iGrowVeg

Planning your Vegetable Garden Part 1 – Grouping Vegetable Types

Posted on 13. Oct, 2009 by Tracey in Plan Your Veg Garden

Planning your vegetable plot for the next growing season may seem a bit boring to some but it is an important part of your vegetable garden. Once you have a good plan to refer to throughout the year with sowing and harvesting dates, you can sit back and watch your plants grow. There’s a few things to take into consideration when deciding what vegetable to plant in which area of your raised bed or plot.

Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is moving your vegetable crops to a different location within your raised bed system or a different area within your allotment bed. It is worth planting or sowing your vegetables in groups of brassicas, legumes, onions, potatoes and root vegetables. If you have raised beds this is quite easy to group the above vegetables grown into one bed i.e. Brassicas in Plot 1, Legumes in Plot 2 etc. Crop Rotation is based on a 3 or 4 year rotation. Its handy if you have 3 or 4 separate beds or beds divided into 3 or 4 areas.

Vegetable Groups Explained

Brassicas

Include the following vegetables: Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprout, Chinese cabbage, Rapini, Kale, Mustard.

Legumes

Include the following vegetables: Peas, Runner Beans, Dwarf Beans, French Beans, Broad Beans, Snap Beans, Mange Tout, Lentils, Soya Beans.

Roots

Include the following vegetables: Carrots, Parsnip, Turnip, Swede, Beetroot, Radish.

Miscellaneous

can be added to any group: Spinach, Chard, Leek, Pak Choi, Chicory, Lettuce, Squash, Pumpkins, Tomatoes (but keep away from Potatoes due to Blight).

Onions and Potatoes can be grown in separate beds. Onions like Spring onions, onion sets, leeks can be grown together or grown with other root vegetables. Potatoes can be grown in their own bed or with any of the other types except Tomatoes as they can cause a cross contamination of blight as they are in the same vegetable family.

Exceptions: Turnip and Swede are in the Brassica family but are classed under the Roots group.

Reasons for Crop Rotation

• Diseases in the soil could be transferred onto your next crop. For example Clubroot in cabbages.
• To remove pests from the area – next years caterpillars may already be in your soil, it might be time to move your cabbages to another plot.
• To have a change of scenery – we all like to see a visual change in the garden from time to time,
• To enable the plot to be prepared ahead of time – between August and October is a period where summer vegetables have been harvested and winter veg hasn’t gone it yet or will be short lived like Pak Choi. Try and prepare the ground in advance with fertiliser or compost to replenish your soil for the next crop.
• Crop Rotation can actually increase the size and quantity of your crops, there maybe new weather or growing conditions in your new plot enough to make a difference at harvest time.
• The soil in your plot may currently be deficient of a particular nutrient especially if the same vegetable is grown every year in the same spot.

Free Resources

Please see below for a Free PDF Download packed with extra information on Crop Rotation and my crop rotation plans for this year,

Part 1 Grouping Vegetable Types

Description:
This is the introduction to planning your own vegetable garden where the different types of vegetable groups (Brassicas, Legumes, Roots and Miscellaneous) are explained and how to incorporate them into your vegetable garden and crop rotation plans. This also features my Crop Rotation plans for my raised beds for this year.

Part 1 – Grouping Vegetable Types and Crop Rotation
File Size: 1.1 MB.



Alternatively view it in Google Docs Viewer instead – Click here to View: Part 1 Grouping Veg Types

Stay tuned over the forthcoming months where I’ll be showing you the important points of planning your vegetable garden for your spring sowings in my ‘Planning Your Vegetable Garden’ Series.

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iGrowVeg – Planning your Vegetable Garden Series

• Part 1 – Grouping Vegetable Types and Crop Rotation,
• Part 2 – What Can I Grow?
• Part 3a – Drawing a Plan
• Part 3b – Creating a Plan Online
• Part 4 – Choosing your Seeds
• Part 5 – My Vegetable Plan and Seed List
• Part 6 – Putting Your Plan into Action
• For Free PDF’s and Templates to accompany the series, please view my Free Resources.