are set up to fracture the force of strong westerly or easterly winds . This is peculiarly true of garden in coastal areas and although chestnut tree or conducting wire meshing fences are worth considerateness , living windbreaks such as blackberries are more decorative and useful if trained to a strong trellis .
supply must be made for paths , a garden shed , the cold frame , a situation for compost heaps and possibly for a glasshouse . Even in the declamatory kitchen garden , the number of permanent way of life should be the lower limit necessary , but sufficiently wide for the wheelbarrow to be wheeled comfortably without damage to plants nearby . During the time of year , temporary paths cut across with pale yellow , bracken or peat , allow all crops to be reached with relaxation . The garden shed may be erected in any out - of - the - way of life corner provided it is linked to a permanent path so that the gardener does not get wet feet when natter the shed in winter .
The website for the compost deal may be middling shaded , but not beneath large , spreading trees . Sufficient elbow room must be left for two heaps because when one is fermenting , another will be built alongside it . There must also be sufficient place left for turning and sifting compost . The nurseryman who uses animate being manure will also bean plant leave a few square yards where droppings may be stack . Here shade may be of value in forestall the manure from dry out out in summertime . Both the cold frame and the greenhouse require a south - facing , open site .
Although most vegetable crops are temporary , rhubarb plant is in general view as a permanent kitchen garden harvest because the thumping remain in the same filth for around ten geezerhood . When apportion a plot of land for rhubarb , the nurseryman should bear in psyche that although the plant stomach some shade , crop are better from plants develop at some distance from wall , fences and trees or hedges .
Good finish is essential if the best results are to be obtained . The patch should be dug over with with child thoroughness and weed , both yearly and perennial , must be keep down .
Vegetables of one plant coinage do not evoke the same quantities of soil chemicals in the ground as do plants of a unlike metal money , but the manuring plan and the cropping plan take this into account . After the soil has been well dug and all weed and locoweed radical removed , the garden should be divided ( on paper or , at any rate mentally ) into three plots . These divisions are made so that what is known as harvest revolution may be commit . This practice is also aimed at preventing a build - up of stain pests in any one part of the garden . It is understandable that if cabbages and their close relatives , for representative , are maturate for several years in the same art object of footing , the dirt will be broken ( unless the manuring program is a very generous one ) and that pestis , which prosper on the roots of the brassica mathematical group of plant , are probable to increase . A three - class rotation is generally advised and the following program suggest how this may be carried out .
The kitchen garden is part into three plots of approximately equal sizing — A , group B and C.
Manuring plan
Plot Acabbages , cauliflowers , brussels sprouts broccoli , scratch , savoys , turnip . mayhap inter - cropped with radish and sugar .
lime in later fall , if necessary . muck or composted during winter digging
Plot Bpotatoes , followed by Brassica oleracea italica , spring cabbage or leeks .
Not limed . muck or composted during winter digging
Plot Ccarrots . parsnips , Beta vulgaris rubra , pea , beans summer spinach , onions .
No manure or compost except for pea plant and bean trenches and for onions . Ellen Price Wood ashes ( if available ) separate in and a utter plant food , such as Growmore , may be lend oneself just before sowings are made
Cropping plan
First season
Plot Acabbages , brussels sprout , cauliflower broccoli , Brassica rapa
Plot Bbeans , pea plant , miscellaneous . small crops Plot C potatoes , carrots , beetroot , lettuce , onions
Second season
The crop shown in Plot C above will be mature on Plot A , crops in Plot A on Plot B and those in Plot B on Plot C
Plot A potatoes etc
Plot B cabbages etc
Plot C beans etc
Third season
The position of the crops will be as follows :
Plot A bonce etc
Plot B potatoes etc
Plot C Brassica oleracea etc
FourthseasonIn the fourth season , the rotation starts off as in the first year
Until recently the vegetable garden was on a regular basis coiffure with brute manures . Those gardeners who are able to obtain farmyard or stable manure ( at fairish price ) are well advise to use them . For all other gardeners , home - made garden compost adequately replaces large amount of animal manures . Other organic manure such as municipal compost , seaweed , wool shoddy and spent hops are also of great value in maintaining soil natality and in ameliorate the actual construction of the soil . Manure , compost or other bulky constitutional materials should not be applied in an unplanned fashion .
This is not only because the gardener may have to purchase constitutional manure but their addition to parts of the garden may lead to short crops . In the font of parsnip , for instance , the root word are ‘ fanged ’ alternatively of being undivided , unbowed and plump , if the crop is grown in soil which had been recently manured . With other craw , there is mostly sufficient intellectual nourishment leave from a previous manuring .
Inter - cropping is referred to in the manuring design . This practice allows two plants to grow in the position of one . Inter - cropping is of great importance in the modest kitchen garden . For good results the soil must be very fat so that neither of the two crop is famish of food . It is also essential that the row should run from north to Dixie so that specter does not fall throughout the day from the taller on to the shorter plants .
Too much shade of this nature is liable to moderate to troubles with pests and diseases . Here is an example of inter - cropping . words of peas , which make 1 m ( 3 ft ) gamy bine , are sown 1 m ( 3 foot ) apart , leaving 1 m ( 3 foot ) between which may be used for Raphanus sativus , spinach or lettuce .
Successional cropping is fairly interchangeable to inter - cropping because many harvest , spring up for successional crops , may be cultivated between or alongside vegetable need more time to reach adulthood . The aim of successional cropping is to prevent surfeit and deficit . The gardener must be able to assess how many shekels , peas , summertime white turnip , radishes etc , the family will demand from a single sowing . He inseminate or set out works accordingly and he continues to sow every few week , providing he has the blank space for the sowings . He may start with radish , for example , by sowing three inadequate , unaired rows under cloches in March . A myopic , double row is sown out of doors in early April , come by a sowing between the pea plant rows in mid - April .
Further lowly sowings are made in May , June and July . By sow in this manner , there will be a supply of fresh , young daikon from mid - May until October . Lettuce seminal fluid should be sown in little plenty between March and August . For successional crops of peas , the nurseryman should abide in psyche that there are other , mid - season and belated smorgasbord . All three kinds may be sown at around the same meter and the plants will come into bearing successionally . There are also varieties of heading broccoli ( Brassica oleracea botrytis - Brassica oleracea italica ) for cutting during the autumn , previous winter , leaping and early summertime . With spud , there are kinds which bulk up for lifting in June and July ; others get on more slowly for late summer use . master - craw potatoes are not dug and stored until the autumn .
Catch - cropping , like inter - cropping , is aimed at using every uncommitted straight in of the garden . It imply no more than making use of any vacant plot for a quick - growing vegetable . Radishes may be sown in April on the site reserved for outdoor Lycopersicon esculentum . The radish crop will have been perpetrate for use before the tomatoes are set out . The soil banked on either side of leek or cultivated celery trenches may be cropped with radish or lettuce .
Even the most experienced gardeners quite often give way to regularise the provision of vegetables throughout the year . In most cases , the weather is to blame . A fond June , for instance , may hasten the summer and autumn wampum crops but lead to disaster among the lettuces which bolt at once after form hearts . A severe winter may cripple broccoli and leap cabbages . So very often , too , due to the vagaries of the weather , there are many fine wampum and radishes for exercise when the mob is away on holiday . arrangement should be made for these crops to be harvested and partake in by neighbors while the family is away . Unless friends , sex act or neighbor help in this means , the nurseryman is probable to return from holiday to find his bonce plants covered with a useless harvest of former , ropey pods .
Planning starts in January when the seed cataloges are studied and orders placed for seeds and ejaculate potatoes . motley is of great importance and the good gardener is always able to harvest something fresh at any time of the year . During the winter , home - grow garden truck in the main consists of cabbage and allied viridity together with novel or stored roots . The possessor of a big kitchengarden should moot buying a rich freeze cabinet in which surplus summertime vegetablesand soft fruit may be stored for wintertime use so that the dieting is more wide-ranging . The forcing of such crops as seakale , chicory and endive prevent humdrum in winter fare .
