Getting Organised

I have finally had time to sit down and order my seed potatoes, onions and garlic and figure out what order I am going to rotate my raised beds. And its something that isn't stopped by the weather, so I have no excuses for taking so long!!

Had another good Saturday in the garden clearing weeds and clearing out the last of the unused veg from the beds. I now only have 2 half of beds to finish off ( but only about 1/4 of the non-raised section ready!) Also, spent a couple of hours on my strawberry bed - it had gone wild with runners. I planted up a whole new bed with the runners as well as filling out the current bed (yes I know it should have been done at the end of the summer, but at least its done now!). A lot of the runners will be donated to friends as there is more that I need once I am sure which will take and which will fail. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the bed beforehand - will try to get some of the finished bed in the next couple of weeks.

Last year I just picked up my onion sets and seed potatoes from a local hardware store, but this year I decided to order online. I ordered the below from Mr Middleton shop online:
Potato:
After all the blight last year ( even with weekly spraying), I decided to give Sarpo Mira a go for my potatoes. Not going to grow as many as last year, just went with 2.5kg bag. Note - I have searched many of the big name DIY stores around my area and couldn't find this variety which is supposed to be one of the most blight resistant varieties.
Onions/Shallots:
Red Baron for my red onions - had these last year and they did wonderfully
Stuttgarter Giant for my white onions
French Shallots - Vigarmor
There is a good selection online - it depends on your personal taste.
Garlic:
Going to try 3 varieties this year - all different. And going to resist my normal temptation to shove a few of my own or last years growth into the ground as this gives a higher chance of rust growing on the garlics.
Garlic 'Elephant', Garlic 'Cristo', Garlic 'Solent Wright'

I had never seen the Elephant Garlic before and got a bit of a shock at the size of the 2 cloves that were sent!

Some serious cloves - you would want to love Garlic to eat these!!!

Anyhow - onto my bed order for the next two years. I have 5 beds in total.

2012	2013	2014
Strawberries /lettuce	Strawberries	Strawberries
Potatoes	Spring Onions & Lettuce/  Shallots – ½ bed each	Shallots /Spring Onions & Lettuce – ½ bed each rotated
Onions/ Leeks / Garlic	Calebrese / Brussels Sprouts/ Radishes	Carrots / Parsnips / Beetroot
Carrots / Parsnips / Beetroot	Onions/ Leeks / Garlic	Calebrese / Brussels Sprouts / Radishes
Calebrese / Brussels Sprouts/ Radishes	Carrots / Parsnips / Beetroot	Onions/ Leeks / Garlic

I have retired the potatoes out of the raised beds as my beds are nearly 2 foot high and I found them hard to dig out. Increased Strawberries to a full bed for this year on their own - I also have a bed in the back garden near the garage of Strawberries, but you can never have enough! :-)
So instead of a rotation of 5 beds, I am reducing down to a rotation of 3 beds and just rotating in the one bed for the other. This is also not an ideal order, but is what works space wise for me based on the veg we like to eat most. Please feel free to leave comments or improvement suggestions!! All feedback welcome.

Return to you about garden finally - been busy!!

Ok - been away from this far too long - but trust me, I never left the garden. Will update tomorrow with a load of photos from different stages. We got "distracted" by landscaping our garden, putting in a path, getting groundwork done for patio, moving loads of soil around, rock picking and still more rock picking.
The bed order changed slightly from my initial plans.
Bed 1 - garlics, onions, scallions, leeks

Bed 2 - bok choi, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, calebrese (brocolli)

Bed 3 - carrots, parsnips, beetroot, radishes

Bed 4 - potatoes

Bed 5 - took this out of rotation - just growing strawberries, lettuce - plan to also put in some bush tomatoes too as a trial.

Also, directly in the soil - peas, potatoes, onions, leeks

Growing horseradish in a pot. Never seen it grown before! Interesting times - not sure as yet when to harvest and will be on the lookout for recipes.

My apple, plum trees and berry bushes planted last year are also showing flowers so we are hopefully looking at a first crop this year,

Rhubarb isn't looking so healthy - who would have known slugs love rhubarb.

Also have tomatoes growing indoors in preparation for my greenhouse ( aldi/lidl special), some chillies (cheated with them, bought them from B&Q as a small plant), basil, corriander (first batch nearly ready to eat!!).

Okay- decided to upload one of the finished photos - will have to wait till tomorrow for the rest of the stages. Hopefully I plan to upload sections on different vegetables/herbs and other plants with tips/tricks I come across. I will also upload some recipes of interest that link in with the food I am growing. Always tastes so much fresher when its homegrown.

The path (new) leads down to the multi coloured beds - there will also be a patio down there shortly(as soon as roadstone get around to delivering it!). This way we will be able sit down of an evening and if you get the munchies, you can just pick from the beds directly,

Time to get started

First things first - the decisions, how many raised beds and what to plant where.

We are using old scaffolding planks for the raised beds - 6 per bed. Going to paint them all vibrant colours to get more colour into the garden.

The first one was installed last weekend - just needs to be filled now and I can get my garlic down. Slightly late, but at least they have been nice and chilling in the fridge.

Going to keep the majority of my potatoes in the ground as opposed to the raised beds - just a couple in the beds to see the difference.

Going to plant 5 beds ( due to the number of planks we have).

Bed1:
Tomatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Potatoes ( just a couple for trial)
Squash/Pumpkin - possibly

Bed 2:
Beetroot
Carrots
Parsnips
Celery/Celariac - possibly

Bed 3:
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Cauliflower
Radishes
Cabbage/Turnip - possibly

Bed 4:
Peas
Beans

Bed 5:
Onions
Garlic
Leeks
Shallots

Items in bed 1 go to bed 2 next year, 2 to 3 and so on.

Please let me know if you see any errors in my rotation plan. This is my first go at it. I plan to put my organic compost into bed 1 this year.

Photos to follow.