My Crop Rotation Vegetable Garden
Crop Rotation Vegetable Garden Diary and Plans
In July 2010 (Winter in Australia), I decided to convert some of our back lawn into vegetable garden. We already had raised garden beds on the sides and one out the front. But I wanted to try at home some of the no-dig gardening techniques I had learned in my Tafe course.
Some of the goals I wanted to achieve with this garden were:
- decoratively shaped garden beds
- to grow some veggies I haven't tried growing before
- to grow some veggies I haven't been successful in growing before
- to be self-sufficient in our vegetable and herb needs (minus potatoes)
- to have a plan for rotating my vegetable garden crops
Above photo - my own photo of produce from my garden
Crop Rotation Plan
My veggie garden is made up of basically 7 crops (not all present at one time) in 5 sections:
1) (semi) permanent section - strawberries, herbs
2) root and leafy green crop
3) corn and vine crop
4) green manure crop
5) tomato crop
6) legume crop
7) brassica crop
Based on this crop rotation schedule. (Note: this is an Australian website. In the Northern hemisphere you will need to flip the seasons)
Backyard Self Sufficiency
Vegetable Garden Diary (Late Winter) - July-August 2010
Started seedlings in toilet rolls in my mini greenhouse:
- silverbeet (Swiss chard)
- cauliflower
- beetroot
Made a no-dig vegetable garden using grey blocks, I filled the gaps in the blocks with soil so that they could be planted with various plants.
All the vegetable garden plans on this page were created using this vegetable garden planning software. Try it for free.
My Vegetable Garden Plan - Spring - Summer 2010-2011
Vegetable Garden Diary (Early Spring)
September 2010
Started seedlings in toilet rolls in my mini greenhouse:
- silverbeet (Swiss chard)
- carrots
- lettuce (cos and leaf lettuce)
- beans
- tomatoes
- sweet corn
- zucchini
- vegetable spaghetti
Planted straight in the garden:
- peanuts (from a packet of raw, unsalted peanuts bought from the supermarket)
- leeks (a whole bunch of small leek plants from my brother)
- spring onions (the bases cut off some I bought from the shops)
- garlic
Planted seedlings in the garden beds:
- silverbeet
- cauliflower
- beetroot
Garden Notes
The birds scratched out the peanut seeds I had planted. Only one plant came up. So I will plant more peanuts in toilet rolls and place in the greenhouse,
None of the garlic came up, I will try again at a better time of year
Vegetable Garden Diary (Mid-late Spring)
October - November 2010
Planted seeds in toilet rolls and left in greenhouse:
- peanuts
- sweetcorn
Planted out the seedlings in their toilet rolls:
- silverbeet
- carrots
- lettuce
- tomatoes
- sweetcorn
- zucchini
- strawberries - some new plants and some moved from another garden bed into my new beds
- peanuts (much more successful germination rate without the birds!)
Planted bought seedlings:and seedlings from friends
- green/red capsicum (pepper)
- yellow capsicum (pepper)
- black (!) capsicum (pepper)
- eggplant
- chilli plant
- sage
- thyme
- yellow parsley
- sweet basil
Transplanted seedlings coming up from the compost I put in the veggie garden beds:
- pumpkins
- tomatoes
Garden Notes
The peanut plants started flowering. They haven't grown as high as I was expecting. Hopefully we'll get some peanuts :-) Next time I will try planting the peanuts around the beans. and grow some sugar snap peas.
I planted too many lettuces all at once. We had warm wet weather and most of them bolted to seed.. My goal was to do succession planting, starting a few new seedlings every couple of weeks. (Oh dear - I was too lazy and did a whole lot all at once)
I planted out 4 zucchini plants which all started bearing fruit. Next time try only 2 plants!
Starting to harvest some beans.
Constantly using silverbeet. But we probably didn't need this many plants.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Early Summer) - December 2010
Planted bought seedlings:
- coriander
- parsley
- rosemary
Potted up some oregano plants from another garden bed.
Transplanted strawberries from another garden bed into the centre garden bed. Now it's full of strawberries!
Garden Notes
Large harvests of beans, zucchini and silverbeet (I just pick the outside leaves). I let some zucchini grow too big and they were a bit woody,
Several sweetcorn have grown tall and are fruiting, but the ones I planted later were swamped by the pumpkins and haven't grown very tall and consequently have no fruit.
The grass on the paths between the garden beds has been a constant pain - it is difficult to mow and it keeps invading the garden beds. We plan to mulch the internal paths,
I didn't have enough stakes for my tomatoes. Poor little things! Many are lying down, We have started harvesting tomatoes (which are very tasty) but the fruit flies have also found them. I plan to buy a fruit fly trap.
A potato has popped up amongst the peanuts. I didn't pull it out soon enough so now I am reluctant to pull it out because I think I may disturb any peanuts that may be forming. We have had warm wet weather, so everything is growing really quickly,
Harvested some of the carrots but they were very short and stumpy. I suspect this is because the garden soil has gradually settled and shrunk down so there is not much depth to the soil (above the newspapers). Carrots here are usually pretty cheap to buy, so until I can get more depth (maybe another course of bricks?) I may not bother with growing my own carrots.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Mid Summer)
January 2011
Seeds planted:
- cos lettuce
- loose leaf lettuce
- sweet corn
Garden Notes
We were away on holidays for the first half of January, so I only started working in the garden mid January. We returned to find a tomato crop completely destroyed by fruit fly. The flies also found my zucchinis. I'm trying the following methods for eradicating fruit fly:
- water+sugar+vanilla essence+ammonia - ineffective, but I did use imitation vanilla essence!
- apple cider vinegar+chopped up tomato - have managed to catch some females
- commercial male fruit fly bait - seems to be effective
- picked and discarded all the tomatoes - even the green ones
We harvested our first corn - beautiful! And I've noticed that an eggplant (aubergine) fruit is growing.
We are having a lovely crop of beans. I'm freezing most of them.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Late Summer)
February 2011
Seeds planted in punnets:
- cabbage
- chinese cabbage
- broccoli
- cauliflower
Seeds planted directly in the garden bed
- carrots (I know I said I wasn't going to try them again until the beds were deeper, but I topped up one section with some mushroom compost and I had the space and the seeds (out of date though))
Garden Notes
Harvested the eggplant. Only one but still nice. The plant continues to flower, so maybe we'll get more.
Continue to harvest strawberries
Bean plants dying off after a great bean harvest. I have saved some for seed for next year
I've noticed a tiny black capsicum forming. I wonder if it will get any bigger...
Planned Autumn / Fall Crop Rotation - March - April 2011
I plan to add the brassicas - broccoli, cabbage, pak choy, Chinese cabbage.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Early Autumn / Fall)
March 2011
Planted seeds in punnets:
- cabbage
- cauliflower
- pak choi
- chinese cabbage
- beetroot
- lettuce
Planted:
- mustard seedlings
- rainbow chard seedlings
- leek seedlings
- mizuna seedlings
- spring onion seedlings
- leek seedlings
- pineapple sage
- more carrot seeds (yes, I bought some more!)
Garden Notes
None of the carrot seeds came up. Will try with new seed (in date!)
My little black capsicum is getting bigger.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Mid Autumn / Fall)
April 2011
Planted seeds in punnets:
- cabbage
- beetroot
- pak choi
Planted in the garden bed:
- new carrot seeds
Garden Notes
Grrr. I found caterpillars on my brassica seedlings which completely destroyed them.
I have several black capsicums (peppers), several yellow capsicums, and several green / red capsicums forming
I have quite a number of large green chillis growing on the plant
There are 3 shiny, black eggplants on the bush
Yay! These carrot seeds are coming up.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Late Autumn / Fall)
May 2011
I haven't been able to plant the peas yet because the we're still harvesting tomatoes. I also haven't been able to plant the green manure crop because I can't bring myself to pull out the pumpkin vine which has baby pumpkins. Our mornings are getting very cold now though, so I don't think it will survive much longer! Infact this morning (mid-May) there was a slight frost.
Planned Winter Crop Rotation - May - Aug 2011
I plan to add a green manure crop and my Winter legumes - peas, sugar snap peas.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Early Winter)
June 2011
As I pull out the old plants, I am adding manure and compost to the beds before planting new seedlings.
Harvested:
- a lovely quantity of peanuts
- the last of the zucchinis and pulled out the last remaining plant
- the last of the eggplant fruit
- more capsicums
- plenty of silverbeet
- plenty of mustard
- spring onions
Planted in the garden bed:
- cabbage seedlings
- beetroot seedlings
- cauliflower seedlines
- brocolli seedlings
- celery seedlings
- garlic cloves
Vegetable Garden Diary (Mid Winter)
July 2011
Garden Notes
I am paying the price for my procrastination. I was so slow at clearing out the pumpkin section of the garden that there was not enough time to plant my green manure crop. So I have just left that section fallow. Also, because I was so reluctant to pull out the tomato plants (those green tomatoes never ripened!), I was late in putting in the peas. So I just put in two rows and plan to plant my Spring crops around them. Got to get back to my original calendar plan.
On the bright side, we have finally mulched those paths in the middle of the garden. I now plan to mulch on the fruit tree side of the veggie garden.
Harvested:
- more mustard
- more silverbeet (everything I cook gets mustard and silverbeet added!)
- more mizuna
- leeks
- spring onions
- parsley
- sage
- oregano
- sweet potato
Planted
- more garlic
- sugar snap peas
My Vegetable Garden Layout (Actual) - Spring / Summer 2011 - 2012
Well. This is embarrassing. I planted all my Spring vegetables without consulting my plan. Now I've realized that I have rotated the garden beds the wrong way! I'm not sure how crucial it is to rotate the other way. This plan shows the way I have planted my vegetable garden beds (or the way I intend to plant it once I can bring myself to pull out the silverbeet and celery which is still growing well. I have also included the fruit tree side of the patch, showing a couple of smaller beds and the citrus trees.
Vegetable Garden Diary (Spring)
Sep, Oct, Nov 2011
Garden Notes
Oh dear. I've been a bit slow in updating this page this spring!
I did get to mulch on the fruit tree side of the veggie garden and I am back to the spring garden where my whole plan has been rotated 90 degrees.
Harvested:
- more mustard
- more silverbeet
- carrots
- leeks
- spring onions
- parsley
- sage
- oregano
- sugar snap peas
- strawberries
Planted
- tomatoes
- zucchini
- watermelon
- beans
- pumpkin
- vegetable spaghetti
- more silverbeet
- sweetcorn
- peanuts
- basil
- potatoes
- chiocolate mint (in a pot)
Vegetable Garden Diary (Summer) - December 2011 - February 2012
Garden Notes
As you can see from this photo taken in December, I haven't been able to bring myself to pull out all the silverbeet yet! (Bottom right of photo). I am still harvesting from them ... after all I am my mother's daughter! But I do have one section of green beans and peanuts.
Harvested:
- sweetcorn
- more silverbeet
- tomatoes
- zucchini (yellow)
- leeks
- spring onions
- parsley
- sage
- oregano
- beans
- strawberries
- celery
