Selfsufficientish.com

hopefully i'm a week-10days away from getting the keys to my allotment!!.
I've been planning the site and have come up with the following idea, but wanted some knowledgeable opinions on it please.

this is my first year of growing anything on a larger scale (done the odd lettuce/bean etc in a corner of parents garden!). i am only growing for me and ultimately plan to be self sufficient in fruit and vege(with the odd exception maybe )

until i get onto the plot and talk to the neighbours i wont know how long its been since it was last used.....currently its a totally empty plot having been rotovated by the council guy.

my plan is to set up 4 main beds with some smaller beds for soft fruit, flowers, herbs etc.

i plan on working to a 3yr crop rotation and thought to grow a green manure in the 4th bed. also, because its just me i'm feeding and i'll be going into this with no compost(unless the council still has some avaliable), and will only be able to generate a small amount myself, i thought i would halve each of the 3 crop rotation beds and plant a green manure there as well....so half vege, half green manure. then as the compost levels increase, slowly reduce the amount of green manure i grow and increase the vege level(once i've worked out how much yield i'm getting).

does all that make sense first off , and secondly, what do you think....is it a good idea?.

any advice/thoughts greatly received, thanks.

good luck with the new allotment, sounds like a plan, i always find it useful to talk to your nieghbours that have been growing befor you as they may know what grows well and where, also look around see what way that N S E W are, just little tips that may save some failures,
good luck

Russ

Listen to your neighbours, yes... but... take what they say with a pinch of salt and a little reading (books or this forum). I have a neighbour who is very much stuck in his ways, but he is coming round and sees that what we are trying to do makes sense and that there are more than one way to skin a cat.

I am not sure if you are talking about a three or four bed rotation (You can use your green manure in your rotation, no?)

You will be able to pick up muck from somewhere - I grew last year with no compost or muck - twice as much work and half the size of crops... this year I have sourced some well rotted horse manure.
Can you collect compost at a friends house, or family, or at your work?

Green manure can give mixed benefits , there's a bit of advice here:

http://selfsufficientish.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4136

You have to be careful not to let it flower, as it will loose a lot of energy , and could set seed. They tend to be derived from large scale agriculture, which after they have grown they use a plow to dig them in 9 inches, so no chance of them seeding or growing again. THis means you have to do similar: hard work.
Bob Flowerdew on GQT recently advised against the "weed" types like vetch you also have to be careful with the brassica related ones mustards and the like if you have club root. He also said while your growing your manure you're not growing anything useful. Why not grow green manure you can also eat. Things like field beans are obviously a relative of crop beans and peas you could grow them, eat them and fix the nitrogen. Also salad crops like lambs lettice and corn salad are if sown at the right time hardy. I grow them through the winter, they cover the ground stopping seed germination, you can eat them, and they are easy to turn into the soil.
Seeds of Italy have 4 types you get 2200 seeds for £1.60!:
http://www.seedsofitaly.com/catalogue/4
If you only have abit of plot work it hard.
Also if you grow companion plants along with your main crops, these tend to put less stress on the soil so you don't have to resort to green manure.
And finally I can get 3 tonnes of cow manure for £20, it's going to last around 3 years. It has the benefit of being used as a mulch as well as a soil improver. You can use it to grow pumpkins straight into it. Combine that with leaf mould (which is free and litterally grows on trees!)for the plants that don't like the manure (carrots etc) you might not need to leave anything fallow.

Sounds fine to me, it's basically what we do. Have you thought about interspersing the fruit beds with the veg ones? Sort of big veg bed, small fruit bed, big veg bed,,,,,, along down the plot. It's what we do and the fruit then does double duty as windbreaks. It would depend on the shape and size of your plot, I know, but worth considering, it's worked really well for us - but then we are gardening on exposed Northern lotties and wind protection is probably a bigger issue here. A second thought is to visit your plot in bad weather a few times before you lay out anything too permanent, that way you can make a note of areas which might be prone to waterlogging or frost pockets.

thanks for your responses, i'll ponder them over the next 24hrs and respond better.

Hi

Very exciting stuff, good luck with the plot. Sounds spot on to me.

I have put a few bits on a website of our progress, see the attached link for crop rotation information which was passed to me from someone who knew much more than me.


http://homepage.ntlworld.com/justin.rid ... ria/3.html

Have a look around on the site I was given some good info on spuds too which I posted on there.

Good Luck

thanks JR, i'll go have a look at your link later on, once i've done the housework....