Ivydene Gardens Vegetable Gallery: Introduction

When creating a vegetable garden, the most common method of reducing the likelihood of disease and pest problems caused by planting the same plant in the same place every year is to use a rotation system:-

• 4-Year Rotation: Potato, Legume, Brassica or Root
• or
• Gertrude Franck's Companion Planting: Spinach is sown in the spring and the rows between the rows of spinach are split into: Main Crop A, 0.5 Year Crop B, Short-lived Crop C or Perennial Crop D as shown below.

Gertrude Franck Companion Planting Vegetable Garden

Companion planting cultivation is concerned with which plants will respond well to a certain environment, and in which environment, pests can be discouraged and diseases prevented. In order to make such mixed vegetable cultivation possible, monoculture in beds is replaced by row-crop cultivation, in which the right plants will be properly spaced. The companion-planted garden has to be considered not only in relation to its plant material above ground, but also the affects on the soil and the biomass of that plant's roots. Ten ways that companion planting works is provided in the garden design section.

Companion Planting can also be used for pest control rather than chemicals.

The book "Companion Planting - successful gardening the organic way" by Gertrude Franck (based on her 35 years of practical experience in Germany) Thorsons Publishing Group 1983, ISBN 0-7225-0695-3 states the following:

Spinach is sown in spring in rows 20 inches (50cm) apart over the whole vegetable garden area for the following purposes:

• these rows divide the vegetable garden up for the whole year,
• the spinach roots prevent erosion, so the usual paths between beds are omitted,
• young spinach plants provide protection and shade for the vegetable crops to be grown between them,
• spinach provides ideal material for sheet surface composting, which becomes an intermediate space, a footpath, and
• it is in between these lines of spinach that the other vegetable varieties are arranged.

The Garden Layout below shows that the rows are given letters. The main crop in the A rows is planted in May, but can follow an early crop almost immediately. They are 6.5 feet (2 metres) apart and are intended for:-

tomatoes,
runner beans,
cucumbers,
late cabbage,
broad beans,
potatoes and
courgettes.

Halfway between 2 A rows there is 1 B row, which is intended for plants which are going to require this space either in the first half or in the second half of the growing year. Each of these rows will yield at least 2 full crops. These are:-

leeks,
onions,
black salsify,
cauliflower,
celeriac,
kidney beans,
spring beans,
beetroot,
peas and
parsnips.

Halfway between the A row and the B row there is the C row, which is set with short-lived plants with a comparatively small, low growth. Each of these rows will produce 2 or often 3 crops one after another. These are:-

carrots,
lettuce,
endives,
kohlrabi and
fennel.

The perennial crops in Row D stay in the same place and the others are not planted in the same place for another 2 years:-

annuals

asparagus

chives

herbs

perennials

Cauliflower (Summer/Autumn Use) 'Boris'

Gertrude Franck's Vegetable Garden Layout with Companion Planting

Fence with Flowers and Gate

D.
All
kinds
of
herbs,
ann-
uals
and
perr-
enials

D.
Chi-
ves
and
Rhu-
barb

Today's word is:-

Fluctuations 

I was at my bank today.  There was just one lady in front of me, an Asian lady who was trying to exchange yen for dollars.

It was obvious she was a little irritated... 
She asked the teller, "Why it change?  yesterday, I get two hunat dolla foYen. Today I only get hunat eighty?  Why it change?" 

The teller shrugged his shoulders and said, "Fluctuations."  

The Asian lady says, "Fluc you white people too."

B.
Cauliflo-
wer
and
B.
Celeriac

C.
Late
Carrots

Cucumber (Mini Cucumber) 'Cucino F1'

C.
Lettuce

A.
Cucumber

A.
Tomatoes
alternating
with
C.
radishes

A.
Cabbage
C.
Lettuce
(second
sowing)

Carrot (f1 Hybrid) 'Creme De Lite F1'

B.
Caulifl-
owers
and
B.
Celeriac

B.
Onions
followed
by
C.
corn salad

A.
Cabbage
C.
Lettuce
(third
sowing)

C.
Late
Carrots

A.
Late
Cabbage
and
B.
Celeriac

A.
Tomatoes
alternating
with
C.
Radishes

C.
Carrots
(second
sowing)

C.
Late
Carrots

B.
Black salsify

B.
Onions followed by
C.
Sugarloaf

C.
Carrots (second sowing)

C.
Late Carrots

A.
Late Cabbage and
A.
Celeriac

A.
Beans alternating
with
C.
Kohlrabi

C.
Carrots (second sowing)

C.
Endives or other salad crops

Beetroot (Globe) 'Bolthardy'

A.
New Potatoes

B.
Spring Greens alternating with
B.
Celeriac then
B.
Kidney Beans

B.
Beetroot

C.
Various Salad crops

A.
Brussels Sprouts
B.
and Kale

A.
Beans alternating with
C.
Kolhrabi and
C.
Radishes

B.
Beetroot

B.
Leeks

covering 3-year-old Straw-
berries

C.
Carrots

covering 3-year-old Straw-
berries

B.
Marrowfat Peas

Lettuce (Butterhead) 'Relic - Red Deers Tongue'

C.
Carrots

B.
Onions

covering 2-year-old Straw-berries

C.
Lettuces and radishes

covering 2-year-old Straw-berries

B.
Peas followed in August by Straw-berries (new planting)

To avoid crop rotation problems the gardener :

1. changes his crops 2 or 3 times in the same row and
2. in the following year displaces the rows 10 inches (25 cm) away from where they were before, so that it is extremely unlikely that the same or a closely related plant will occupy the same place again.

Surface composting ensures a constant supply of nutrients and water to the soil, gives it protection and enriches it in humus. The strips where the compost is laid down this year will become the places where vegetables are grown next year, since the rows are displaced 10 inches (25 cm) sideways.

If you click on a thumbnail another window opens with 9 larger images (Food Colour, Foliage and Vegetable Shape - for Food, Foliage and Vegetable List pages) and the following plant description:-

1. Common Name
2. Botanical Name
3. Growing Instructions
4. Distance between Plants
5. Sowing and Harvesting Times
6. Plant in Rotation Type
7. Height x Spread in feet
8. Foliage
9. Food Colour.
10. Good Plant Companions, which aid this vegetable.
11. Bad Plant Companions, which are antagonistic to this plant.
12. Culinary Use
13. Comments and where you can buy the seed or plug plant.

Please close that window before clicking on another thumbnail.

These gallery photographs were provided by Suttons, Woodview Road, Paignton. TQ4 7NG

I am requesting the donation of colour photographs of plants for display in this or any of the other Plant or Butterfly Galleries with the following for this Gallery:-

Food - to show the shape and colour of the whole food element of the plant.

Foliage - to show the shape of the leaf and its colour.

Form - to show the natural shape/growth habit of the whole plant in the relevant Vegetable List Page

Vegetable Bed - to show the overall effect of a group of vegetables together, preferably with the names of each of the vegetables displayed.

Each main photograph will be displayed in a 150 x 150 pixels graphic item. Each thumbnail photograph will be displayed in 50 x 50 pixels graphic item. Freeway allocates 72 pixels per inch. The photographs require to be in :-

JPEG Format and can be sent via DVD, or

35mm slides to be scanned in (send to Chris Garnons-Williams at 1 Eastmoor Farm Cottages, Moor Street, Rainham, Kent, ME8 8QE England). The image on the 35mm slide is scanned in. Using Photoshop Elements, I crop the scanned image to get images of flower, flower bud, foliage, leaf, overall form or shape from each one. The ones to published are selected from this image range, published, and the published image exported and re-imported to being a Pass-Through Graphic JPEG file of about 1.5k for 50 x 50 or 5-7k for 150 x 150 pixel graphic item, before being uploaded to the website. This resolution reduction is carried out by Freeway publishing program and aids the speed of display of Comparison Pages in the uploaded website.

Please give the Latin name of the plant and your contact details (It would be preferable that it is either your website or email address rather than your phone number). These will then credit (see Copyright Permissions Page) the relevant published photograph.

If you happen to be a Nursery, then this link could provide a means for people getting that plant or seed.