Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

Introduction

The garden plan is the means by which, over time, the gardener maintains (and in some cases improves) the fertility of the soil while living on the produce.  Tumbledown agrees with Gene Logsdon that "Rotation of crops is important [for restoring nitrogen to the soil, for double cropping, and for insect and disease control], whether you are planning a few rows of corn in the garden or several acres on your homestead or several fields of a farm." (Small-Scale Grain Raising)

2008 Update

Our rotation has been simplified (from six smaller fields in the vegetable garden to four larger ones) and has also become more complex (with more different crops grown in each field). Our rotation has also been evolving to fit our needs as a family (what the kids will eat and the cook will cook), while continuing to try to optimize space, maintain plant health (rotations to avoid plant diseases and pests), and retain or even build soil fertility.  The simplified charts provided in this first section are explained in greater detail and rationales given for them in the description of the 2007 rotation (below) and in the chapters of this book that pertain to each of the individual crops.

2008 Strawberry Crop Rotation

	Spring	Fall
Year 1	Plow rye (or mulch) under.  (See fall of Year 6.)  Amend soil with peat, manure, compost, greensand and bone meal.  Plant strawberries.  Pinch all blooms, cut runners.  Mulch with straw following light cultivation after two-four weeks.	Cover with pine straw when ground freezes.
Year 2	Pick berries during June; continue to cut runners.	Pick fall berries on everbearing plants.  Cover with pine straw when ground freezes.
Year 3	Pick berries during June.  Mow the row and plow under after crop dwindles.  Amend soil.  (See above.)  Plant green beans (legume).	Plant winter wheat.
Year 4	Sow alfalfa (legume; interseeded into the wheat) during last spring frosts.  Harvest wheat in late June or early July.	Cut alfalfa once.
Year 5	Cut alfalfa once.	Cut alfalfa once.
Year 6	Plow alfalfa; plant broccoli; double crop to beans or a second crop of broccoli.  (Incorporate the  broccoli plant residues into the soil to inhibit verticillium.  Whatever you do, don't plant members of the Cucurbitaceae or Solanaceae families before strawberries; that will only increase the chances that your strawberry plants will catch the Verticillium wilt!)	Plow beans (or harvest fall broccoli and plow in the chopped up plant residues) and plant rye cover crop (or cover with a light mulch).

2008 Vegetable Garden Rotation

There are four "fields" or sections in our garden (see below).  The fields are layed out in a square with roughly the same area in each of the four sections:

Field 1	Field 2
Field 3	Field 4

The 4 fields are rotated in a clockwise direction each year.  The crops that are in Field 1 this year will be in Field 2 next year, in Field 4 the next, and finally in field 3 before returning to field 1.

Each field has a number of rows, so the rotation is somewhat complicated.  Again, the explainations and rationale for the rotations either follow below or in the individual chapters for each vegetable or grain crop.  Since the complexity is hard to capture without multiple tables, I'll add tables each year so that a historical picture (a record of the rotations) emerges over time.

2008: Field 1

	Spring	Fall
All Rows	Winter Wheat (harvested in summer), sown with Red Clover in early spring (at last freeze)	Red Clover and Wheat residue plowed under, Rye sowed as cover crop.

2008: Field 2

	Spring	Fall
Row 1	Tomatoes	Winter Wheat sown
Row 2	Peppers	Winter Wheat sown
Row 3	Egg Plant	Winter Wheat sown

2008: Field 3

	Spring	Fall
Row 1	Sweet Potatoes	Rye Cover Crop
Row 2	Cow Peas (Crowders)	Rye Cover Crop
Row 3	Edamame (Soy Beans)	Rye Cover Crop
Row 4	Green Beans	Rye Cover Crop

2008: Field 4

	Spring	Fall
Row 1	Greens (Lettuce & Spinach), Beets, etc.	Greens (Lettuce & Spinach), Beets, etc.
Row 2	Onions and Garlic	Onions and Garlic
Row 3	Broccoli	Broccoli
Row 4	Radishes and Onions	Radishes and Onions
Row 5	Summer Squash	Rye Cover Crop

Tumbledown Farm's 2007 Garden Plan

Tumbledown's suburban garden is small and the available ground presents significant challenges, but (to paraphrase a regrettable public persona-non-grata) "you garden with the ground you've got, not the ground you might wish you had," until you can afford to move to better ground.  

Tumbledown's garden consists of two distinct areas:

     1) One area is low and soggy much of the year. (It is an easement which would require mowing if it were not a garden.)  This section is some 60' long and 10' wide.  The rows run the length (East-West) at the bottom of a North facing slope.  Any gardener with experience will tell you that this arrangement is less than optimal.

[Photo: Easement; low area at bottom of North-facing slope with poor drainage.]
     
     2) The other section is the North-facing slope.  Tumbledown does not know the exact degree of slope, but the angle is too great to allow ordinary cultivation.

[Photo: Slope in winter with wheat and cover crops in place.  The permanent row in the center is a combination of blackberry and raspberry.  Strawberries are currently in the two rows immediately in front of the trellis.]

Without terracing the first hard rain would wash the whole hill down into the easement and what little topsoil there is over the suburban construction-fill would erode.  Tumbledown cannot afford to install a real terrace, so he gardens in 20' garden strips (parallel to each other and perpendicular to the direction of the slope) between equally large strips of sod.

[Photo: Looking down the slope toward the easement, which is beyond the fence.]

Again, any gardener worth his salt would never stoop to such measures (which any gardener can tell you will not work, since the sod will always be competing for food and nutrients with the garden plants, and the grass will harbor the pests that destroy a garden).  But this is the land Tumbledown has and so this is the land he gardens.

Garden Rotations

There is still debate about the effectiveness of crop rotation (for reducing pests and diseases and increasing soil fertility and texture) in areas as small as most gardens. Tumbledown's limited experience in this new location (since the 2004 garden season) suggests that garden crop rotation, combined with mulching and cover crops, is effective for adding humus, breaking up heavy clay, and improving the texture of poor soil.  If two or three years of such a practice can produce such noticeable results, it is a practice worth continuing with hopeful expectation of even greater improvement.

     1)  The Strawberry - Grain Rotation.  This rotation, entirely on the North-facing slope, was suggested by Gene Logsdon's book, Small-Scale Grain Raising, and has been adapted to Tumbledown's particular needs and space.  For a full description of the process, see Tumbledown's Strawberry page.  This a six-year rotation, practiced at Tumbledown Farm in six, 20' rows as follows:

     Year 1  Plant Strawberries (blooms pinched off, no berries harvested during the first year after planting)
     Year 2  Strawberries continue (harvest begins in spring and, depending on the variety, may continue through fall)
     Year 3  Strawberries continue (harvested in spring); berries tilled under and row planted with green beans later in the summer, after the berries have slowed; bean plants cut for rabbit hay after two pickings and row planted in fall with winter wheat)
     Year 4  Alfalfa sown into wheat during last spring freeze; wheat harvested in mid-summer; depending on weather, may cut alfalfa once for rabbit hay during late summer.
     Year 5  Alfalfa, cut once for rabbit hay.
     Year 6  Alfalfa is tilled under; row is planted with a  deep-rooted, heavy feeding crop in the spring.  (Logsdon recommends corn, but because Tumbledown's space is limited and corn requires a four-row stand for adequate polination, we must substitute other crops.  We are still experimenting with several options to see which one best meets our needs:  Sunflowers, Sorghum, Millet and the like.)  In the fall, the row is planted to Rye as a ground cover until the following spring.

[Photo:  a row of strawberries to the left of the trellis and a row of beans to the right.]

     2)  The Vegetable - Grain Rotation.  This rotation includes both the North-facing slope and the low-lying easement, and is again an adaptation from Gene Logsdon's book, Small-Scale Grain Raising.  This is also a six-year rotation, practiced at Tumbledown Farm as follows:  a) four sections of 15' rows (low ground on the easement), with three rows per section; and b) two sections of 20' rows (on the slope), with five rows per section.

     Year 1  Corn (spring) interplanted with beans, followed by rye cover crop + some onions and garlic mulched (fall)
     Year 2  Peas (or, more likely, salad crops; spring), followed by cauliflower, brocolli, turnips, and kale (summer-fall, whole area mulched with fallen leaves as winter approaches)
     Year 3  Tomatoes and Peppers (spring), Rye cover (fall)
     Year 4  Green Beans (spring/summer), Winter Wheat (fall)
     Year 5  Red Clover (scatter sowed into the wheat at the last spring freeze), wheat harvested in mid-summer; may get one cutting of clover for rabbit hay in late summer or early fall, depending on weather)
     Year 6  Clover continues (2 cuttings), tilled under in fall, covered with straw to slow erosion.

[Photo:  Red Clover beginning to emerge after wheat harvest; a row of beans to each side.]

[Photo:  (Front to Back) Two rows of Green Beans in full flower; row of Red Clover in bloom; two rows of Green Beans ready for harvest as rabbit hay.]

Bibliography

Le Jardin Potager, Chapter 2, "Plan Du Jardin Potager" (Vegetable Garden Plan), by H. Spruyt, 1875. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite little garden books. Full of common sense. Chapter two is a general garden plan and chapter three discusses rotations, etc.