Garden layout ...

blueriver · Feb 20, 2011

Wondering if others have a "lay out" or "pattern" for your gardens ...ours is fairly large (so I think) its about 200' x 350'

It slopes from East to West ... I put my onions on the high side, then my taters, Peas, Beans working towards the low ground where I put the corn. The wife has her "special" Tomato garden.

I plow in the fall, spread the hog/cow manure and the ground lays idle thru the winter ... spring I plow again, disc harrow and finish the ground with the drag harrow.

I use my JD two row planter set on 30" rows and lay out the onions and the taters on 30" rows ... 6 rows of onions, this year 2000 sets broken up into Texas Sweet, Yellow, White and Purple Onions ... thats the first 6 rows. Then a row of taters, a row of onions, a row of taters, another row of onions and then another row of taters and a row then of Cabbage, Brocolli, Brussell Sprouts.

Then I put an 8' drive area and past that my next 12 rows and then another drive area and 12 more rows and a drive and 12 rows and so on until its done.

In the drive area goes my irrigation system ... low line no taller than 12" to the top of the sprinkler head for clearance and I can drive up and down these with my sprayer that covers 30' at a time ... I use Sevin concentrate for bug control.

My cultivator is set on 30" rows and as long as I don't over irrigate ... I can keep it cultivated without getting stuck !!

magicheater · Feb 20, 2011

I have a large garden area and recently have cut back, fallowing half and planting half. I try not to plant the same thing in the same place from year to year with the exception of garlic which I like to plant on the fringe because then I don not disturb it in the Spring when tilling. Gardening to me is more an art form and I do not like to be slave to a chart. I prefer to make it up as I go and experiment, learning year to year. I do try to follow companion planting charts in the general theme though. Nice to hear about gardening when we are in the middle of a significant snow storm!

:thumbsup:

dmccarty · Feb 21, 2011

blueriver said:
Wondering if others have a "lay out" or "pattern" for your gardens ...ours is fairly large (so I think) its about 200' x 350'
...

That is not a garden....

That is a farm.

At the wifey's family farm house there is a garden area about an acre in size. I know because I paced it once or twice. :laughing: They have not planted a garden in decades but that acre fed the family.

Our garden is about 25' x 50'. We do not have soil. We have clay. For the garden we brought in a couple truck loads of topsoil. I think about 50 yards. To keep the deer out we have a six foot high fence with the bottom four feet being mesh fence that can keep out rabbits and the top couple of feet being HT wire.

All the work is done by hand. No tractor because the garden is too small and fenced. It is very ironic that we have "lots" of land but little space because of the woods.

I finished clearing out the property line nearest the garden on Friday. Moving up on the To Do list is to cut down about 30 trees between the property line and the "yard." We should have taken down the trees when we built the house. If the trees fall they could hit the house so they are going to get cut down.

We want to use the space to grow fruit trees and expand the garden.

We have given up growing corn since it takes up so much space for so little return. We do rotate the planting as much as we can but I would like to triple the size of the garden so we could let the part of it go fallow every year. I tried a bit of companion planting but I do not think it did much. The best thing we did pest wise was to buy a couple of the Japanese Beetle attractors. Those traps really helped last year.

Last year we had 19 tomato plants which I thought was a bit overboard. We could have planted more.

Though I have to anchor the cages more securely.

A rabbit did sneak into the garden through a gap in the gate and ate up all of the beans.

We are going to start some seeds in the next few weeks. Hopefully we can time it right so we have a bunch of plants ready for 4/15 which is the average last freeze date at our place. Time for some fresh tomatoes!

Later,
Dan

KTurner · Feb 21, 2011

We're still early in learning. As recently as 15-20 years ago, my wife's grandparents had a a couple acre garden here, a hundred or two years ago, her ancestors grew many times that. My wife's 94 year old grandmother lives right beside us and we have a couple small (8x12) sections in her fenced-in back yard (4' chain link). Her grandmother really, really enjoys having veggies grown there, and the fence provides some (enough, so far) protection against wildlife. We also have a larger (25x40) section beside our house.

This will be our third year. The first year was limited to about 8 tomato plants in her grandmother's back yard, so I think of last year as our first real year. Based on it, we know who the enemy is (potato beetles, squash bugs, blister beetles and deer). Last year we had tomatoes, squash, watermelon, cucumbers, potatoes, sunflowers and pumpkins that did decent. Carrots, onions, peppers not so well. We've since heard that peppers grown here need a bit of epsom salt, especially if there's a lot of rain during Spring.

This year we're trying to figure out rotating. We're going to try the three sisters approach. And probably a fence of some sort around the stuff that isn't in her grandmothers back yard. We used some sort of deer repellent powder last year and it worked good until we had a drought and the deer figured out there were pumpkins there. I ended up putting tomato cages over top of any young pumpkin I saw (that didn't already have bite marks). There's plenty of azelas, clover, etc around so I'm thinking that a small fence put up early would be enough to keep the deer away. We'll see.

jeffreythree · Feb 21, 2011

I am gradually getting back into veggie gardening this year after having a job requiring travel that kept made it hard do much of anything in the garden. Trying square foot gardening with 2 4x8 raised beds with broccoli doing well and the snow peas and carrots have sprouted under my mini green houses. I found a cool little freeware program to plot things out, shows companions, and I think shows incompatable crop rotations when you start the next years plan in the same file. Kitchen Garden Aid

Spindifferent · Feb 21, 2011

Hi Blueriver,

Are your rows oriented on the contour or perpendicular to the contour? Also wondering what kind of slope you have.

Thanks,

Spindifferent

twinjayhawks · Feb 21, 2011

blueriver said:
Wondering if others have a "lay out" or "pattern" for your gardens ...ours is fairly large (so I think) its about 200' x 350'

It slopes from East to West ... I put my onions on the high side, then my taters, Peas, Beans working towards the low ground where I put the corn. The wife has her "special" Tomato garden.

I plow in the fall, spread the hog/cow manure and the ground lays idle thru the winter ... spring I plow again, disc harrow and finish the ground with the drag harrow.

I use my JD two row planter set on 30" rows and lay out the onions and the taters on 30" rows ... 6 rows of onions, this year 2000 sets broken up into Texas Sweet, Yellow, White and Purple Onions ... thats the first 6 rows. Then a row of taters, a row of onions, a row of taters, another row of onions and then another row of taters and a row then of Cabbage, Brocolli, Brussell Sprouts.

Then I put an 8' drive area and past that my next 12 rows and then another drive area and 12 more rows and a drive and 12 rows and so on until its done.

In the drive area goes my irrigation system ... low line no taller than 12" to the top of the sprinkler head for clearance and I can drive up and down these with my sprayer that covers 30' at a time ... I use Sevin concentrate for bug control.

My cultivator is set on 30" rows and as long as I don't over irrigate ... I can keep it cultivated without getting stuck !!

Greetings from NE Oklahoma... I would love to see some pictures. I am going to start a Garden this year and it would be very helpful to see your layout. Mine will also slope from East to West and be about your same size. It is just grass right now so i need to work it up. I am not sure the correct timing for starting to work it up and when I should expect to start planting. I will have the option for adding lots of Goat/Cow/Horse manure in as I work it. What would you recommend?

blueriver · Mar 2, 2011

twinjayhawks said:
Greetings from NE Oklahoma... I would love to see some pictures. I am going to start a Garden this year and it would be very helpful to see your layout. Mine will also slope from East to West and be about your same size. It is just grass right now so i need to work it up. I am not sure the correct timing for starting to work it up and when I should expect to start planting. I will have the option for adding lots of Goat/Cow/Horse manure in as I work it. What would you recommend?

I can get some pictures. As of today I have the onions, taters, radish, peas, beans, brussel sprouts, cabbage planted. I am going to risk the weather and go early (this weekend) with the corn.

Sounds like you have a good plan !!

firefighter9208 · Mar 2, 2011

Might want to wait on the corn. We had frost here this morning in Central Alabama. Last year I planted in March and had a problems with the corn yellowing and the greening several times as the weather hit warm and cold several times after I planted. I think my first corn will be early April this year.

Chris

blueriver · Mar 2, 2011

firefighter9208 said:
Might want to wait on the corn. We had frost here this morning in Central Alabama. Last year I planted in March and had a problems with the corn yellowing and the greening several times as the weather hit warm and cold several times after I planted. I think my first corn will be early April this year.

Chris

Chris ... I am slappin myself around with this idea. Usually we wait for the Bois De Arc's to bud.... Thinking, Thinking ........