Plan Your Vegetable Garden Layout
Most gardeners know to change their vegetable garden layout, at least tweak it, each year.
First, changing placement of the various plants from year to year adds to the general well being of the soil. Different families of vegetables require different nutrients and often take them from different layers of the soil.
Lettuces for instance, have very shallow roots and get most of what they need from the top soil.
Tomatoes, on the other hand, have deep roots that take their nutrients up several inches below the surface.
The deeply rooted vegetables also help loosen the soil up below the surface to make a good planting bed for root vegetables the next year.
Peas and beans are great vegetables for adding nitrogen to the soil. If you’ve had a year or two of corn that takes a lot of nitrogen out of the soil, try a bed of peas or beans there the next year.
Yet another benefit to changing your vegetable garden layout from year to year (also called crop rotation) is a reduction in insect and disease damage.
If you have had damage to your cucumbers last year, this year, plant something from a different vegetable family there.
Vegetables are grouped into different families that share similar growing conditions and also, similar pest problems. If you have a pest problem then, best to break up the “families” for a couple of years so the problem doesn’t overwhelm the entire garden.
Here are the families with common home garden vegetables:
SQUASH FAMILY: Cucumbers, melons, zucchini
TOMATO FAMILY: Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant
CABBAGE FAMILY: Broccoli, cabbage, kale, radish, Brussels sprouts, turnips
LEGUME FAMILY: Beans, peas
GRASS FAMILY: Corn
ONION FAMILY: Asparagus, onion, garlic, leeks
LETTUCE FAMILY: Lettuce, artichokes
BEET FAMILY: Spinach, chard, beets
CARROT FAMILY: Celery, parsnips, carrots
MORNING GLORY FAMILY : Sweet potato
If you just don’t have the space to separate different varieties in the same family, another thought is to intersperse some flowers not for their appearance (although does that ever hurt?) but for the beneficial insects that they will attract.
These “good” insects will often feed on the ones giving you the problems.
Ladybugs and lacewings are some of the hungrier GOOD bugs.
Try adding a few coneflowers, sweet alyssum or blanketflowers into the vegetable garden.
There are herbs that have a similar benefit, dill, parsley and cilantro are a few,and you can still eat them!
On the subject of interspersing in the garden, leaf lettuce is a great vegetable to “toss” in between other vegetables that take longer to grow.
Sprinkle some lettuce seeds among the Brussels sprouts for instance. By the time the Brussels sprouts get big enough, you will have already harvested the lettuce.
Planting lettuce seeds along with carrots work because the shallow rooted lettuce doesn’t interfere with the deep rooted carrots. Just be sure to harvest the lettuce by slicing it off at the soil line rather than pulling it up so as not to disturb the still growing carrots.
An easy way to do your vegetable garden layout is to rotate yearly this way : fruit crops replaced with leafy vegetables replaced with root vegetables then back to fruit crops.
Keep in mind placement in the garden of taller vegetables as well as where the shade will fall.
Most crops, possible exception of lettuces in very warm weather, like full sun. Tall tomato and corn plants for instance, will cast a long shadow at some point in the day. Take note of what falls in that shadow.
You can plan your garden layout by beds or rows. Planting your rows in staggered lines lets you get a few more plants in than if you planted in a grid.
The best vegetable garden layout plan starts on paper. Decide what vegetables you want this year and how much space you can devote to them.
Be sure to plan in a walking path so you have enough room for weeding and harvesting.
Try adding some fragrance around the garden.
Read up on some fragrant flowers here.
Here is a sample vegetable garden layout for an average backyard garden.
Making a garden bed 7 to 12 inches higher than the ground around it will warm up that soil considerably faster, giving some of your crops a nice head start on the growing season.
In warmer regions though, this can be a hindrance rather than a help. The soil might get too warm and dry out very quickly.
Consider adding a drip irrigation system to your raised beds.
Another great benefit of a raised bed vegetable garden is that if you build it narrow enough so you don’t have to walk in the garden itself, the soil will remain loose and uncompacted. That’s especially good news for root vegetables.
