- rotational cropping
- companion planting
- composting methodologies
- historical garden design
It has taken me several months working part-time to create the Spring planting guide incorporating these items. Unfortunately, the historical aspect has been cut out of most of the garden plan by the clients. I have submitted a plan that includes a historical mushroom bed, but I have not received word yet on if it will be implemented. The other historical piece was a submission of recipes to use the Medlars that are grown on site. You can read that post here.
The other aspects have been entered into the plan as much as possible. We will be doing 3 test plots to check for OM and yield ratios. One will be mulching, one will be deep-bed mulching, and the last will be lasagna bed compost/mulching. I originally took soil samples and did the OM/C testing and submitted it to the client back in December. You can read the post here. After the season (May) I will do another round of testing and see if the ratios have changed any.
This is the design I planned for the garden*. You can open the excel sheet detailing the plants, beds, and sizes here. I am still working on the quantity of packets needed for purchase and the estimated crop yields, but you can get an idea of the scale when you look at the picture. Once the client gives me feedback I will make additional changes and updates.
*edit: so, this is not what the client wanted at all. Apparently, they already had plans in place, so I am re-working my plan to follow theirs, but with a few additions of my own. I'll post the final version when it's done.
I used the Garden Planner program from the Farmer's Almanac. The benefit is it has companion planting guides as well as plant spacing built into the program, which means I had to do less work on those aspects. There is a way to do rotation planning as well, but you need to enter in the months you will leave each plant in the ground, which is fine for small gardens, but a time-consuming pain for larger ones like this market garden. Another problem was it only takes into account 'popular' plants and U.S. growing zones, so I had to do other research on those aspects. The website the client uses for purchasing seed stock for France and the Netherlands is Vilmorin, which has a great website and includes information on planting and harvesting times. I used their planting times for my chart. They also have a pdf calendar showing the same information. Most of the information I needed was on their site, but I did need to go to several others for certain one-off pieces of information.
So far I've spent about 60 hrs of 'billable' client time. I would have prefered to make the garden follow an actual 16th century garden plan, but that isn't what the client wants. I'm hoping there will be only minor edits once they have a chance to review.
Ironically, I got much more history out of the Beer MOOC I'm working on than this, but I am learning a lot about garden design and planning.
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| An idea as to what we hope the bed will provide. |
Here is the information regarding the mushroom bed:
Mushroom Garden in the Victorian Era
Bed Design:
Raised mounds made of fresh horse dung. When the temperature of the ridges is around 80F, pieces of mushroom spawn about 2-in square are placed about a foot apart. The bed should then be moulded over two inches thick with more horse dung, pressed with the feet, and afterwards beaten with a spade. Then water and beat again, finally smoothed over. The more the mould is pressed into finer power the better the crop will be. Any further watering should be done with liquid manure. The ridges should be covered with straw and mats to maintain their shape and heat.
Bed should be made in areas of partial shade, but not standing water. Ridges will keep down on the watering issue if covered in straw properly.
Resource:
James Cuthill, F. (1870). A Treatise of the Cultivation of the Mushroom (Third ed.). London, United Kingdom: Groombridge and Sons.
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