I’m planning for an extended Kitchen Garden for next year. It will follow the same principles as my current Garden, just add some more space. Here’s a Visual Plan of the Garden Layout:
Raised Beds / Deep Beds
I plan to dig Deep Beds (dig approximately 30 cm into the ground) and then add Frames/Raised Beds on top of that. I will add an an extra 30 cm of Soil in the Frames. This meens that the Vegetables get a nice layer of 60 cm of great soil to grow in. Their roots will stretch downwards instead of sideways and allow me to grow more Vegetables in the same area since I can plant them closer to each other.
Why adding frames?
Adding the Frames/Raised Beds on top of my Deep Beds has several benefits:
– Allows the Beds to warm up a bit faster in the spring.
– Prevents me from walking around in the beds.
– Makes it easy for cover material (like leaves, grass clippings and so on) to stay put and add nutrients to the soil continously.
– Makes it easier to add and fix Cold Frames and other supplies.
Modular System
Each Raised Bed will be 80×120 cm. This builds a Modular System where I can move Cold Frames, Trellis, Smal Grow Tents etc. between the Beds and use them where they are needed at the moment. It also allows me to reuse a lot of things that I already have for my existing Garden – like the Cold Frames that I built this Season.
Crop Rotation
I plan to keep my current Crop Rotation system. It’s built on 4 main Quarters/Blocks:
1. Enriching (with a twist..) – Purple Areas
2. Heavy Feeders – Green Areas
3. Needs Less – Blue Areas
4. Needs almost nothing – Red Areas
(More about this in the post on My Crop Rotation).
I will also get some Extra Raised Beds – Yellow Areas – where I will grow Perennials like Strawberries, have my Soil Factory and grow some stuff that I can’t fit anywhere else..
I am not done with the planning of exactly what to grow in each Bed. That will be a nice planning job to save for the Winter. What do you think? General input? Ideas?
Update, 15th of August
I decided to change the Garden Layout a bit. The reason is simple: I wanted to fit more Raised Beds. I decided to go for a more straight forward Garden Layout, and reduce the areas between the Garden Beds. This allows me to fit 25 Garden Beds instead of the 22 that was in my original Plan.
This is the updated Garden Layout Plan:
This is the area I plan to use for the extended Kitchen Garden.
