Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Continual produce

It can be daunting to create a vegetable garden that produces a full range and enough for a family. During my recent library trip, I came across a book by Lia Lendertz offering a half hour allotment plan. This book clearly shows what to grow on an allotment or large garden, how much of each plant etc. It prompted me to create a small excell spreadsheet ( very sad) with the amounts of veg I wanted to grow and when it all needs planting. It takes a more scientific approach avoiding the glut and famine of the home grocery and in principle you should be able to provide sufficient all year around.
As its September, it suggests this would be a sewing time here in the Uk for Spinach and Garlic and time to plant apple trees, october is the time to plant redcurrant bushes ( 2 for a family of 4) and in November you should sew mangetout peas 1 10ft double row.
I think its a useful exercise to look at what the garden can produce and how that can be strategically achieved. You can tell I was in financial planning can't you...the skills are however as relevant to cabbages as they are to money.

We are spending quite some time clearing the garden and preparing it for winter. A bed is being cleared of weeds and plants to make way for a peach tree and sunflower plot next year.I am also working on putting the claypot irrigation system in place.

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