Bed plan – Kitchen Garden (486)
by Max Akroyd
Having been conclusively frozen out of the garden this morning I thought I’d master the scanner and present the cropping plan for the garden.
Kervéguen garden is presently divided into seven areas for growing fruit and vegetables. There are half-a-dozen other areas in and amongst as yet uncultivated, which we refer to collectively as ‘the Rough’. The pigs will be working these areas over the course of this year and some will come into production in the coming months but mainly to grow forage crops for the animals.
The seven cultivated areas are the Kitchen Garden, the Upper Beds, the Lower Beds, the Perennial Beds, the Triangle, the Allotment (previously known as the Orchard) and the Herb Garden. I’ll post one plan per day for the next week. A bit like the beds themselves, these are very rough and ready, but hopefully give an idea of what’s going on (to me, if not to you!). This is the Kitchen garden; blue ink represents the first plantings, green ink the follow on crops, and black ink the permanent plantings (already in):
A grown up drew this!
The Kitchen Garden comprises mainly long, low raised beds and lies on an east west axis. It’s the first area you see as you enter the garden and we aim to prettify it with a surrounding fence later in the year; in the meantime the wild flowers planned for the eastern side should make it an appealing prospect. This part of the garden is the least exposed and we’re trying to accentuate this advantage with windbreak plantings of artichokes on the windward flank. All but the leek and the artichoke beds are more or less planted or ready for planting.
ruralidiocy.wordpress.com 
I’m really impressed with this first one. (You like your Artichokes don’t you!)
How many rows of plants are in each row (if you know what I mean) or is it just one, and how long are the beds?
I did our plans yesterday, if you thought yours looked childlike you should see mine!!
Sue xx
Hmmm… I should have mentioned dimensions really! The top asparagus bed is 30 metres long and, like most of the thin beds, just short of a metre wide.
This means I can manage a double row of most things beetroot-size or smaller, although I tend to do staggered rows.
Artichokes do really well in Brittany mainly because they are just fancy thistles which can resist that West wind!
Thanks for the usual kindness about my dodgy pictures; I confess I had good fun using my daughter’s pens!
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