Raised Bed Plan - Carrots, Radish, Yellow Onions, Winter Carrots, and Mache Salad • Vegocracy

Raised Bed Plan – Carrots, Radish, Yellow Onions, Winter Carrots, and Mache Salad
This Raised Bed is planned to give 3 Batches of Vegetables during one season. The picture above shows the layout of second batch.

First Batch:

Early Carrots (test for this year)
Radish

Second Batch:

Yellow Onions
Winter Carrots

Third Batch:

Mache Salad

Why these crops?
Carrots and Onions traditionally thrive together. The smell of Onions keeps the Carrot Bugs away, and they compliment each other since Carrot roots grow deep and Onion roots grow wide.

Sowing Carrots and Planting Onions at the same times enables me to grow something before, and something after these Crops. I will try to do an early batch of Carrots to eat fresh for the first Batch. For the third Batch I will focus on Mache Salad since it’s cold resistant and very tasty.

Location
3c = This bed is in the “Needs Less” Quarter in my Crop Rotation Plan.

It is one out of Several Garden Beds (29 when I’m writing this, but tends to be more and more each season…) See the total list of beds and Layout in my Garden Plan for Raised Beds 2017.

Time Plan for this Bed
This is my schedule for this bed. The dates will depend a lot on where you live, and what average temperatures and sunny hours you have at different months. I’m in Northern Europe and this is the Plan I follow:

January – end of:

Winter Sow Carrots (select a variety good for early Winter Sowing). For more info on Winter Sowing, see this post from last winter: Winter Sowing.
Winter Sow Radish. I place mine in the middle of the bed (where I will plant the Onions later), since I’m sure that I will pick all the radish before it’s time to plant the Onion Bulbs.
Cover the Garden Bed with a Glass Window Frame or Plastic Frame to help the Sun warm up the Bed faster.

May – mid:

Harvest Carrots and Radish Continuously as soon as you can, and pick the last Radish mid may to make room for Onion
Add Cow Manure and/or Compost to the mid rows where you cleared out the Radishes
Plant Yellow Onion Bulbs in the middle rows

May – end:
[*]Harvest the last Carrots
[*]Start Winter Carrot Seeds in the same place where you just harvested the Summer Carrots

September – beginning/mid:

Harvest and dry your Yellow Onion
Harvest Winter Carrots
Add Cow Manure to the Bed
Direct Sow Mache Salad seeds in the Raised Bed

November- beginning:

Harvest the remaining Mache Salad
Cover the Bed with Organic Material like Leaves and/or Grass Clippings and let it rest over the winter.

Background
My Kitchen Garden is built with a modular approach. I have a number of Raised Beds (Deep Beds) – currently 29 beds. Most of them are 120×80 centimeters. They are Deep Beds and I always cover them with Organic Material to improve soil and nutrients, and also have a No Dig Garden. More background information can be found in these posts:

Kitchen Garden Layout Plan – Layout overview
Building a Raised Bed Kitchen Garden – How to Deep Dig the frames and feed them with organic material
How to build Raised Bed Frames – Step-by-Step guide on how to do the Frames for the Raised Beds.

Methods I use to plan each Garden Bed
I plan each bed carefully and enjoy making and developing my plans. I try to consider different angles:
– Succession Planting: I want to have at least 3 batches from each bed to maximize my harvest
– Crop Rotation: I rotate my basic crops each year to eliminate diseases. I have a 4 year Crop Rotation Plan (more about my Crop Rotation Plan here).
– Companion Planting: I want each batch to consist of Plants that thrive together to get good harvest and keep the plants healthy.
– Continuous Harvest: I want to be able to harvest from early spring to late autumn without having to preserve too much food. We prefer to eat all the vegetables as fresh as possible.

Don’t hesitate to discuss the planning of this bed with me. There is always loads of input that can help improving this further.

Update, 11th of February

I continued my Winter Sowing today, and got to this Raised Bed. I’m Winter Sowing Carrots and Radish according to the plan.

I’m not writing detailed instructions for every Raised Bed that I’m Winter Sowing. See this post for more detailed instruction on How to Winter Sow: Winter Sowing in Raised Beds.

Update, 26th of March

Radish is the first thing to sprout in this Raised Bed. Seems like I got the rows fairly straight..

Update, 8th of April

Radish are looking good outdoors. It seems like I got the rows fairly straight at sowing.

Update, 23rd of April

Oh no! Radish is not doing to good in this raised bed. Temperatures have been unpredictable. -7 degrees celsius during the night, and really really hot in the raised beds during daytime. Obviously these radishes did not cope… Well well.. I have more radishes coming in other raised beds. But still sad to see.