Raised beds warm earlier in spring.

The solid cover of plants helps to shade out weeds and conserve soil moisture.

When starting a raised bed, remove weeds and sod and add them to the compost pile. To add humus, dig in about one bushel of manure or compost to each 25 square feet of garden. Toss on a few shovefuls of wood ashes. Rake up all loose soil from paths and, if possible, haul in some extra soil from elsewhere on your place. Double digging. If you double-dig your beds, you probably wont be sorry, because deeply worked soil give plant roots more of what they need. To double-dig, remove the soil from a 1foot-deep trench at the edge of the bed and save the dig-up soil to fill the last trench. Then, using a spading fork, loosen the packed earth in the bottom of the trench. Fill the first trench with soil dug from trench number two or continue to dig your way down the bed, trench by trench. Beds should be 3 to 3 1/2 feet wide and any convenient length. Wider beds are hard to reach into. Leave at least one footpath between beds. Ive talked to a fair number of gardeners who chose not to double-dig their raised beds, and they seem to be getting good results, too. One couple first tilled their ground and then shoveled all the loose soil aside and went over the same ground again with their tiller to loosen the soil more deeply. Others have simply piled up as much soil and organic matter as they could collect to raise the beds 8 to 12 inches above ground level. All are reaping the many benefits of the raised bed. It is a trade-off of more intensive preparation and careful planning for easier care and less tilling later on. Table 6 Plant and Row Spacing for Vegetables Space between Plants in Rows (inches) 48-72 9-15 8-10 2-4 3-6 8-12 6-9 2-4 3-4 12-24 18-24 12-24 16-30 12-18 1-3 14-24

Crops Artichokes Asparagus Beans, Broad Beans, Bush Beans, Lima, Bush Beans,Lima, Pole Beans, Pole Beets Broccoli, Raab Broccoli, Sprouting Brussels Sprouts Cabbage, Early Cabbage, Late Cardoon Carrots Cauliflower

Space between Rows (inches) 84-96 48-72 20-48 18-36 18-36 36-48 36-48 12-30 24-36 18-36 24-40 24-36 24-40 36-42 16-30 24-36

Celeriac Celery Chervil Chicory Chinese Cabbage Chives Collards Corn Corn-salad Cowpeas (South Peas) Cress, Garden and Upland Cucumbers Dandelions Dasheen (Taro) Eggplant Endive Florence Fennel Garlic Horseradish Jerusalem Artichokes Kale Kohlrabi Leeks Lettuce, Cos Lettuce, Head Lettuce, Leaf Muskmelon and Other Melons Mustard Okra Onions Parsley Parsnips Peas Peas, Southern (see Cowpeas) Peppers Potatoes Pumpkins Radishes Radishes, Storage Type Rhubarb Roselle Rutabagas Salsify Scolymus

4-6 6-12 6-10 4-10 10-18 12-18 12-24 8-12 2-4 5-6 2-4 8-12 24-36, hills 3-6 24-30 18-36 8-12 4-12 1-3 12-18 15-18 18-24 3-6 2-6 10-14 10-15 8-12 12 24-48, hills 5-10 8-24 2-4 4-12 2-4 1-3 ... 12-24 10 36-60 1/2-1 4-6 24-48 24-46 5-8 2-8 2-4

24-36 18-40 12-18 18-24 18-36 24-36 24-36 30-42 12-18 35-48 12-18 36-72 14-24 42-48 24-48 18-24 24-42 12-24 30-36 42-48 24-36 12-36 12-36 16-24 16-24 12-24 60-84 12-36 24-60 16-24 12-36 18-36 24-48 ... 18-36 30-42 72-96 8-18 18-36 36-60 60-72 18-36 18-36 18-36

Scorzonera Shallots Sorrel Spinach Spinach, New Zealand Squash, Bush Squash, Vining Sweet Potatoes Swiss Chard Tomatoes, Flat Tomatoes, Staked Turnips Turnips Greens Watercress Watermelons

2-4 4-8 1/2-1 2-6 10-20 24-48 36-96 10-18 12-15 18-48 12-24 2-6 1-4 1-3 24-36 72-96, hills

18-36 36-48 12-18 12-36 36-60 36-60 72-96 36-48 24-36 36-60 36-48 12-36 6-12 6-12 72-96

Source: Oscar A.Lorenz and Donald N. Maynard, Knotts Handbook for vegetable Growers, 2d ed. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1980).

Where to Plant What

Once youve determined the basic design and layout of your garden, youll want to decide where to place your plants. In general, tall plants like corn or sunflowers should be planted on the north side of the garden so they dont shade adjacent vegetables. If it is necessary to put them on the south end of the garden, plant parsley, lettuce, or other midsummer shade-tolerant plants next to the corn. Placement of your crops in the garden will be partly determined by their growing habits. Rambling Vine Crops. Squash, pumpkins, melons, and cucumbers may be planted on rows or hills. Theres a certain amount of confusion surrounding the term hill. Generally, a hill is simply a small designated area, not necessarily raised, in which a group of seeds, usually those of spreading plants, is sown. Except in very small gardens, where vines can be trained to climb fences, hills use space more efficiency than rows when growing rambling plants. Planting vining crops in a hill rather than in rows allows for easier placement of compost and manure and simpler, quicker insect control early in the season. Some gardeners do make hills, which are actually small elevated mounds an inch or two above the normal soil level. These small raised bed drain well and warm quickly. Climbers. You can save space in the garden by planting cucumbers, pole beans, certain melons. Malabar spinach, and other if you put them at the edge, next to a fence or trellis, so save an end row for some of these space-takers. Bush Vegetables . In recent years, breeders have developed space-saving bush varieties of popular long-vined vegetables like squash, pumpkins, and melons. Those shorter-vined plants also have shorter internodes - less space between the leaves. Some of them bear earlier, and some have a more determinate habit than their roaming cousins - that is, they may stop bearing and growing

earlier in the season rather than continuing until frost. Most bush varieties produce full-sized fruit. Some previously developed bush-type vegetables were inferior in flavor to those grown on fullsized plants. This situation seem to be improving, though. Bush-type cucumbers seem to suffer the least loss of flavor, watermelon the most. Some of the muskmelons are so-so, but Musketeer has a fine flavor. A plant with more limited leaf area can be stressed by a large fruit load, so pinching off excess flowers and providing plenty of organic matter in the soil should help to encourage between flavor. Overwintering Crops. Parsnips, salsify, and carrots, and late-fall bearers like brussels sprouts, escarole, parsley, and collards, should be planted at the edge of the garden where they will not be disturbed if you intend to till or plow the rest of the garden in the fall. Perennial Vegetables. Crop like asparagus, rhubarb, comfrey, and Jerusalem artichokes should, of course, be planted either at the edge of the garden where they will not be plowed up or in a separate bed.

Crop Rotation
Keep your vegetables moving! Alternating the kinds of crop you know grow in a given space is just about the least expensive and least time-consuming method you can use to maintain and even improve the quality of your soil and the health of your vegetables. Each kind of vegetable that you might grow absorbs soil nutrients in different amounts. Corn and leafy vegetables need a lot of nitrogen; sweet potatoes get along with small doses of nitrogen; root vegetables need potash; legumes (with the help of nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots) actually add nitrogen to the soil. By alternating vegetable families, you give the soil a chance to replenish nutrients and you discourage the proliferation of insect pests. If you plant vulnerable food crop in the different location each year, the bean beetles wont have a ready feast waiting for them the moment they hatch. In addition, plant diseases caused by fungi and bacteria are less likely to threaten successive crop if their host plants keep hopping around. The rotation unit can be a row, half-row, a raised bed, or even a separate garden plot. What constitutes a vegetable group? Some folks simply alternate those vegetables that are generally considered more demanding on the soil - corn, cabbage, squash, melons and their relatives, ad tomatoes - with those that are satisfied with some what leaner soil - legumes, root vegetables, herbs, and onions. A third-year planting of a soil-enriching cover crop like buckwheat, clover, oats, or rye would be a wise addition to such a simple rotation. At the very least, youd want to rotate corn, which is an especially heavy feeder, as well as any vegetables with which youve had serious disease and insect problems in the past. For a more complete and effective rotation, divide your garden vegetables into seven categories: legumes, leafy vegetables, root vegetables, cucurbits, onions and their relatives; tomatoes and related peppers, potatoes, and eggplant; and corn and other grains. If you plant green manure crops, make that your eighth plant group. A sample rotation, then, might be a planting of spring peas followed by fall kale, with parsnips occupying the row the second year, squash the third year, onions next, tomatoes or related vegetables in year five, and corn the following year, after which youd either put in a cover crop of oats or buckwheat, or begin again with legumes - perhaps soybeans - then cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, garlic, eggplant, and so on. The most impressive garden rotation scheme Ive ever seen was worked out by Vertis Bream, an accomplished Pennsylvania gardener who divided his garden into six raised beds, each 3

1/2 feet wide, 30 feet long, and 8 to 12 inches high. The Breams plant a different group of crops in each bed every six years. For example, a bed thats growing beets, potatoes, carrots, and onions this year will be planted to wheat after the root vegetables are pulled up. After the wheat is harvested in the second year, they plant a clover cover crop, followed by corn in the fourth year, then beans, and finally, in six year. Garden rotations can look complicated because were dealing with limited areas and a large variety of plant types, and often with in-season plant successions. Dont worry about making it all come out straight, down to the letter and inch. Just do the best you can to give each kind of vegetable a different spot in the garden each year - a good reason for saving each years mud-spattered garden plan. Green Manure. With careful planning, you can end the season with a section of garden that is free of crops, a perfect chance to put in a soil-building crop of winter rye, or start in spring with oats to be plowed under before they head. Either way youll add humus and nutrients to your garden. In order to have a solid block of land ready for a fall cover crop, its necessary to group a bunch of early-maturing spring plantings together so that when they are harvested in August or September, the rye can be planted right away. (Be sure to get coarse-seeded winter rye, not the fine-seeded grass that may repeat on you in next years garden). Succession Crops. To keep your garden continuously productive, plant crops in succession. They can be dovetailed in a very intricate way. All kinds of variations are possible. Here are a few examples, from my garden: An early planting of peas followed by a late corn planting (but use a fairly earlymaturing kind of corn). Early cabbage followed by late beans. Spring lettuce giving way to fall beets. Early onions succeeded by fall lettuce. Once I planted bean seeds along the row as I harvested leaf lettuce. By the time the lettuce row was used up, all the beans were up and growing. More often, I start seedlings in flats for transplanting into the garden when an early crop is finished. As I gather peas, the kale that will take their place is hardening off on the east patio. When I pull onions, I have Chinese cabbage seedlings ready to take their place.

Interplanting
When planting your garden, you might want to consider interplanting your vegetables. Interplanting saves space. Its seldom necessary, for example, to devote a whole row to spring radishes. Plant them, instead, along with your lettuce and carrots and use them as thinnings when theyre ready. One year I grew a long grow of bush beans between the widely spaced, just-planted rows of tomatoes and squash. By the time the vines closed over the gap, Id harvested many meals of good green beans. Pumpkins do well at the edge of the corn patch where they have space to ramble. In studies at the University of Maryland, sweet corn and soybeans planted in the same row produced satisfactory harvests. Although individual vegetable yields were lower and corn ripened three days later, the total harvest from the row was larger.

Companion Planting