Mixed plantings versus bed rotation

[Leenstar]

I apologize but I have alot of preamble:

I currently have a bed system that am using in my garden. I have 6 beds arranged in a 2 x 3 rectangle about 4 ft by 6 ft each in size. The long side of the bed is arranged along the long side of the overall rectangle. Between the beds I have brick paths I have laid down that are about a foot wide. So schematically I have something like this

NW N NE
SW S SE

Where the abbreviations are the cardinal directions, North/South/East/West.

I have had this arrangement for about 2 years. The north beds are out of the shadow of the neighbor's house. The long axis path falls almost perfectly with the greatest shadow from the neighbor's house. I have double dug these beds to 3 feet and pulled out the clay and added my own compost and better dirt from around the yard. I get several square yards of leaves I compost every fall into a nice leaf mold/mulch come spring time that I use to top dress the beds. I'm still tilling it up since I can't leave it alone but am seriously trying to move towards a no-till arrangement except that my soil is so clay in general.

I have been doing overwintering in cold frame in the Northern beds using a cold frame I made.

This has been working pretty well. I have a couple of issues/problems I wanted to present to your collective wisdom for opinions/pointers:

1. Saving seed as I do requires that I keep stuff in beds way longer than it is productive. I have tried to get around this by interplanting and underplanting but sometimes I still feel that maybe I need to make my modest seed saving even smaller scale. Nonetheless this impacts succession planting.

2. I think I plant too densely. I had over 20 tomatoes in one of those beds I described. I was heartened by square foot gardening stuff (of which I'm not really a fan) but have seriously wondered if I need more space, especially reading posts in another thread (http://alanbishop.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=soilbuilding&action=display&thread=7089&page=2).

3. I like that I can rotate my beds and have some sort of legume in a bed or two at all times to replensih after a heavy feeder crop

4. I have been tinkering with the idea of making every bed mixed culture with largest plants in the north edge and planting in tiers from the center out. Maybe by mixing the plants I can take advantage of some symbiosos, reduce the pathogen burden from any given crop. Disadvantages is difficult to plant the bed consistently, I lose the ability to rotate crops and companion planting of a large mix of plants get really confusing.

5. I have had luck with trellising stuff am am actively trying to improve my trellising system. I had a wall of interwoven sticks that I sued for green beans which did great. I need to do a better job of working vertical

Thoughts opinions?

I am thinking of converting a residual edge of lawn into more garden. This would add two more same sized beds to the west of my current set up. This area it is currently sodded over clay soil with a drainage down spout pipe running probably quite superficial through what would be the northern of the two potential beds.

[steev]

The questions that occur to me are: do you get a return from whatever you plant that gratifies you?; can you save enough seed to serve your purposes? If you answer "yes" to both of these, what's the problem?

It sounds to me, that you are being a very fiddly gardener. Please understand that there is NO negative import there; I've done that (and enjoyed it, immensely; I'd be doing it still, but I've got 20 acres, now, and haven't the time). If you have the fertility of soil and adequate time and interest to plant your beds so thickly, mazeltov! Clearly, it's a good way to deal with the conflict of time-to-seed vs desire-for-product.

[ottawagardener]

In most small garden setting, rotation does not work as well for disease and pest suppression because they don't' have far to move to the new location. However, I suspect that it means for slight differences in soil nutrients and fertility.

1. You don't need to save seed from every plant every year as most seed will be viable for a longer period of time. Also, contrary to what is taught, I often replant seed parents closer together (in the case that can be done such as with carrots) or leave them in close spacing in the beds to allow for maximum diversity in the seed rather than maximum quantity. It depends on what's most important if you have to choose.

2. Spacing depends on a lot of factors. If your plants do well squashed then you could keep it that way. Those that don't perform as you'd like could be spaced further apart to see if it helps.

3. You could also follow heavy feeders by light ones like roots and then a legume crop instead of using a cover crop especially as you are amending with organic matter. I did this in my city garden. Worked well.

4. Lots of people think about using this method and some try it out. Try out a polyculture/ interplanting and see what happens next year.

5. Vertical is good as is adding some containers to your garden and using ornamental spaces.

Good luck!

[YoungAllotmenteer]

I am of the possibly contrary (in the UK) school of thought that rotation is mostly irrelevant for the small scale grower or gardener.

Rotation was really brought in for large scale monocropping - There is the potential in commercial monocropping to build up high levels of soil diseases and pathogens otherwise.

I know from a lot of the UK forums, a strict 4 year rotation or whatever is preached. My take is, the average home gardener or grower isn't going to grow the same thing in the same bed year after year anyway. I can never remember what I planted where last year anyway, thus the risk is low.

I know there are potentially benefits from growing certain crops before others, but I certainly wouldn't stress over it.

[adamus]

I'm a bit the same YA. I know vaguely where i planted stuff last year, and try not to plant the same thing the next year. But I have potatoes in nearly every bed now, because you never dig the lot, one always sneaks through etc. I never plant tomatoes in the same bed, but i don't worry about what goes in it's place, as long as it's a different thing.
I've tried Moon Planting, companion planting, rotation planting, up/down planting. I just always end up with the stuff I think is going where it looks like it belongs.
I don't plant carrots in a newly fertilised bed, but that's about the extent of it.

[circumspice]

There is no one formula or strategy for success. I'd say carry on as you are already doing. Keep fairly detailed notes on your observations & make a general map of the location of each season's plants so you can compare your results with the previous years records. Then you'll be able to see a pattern developing and you can make adjustments as needed.

[steev]

When I was confined to backyard gardening, I practiced "hunter-gatherer" gardening. When I needed produce, I went out to pick what there was; when there was a hole in the plants, I planted something. The kitchen waste got buried in the hole first. It was very productive and entertaining.

[ottawagardener]

Nice

[steev]

That backyard got so rich and fertile, it was an amazing ecosystem. First place I ever saw slime-molds, three-inch striped planarians, and honey-pot ants. So much real life in the middle of urban Oakland! No gophers nor elk; it was sweet.