Help me design, I have a clean slate.

[klickitat]

I had to move my family to town 18 months ago due to some health issues. Now my health is back in order and we just signed papers on a new place back out of town.

I have a clean slate for my garden and want some help designing it. I have had gardens of one sort or another off and on all my life, but never anything that was more than just a haphazard.

This year I am going to go at it differently. I want a plan with a purpose and I would like to do it right. The following information and questions are for the purpose of setting up a good plan.

First I am in Western Washington with a zone 8 climate.

The place has a great black river bottom top soil with lots of sand and ancient duff beds over the top from conifer/alder forest. The established garden area grew ferns prolifically for the most part before it was turned into a garden area.

I will be putting in rabbits and chickens this winter and will use the waste for my garden.

The established garden area is 100'x100' with electric fence already put in. I can expand this area if needed.

There is also two 10'x10' raised garden beds for herbs

As a side garden, I would like to put in a 50'x100' of a root crops. I would like the best most useful root crops for feeding the family and or livestock.

Please help me design a system. I would like to put in drip irrigation and a greenhouse.

The goal is to grow as much food for my family as possible. I want to collect two years worth of seed each harvest. The green house will be to propagate for the growing season and to extend my growing season. I want to grow feed for my chickens and rabbits to supplement their feed.

Important things to our family are:
Squash
potatoes
onions
garlic
tomatoes
peppers
broccoli
cabbage
carrots
Brussels sprouts
radishes
Pumpkins
watermelon

Please help me figure out what to grow and how much of each for my family of four in the given space.

I have a thousand dollars set aside for this project if needed.

Thanks in advance for the help in creating an integrated garden system.

[SquashNut]

add parsnips for production and ease of seed saving (rabbits will eat the entire plant).
some small portable cold frames
Other than that do you plan on tilling? or digging your garden, will you have rows or beds?

What I would love to have if my garden was large enough, I could have some movable rabbit or chicken cages right over a few beds. The manure could fall just where it is used.
Rabbit and chicken tractors are good too, to allow the fryers to eat with out having to harvest every thing for them.

[rockhound]

I would put in a 3 ft wide path down the middle of those 10x10 raised beds, and don't walk on the beds, just the middle path.

[klickitat]

I have a tiller and with the depth of soil I have, I was just planning of rows. I will most likely use tires around my tomatoes and peppers. My dad did it last year and great success with it.

good ideas, keep them coming

[SquashNut]

I would use a spread sheet on my computer, each grid square could be a square foot.
Allow 1 foot across for each row and 2 foot between each row, Your pathes will end up about 3 foot across in the garden this way. and use different colors to show pathes ect. place your trellises, compost piles ect till you get what your looking for. You'll need to look up production estimates for each type of veggie that you grow and how far apart each transplant needs to be.
plan for multiple crops row. Such as spinich /bush beans and turnips. One right after the other is very possible.

Easier to make a map then to physically move the compost bed after you have it built.

[Paquebot]

The prime "root crop" for both family and livestock would be mangels. Sometimes there's a stigma attached to them due to their fodder beet designation. Lots of food value in them no matter what purpose they are grown for.

Martin

[frankva]

At one time eating lobster had a stigma here. Was used as garden fertilizer.

If you had to eat it, you hid it.

[motdaugrnds]

Goodness, I thought "mangels" were fruits.

I am always learning something in here.

[jwal10]

I have 2 10'x20' hoop houses. I put the corrugated cell greenhouse panels on the ends with a storm door in one end. Greenhouse plastic over the hoops. 1 person on each corner can lift them and move them over in the garden. I plant inside them early in the spring, this gives an early start on the garden. Then move it over to another section and start again. I can get a lot more crops and have vegys much earlier. Tomatoes are ready to set flowers when normal time for planting, same for peppers. Then come fall, when areas are planted correctly you can extend the crops also. I put shade cloth on them during the summer, also the plastic can be removed and crops grown without anything for the summer....James

[geo in mi]

Unless you learn to hand pollinate your squashes/pumpkins, you'll be limited to one each of the families, since you'll get cross-pollination within each family. Accordingly I would choose(for myself if I were feeding a family 1) Butternut--c. moschata 2) Hubbard--c. maxima and 3) acorn--c. pepo Your choice may differ, so you will want to consider the cross-pollination issue when planning.

AND, here's something you may find useful, free for 30 days, then a $25.00 yearly subscription. Check it out: http://gardenplanner.motherearthnews...enplanner.html Click the video to see how it works, pretty neat.

geo