Software
Houzz Logo Print
stuffradio

Ultimate Plan

14 years ago

Have to wait a while so I can till. Here's my ultimate goal though:

{{gwi:24765}}

Might put Daikon Radish in the area I have marked unused. I still have more space than what I listed. I just remember I have Brussels Sprouts, so I will use one unused row for Brussels Sprouts since we love them so much. :)

Comments (7)

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    Argh! It's unreadable as a .png. Even if I download it and try to zoom, the pixelation renders it unreadable.

    Can you just save it as a .xls? I think that would work better with such a detailed document.

    Also--the daikon radish is typically a fall-planted radish. With its size, it takes a looooong spell of cool weather to grow nicely.

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago
  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I assume the corn is on the north, but you may have some shading issues to consider, either way.

    I also assume each cell does not represent one plant, because you will have some serious issues with crowding if that is the case, especially with pumpkins, squash, melons and tomatoes.
    A lot of your crops should have staggered planting dates to avoid over-abundance, unless you are planning to do a lot of canning and freezing. You may find it useful to incorporate planting and estimated harvest dates for each variety. This makes planning for seasonal successions much easier, and is fairly easy to format on Excel.

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    All the plants are a South to North direction.
    I will be doing succession planting.

    Half the crops are Spring and half are Summer. By the Summer I can start the fall crops.

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    I think that we're all having trouble understanding what we are seeing on your plan, and until we understand, we won't be able to give you any meaningful feedback.

    So up is north? Or is up some other direction?

    Can we assume that you are planting in single rows? Or double rows?

    Does the two columns next to each other represent a succession planting?

    What is your zone and last/first frost date so we can try to figure out if you have time for these successions?

    Have you gardened like this before?

    When it says "squash" next to the peppers does it mean summer squash or winter squash?

    Just some of the questions that we need answers to in order to understand what is happening in your plan.

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    It's a North to South orientation. The bottom is North, the top is South. The daylight that spot gets in Summer is pretty constant. It stops getting sun when the sun goes down.

    They are 4' rows, so double rows.
    The succession planting will be done for almost all crops, especially Corn. I did not represent succession planting anywhere.

    My zone is 8a. Last Frost date is April 10, first is around November, but sometimes mid October.

    No, i haven't gardened like this before.

    I'll be doing Butternut Squash mostly, but also some Acorn squash since I have that. I might throw some other varieties in.

    Some further explanation, I'm trying to grow enough to need to can and freeze vegetables. I'm trying to get as much as I can for a year of Vegetables. I don't think I will be able to get a years worth in that spot, but once i have mastered this spot, I have acres more I can expand to.

    I'm not doing this by myself, I have others who will help with weeding and planting. I'm going to till ASAP, and hope to dig down where the paths are and mound the rows to make them raised beds. I also have some soil to add on top of the existing soil.

    The Garlic I want to keep multiplying the amounts I grow. Eventually I will probably sell a few. These are Red Russian hard neck I'm growing. It'll take a few years before I have enough bulbs to fill a row that size.

    The size of the whole area is 60'x90'. Each cell doesn't necessarily represent one plant. I will be looking at the space required for each, and plant accordingly. However, I don't think one plant per cell is bad for most of the Spring vegetables, since they don't need more than 2' between them.

  • 14 years ago
    last modified: 11 years ago

    That helps a lot.

    Here are some observations based on that additional information. First of all, that should be enough space to stock your pantry quite well. It may take a few years to refine your quantities and find the varieties that work best for you, but that will produce a lot of food. Some things to remember when growing for storage:

    It helps to have a lot of produce available at once to make canning and freezing an efficient process in the kitchen. It is not uncommon for us to spend 6 or 8 hours by the stove with some crops. Be careful how you time your harvest dates so you don't get overwhelmed with too much to do. Try to schedule canning in the end of the season, when working in a hot kitchen is less unpleasant.

    Get a mix of tomato varieties. Plant indeterminate varieties to eat fresh, and determinate paste tomatoes for canning. Paste tomatoes have less fluid, so are more economical to cook for sauce, and determinate varieties will ripen around the same time, so it's easy to pick enough for a big canning fest.

    Vegetables loose freshness and flavor fast, especially corn and peas. To preserve the most flavor, it is best to have one person working in the kitchen (or more) and one doing the harvest, bringing in smaller batches that are suited for quick blanching and chilling, rather than huge baskets that will sit in the heat of the kitchen waiting to be processed.

    Except for daikon, you can probably take radishes out of that chart and put in something else. Radishes should be planted weekly, and don't take much room, so just add a row whenever space opens up, or interplant when you add a row of something else that has a longer maturity date, and harvesting the radishes will give the other crop space when it's needed.

    For crops that you will be both eating fresh and storing, do many small successions of fresh varieties, and a few large plantings for processing and storage. In other words, plant 15 beets each week in the spring and summer, but towards fall take a day and plant 200 that you can harvest a month after your first frost to store for the winter. Be careful when choosing varieties - onions varieties can have wildly different storage abilities, and some potatoes are better for storing than others. Varieties can also have different levels of heat tolerance, so the spinach you plant for small successions and the spinach for freezing may be different for winter-harvest spinach. Good seed catalogs will have this information for each variety. Plants that don't store long, like lettuce, bok choy, arugula, and celery you should plant every 7 to 10 days, all season long in quantities that will last for the interval between harvests. Have plenty of seed of these crops - you may only get one harvest from a planting of arugula in July before it bolts, but 3 if you plant it in September.

    Many crops can be stored in the garden itself. Leeks, carrots, parsnips, and kale can be deeply mulched and harvested even though the ground around them is frozen. This saves space and time, and gives you the freshest food when you need it most and it's most expensive. There are more advanced techniques for many other winter crops, research Eliot Coleman to learn how to grow great salad greens in deep winter.

    Your storage squashes will frost-kill without some protection, so calculate your planting date by subtracting (days to maturity + at least 10 days) from first frost date, to assure ripeness and time for proper curing. Once they are harvested, that ground should be immediately reworked with compost and planted to short-season winter crops like 50 day turnips or spinach.

    Plant your garlic in rows down the center of the entire bed, or all on one side. This will give a lot of space for more successions on the edges. Use 6" spacing between plants in a triangular pattern for the best use of space. That's a lot of garlic. Whatever you don't use before it is time to replant should go back as your seed garlic, which will improve every year as it adapts to your soil and microclimate.

    For stocking a pantry, have a variety of storage options, canning, root cellar, freezing, etc. so you don't run out of space. A chest freezer and some wooden boxes in the basement are ideal.