One of the main points that determine the success of your vegetable garden "enterprise" is the right choice of location and competent zoning of plantings. The site should be warm, sunny and windless, and the beds should not only be convenient, but also beautiful.
Your site should be planned wisely - so that the beds invariably bring a rich harvest and there is room for beautiful landscape compositions.
The size and number of beds
The dimensions of the vegetable garden as a whole depend on the area of the site, your enthusiasm and the number of family members who will, firstly, consume the grown products, and secondly, help care for the plantings.
On average, according to nutritionists, an adult needs about 120 kg of vegetables per year, not counting potatoes. Sounds impressive, and if you break it down into individual vegetable crops, it turns out that one adult needs to plant 2 square meters of greenhouse tomatoes, carrots, legumes, onions and garlic, as well as a couple of cucumber bushes and squash with pumpkins.
The required volume of the harvest will directly affect the size of the beds. Their length can be any: for greens, for example, several small boxes or even flowerpots will be enough, and potato rows can go "beyond the horizon".
For comfortable processing, it is recommended to break up beds no more than 1 m wide. The optimal width should be determined based on the location and availability of approaches to the bed from one or two sides:
- if the plantings can be approached from both sides, then you can make the bed wider - 70-100 cm;
- if the garden is laid out right next to the fence or close to the wall of the house and there is an approach only from one side, then the transverse size should be small (50-60 cm) - otherwise you will not be able to properly cultivate the soil.
The distances between the beds are no less important. It is recommended to leave such paths that it is convenient not only to walk along them, but also to push a garden wheelbarrow. And if you plan to sow the passages with lawn grass, correlate their width with the dimensions of the lawn mower.
The location of the garden on the site
The need for garden crops in the amount of light varies: it can range from 8 to 14 hours a day and depends not only on the type of plant, but also on the variety. Accordingly, you need to plant vegetables and place the beds themselves in such a way as to provide "to each according to his needs." Why is this important?
- Ultraviolet ensures the correct flow of metabolic processes in plant tissues, photosynthesis and absorption of nutrients from the soil depend on it. With a small amount of light, plants do not receive a sufficient amount of nutrients - therefore, lack of lighting negatively affects their health and productivity. Thus, reducing the amount of lighting for tomatoes by 2-3 hours a day leads to a decrease in the number of ovaries by 2 times. Peppers, eggplants, zucchini, pumpkins and most cruciferous plants also bear fruit poorly in the shade.
- On the other hand, there are crops that develop worse with excess light - they just need shading or diffused lighting (for example, under the canopy of trees). All types of lettuce, sorrel, rhubarb, perennial onions, garlic will prefer this type of planting - under the bright sun they will sooner begin to wither, their leaves will dry out and curl.
To ensure that plants receive intense and maximum possible lighting during the day, the beds should be located along the north-south axis - then, during the time the sun moves from east to west, all crops will receive their portion of sunlight.
In the warmest and most well-lit part of the garden, ground tomatoes and cucumbers, melons and legumes are traditionally placed. But root crops (rutabagas, beets, radishes, turnips) can be planted in the shade, closer to berry bushes or an orchard.
Not only the comfort of plants is important when zoning a garden - convenience and minimization of labor of the summer resident himself are also important. The main rule: the more attention the crop requires, the closer to the house or outbuildings it should be located.
This also applies to the placement of the beds relative to the water source: the smaller the distance between them, the greater the chance that your plants will regularly receive the necessary amount of moisture.
Crop combinations and crop rotation
When growing the same crops in one place for several years in a row, diseases and pests characteristic of a certain family of vegetables multiply, and the gardener often has to use pesticides. This problem can be solved with the help of proper crop rotation - alternating crops in the beds from season to season.
Sequential replacement of plants from different families helps prevent the spread of pathogens in the soil, improve its structure and even increase fertility.
- Health is achieved by neutralizing toxins secreted by the roots of some plants (for example, carrots, beets, spinach), crops from other families. Not only green manure and flowers with fungicidal and repellent properties "work" according to this principle, but also many vegetable crops, such as onions and garlic.
- Plants with different types of root systems (superficial or taproot) consume nutrients from different soil layers, which allows you to use the fertilizer supply rationally and not deplete the soil.
- Penetrating to a great depth, the roots saturate the soil with oxygen, improve its structure, and some crops also release nitrogen into the soil thanks to special bacteria living in the root system.
In addition to alternating plants, it is important to correctly form mixed plantings. Not all vegetables, root crops and greens are "friendly" with each other, and for a good harvest, the neighborhood should be mutually beneficial. Thus, legumes, saturating the soil with nitrogen, have a good effect on the yield of cucumbers, corn, potatoes, and beans also scare away cabbage fleas and Colorado beetles.
The most mutually beneficial "cooperation" is considered to be between carrots and onions - these crops protect each other from pests. And vice versa, celery is not advisable to plant next to root crops, and fennel oppresses any neighbors at all.
Even an experienced gardener has a hard time taking into account absolutely all factors and keeping in mind possible ways of combining and alternating crops. A garden map will help make the task easier, which you can draw up on paper in advance, and make notes on it for the future during the season.