04 Major Types of Vegetable

Gardening

04 Major Types of Vegetable Gardening

TYPE 1: vegetable garden with a soil

cover (only one crop per year)
In this type of vegetable garden, we set up a vegetable garden as it is best known,
that is to say in dedicating precise zones to each culture. For example, we sow a
square of carrots, another of radish, … However, we improve the system
compared to a conventional vegetable garden in two ways: we will not
use fertilizers or pesticides from chemistry; we will cover the soil after harvest
without ever leave him naked. The ground cover will have to less than 10
centimeters thick for work well. It may consist of compost or mulching (ground
cover made of inert organic material), twigs, shredded wood, fragmented rameal
wood (BRF), … We generally cultivate from February to March (according to the
type of plantschosen and the conditions weather in the spring) to June.

From June to September, we cover the garden with a cover of inert organic matter
(shearing dried grass, dead leaves, …) and we no longer garden the garden until
the following year. When we resume the sowing activities, we spread the ground
cover to places intended for welcome the seeds. Then we bring it back between
plants as soon as they are big enough to emerge from this protection. At the end
of the winter, it is colder under the blanket ground only outside. A few days before
planting, remove the soil cover for allowing the earth to warm up in contact with
sunshine.

If you sow under shelter (small greenhouse) or in class to advance culture and
accelerate the harvest, we also remove the ground cover a few days for the soil to
warm up. Then, we transplant the young plants and bring back the ground cover
between them. This system helps maintain soil fertility and to limit the growth of
unwanted herbs both when one cultivates that during the period of rest.

Advantages :
Easy to set up for grow only during the spring season

Disadvantages:
less productive than following alternatives; we do not enjoy the garden that the
time of a culture, which is less long than when growing with other types of
vegetable garden described below.

TYPE 2: vegetable garden with crop

rotation
This type of vegetable garden differs from the previous one because connects
several cultures after each other. Crop rotations may be annual (from year to year)
or made in the same year. For the annual rotation, one will cultivate a single
vegetable on each parcel during the first year and each year thereafter, we change
family of vegetables. There are several ways to group the vegetables to make
rotations.

The easiest way is to make groups of vegetables according to the portion

consumed (leaves, roots and fruits or flowers). AT this is added a type “green
manure”. This is a group of plants that maintain soil fertility and which prevents the
invasion of the land by ” weeds “. These plants will not be consumed by gardeners
but simply incorporated into the floor or used as a roof inert.

For rotations on the same year, we start cultivating directly after harvest former. In
this second case, the soil is grown in permanently. In the best of circumstances,
three crops in the year, an early spring (such as radishes or rocket, sown in April),
one in end of summer (such as pumpkins seeded in April to inside and installed in
May-June) and one in winter such a green manure, sown in October. In this type
of vegetable garden, the ground cover is alive for a good part of the year instead
to be inert. However, one can also cover soil (as in the previous model) between
plants grown to protect the soil when it is too cold (under zero degrees).
The productivity of the garden is increased by this a model since it will allow
several harvests at different times of the year. Moreover, the control of weeds
(called “Weeds“) will be facilitated, as the plants’ crops will make invasion more
difficult the land only when it is left without blanket or just with an inert blanket. Be
careful not to grow plants problematic as a result of the previous crop (plants from
the same family, likely to spread diseases, allow a pest insect to continue its
reproductive cycle and perpetuate itself on the plot, or succession of greedy plants
risk of rapidly depleting the soil).

Advantages :
more productive than the version previous if we link the cultures food, better
protects from invasion weeds, avoids the transmission of diseases and the
exaggerated attack of pests crops from one year to the next.

Disadvantages:
request for information on the subject of recommended rotations and discouraged.

TYPE 3: vegetable garden with plant

associations
In this type of vegetable garden, we do not cultivate the vegetable garden by plot,
a square of leeks, another of carrots, … We will sow or plant crops in lines 15, 20,
25, 50 or 100 cm apart from the needs of the plants. We have, for example, line
leeks next to a carrot line, followed by a line of leeks. We can also go further and
alternate different kinds of vegetables within of the same line.

In addition to knowing the favorable rotations or no, it will be necessary here to

inquire about the associations positive or negative existing between different
plants. The typical example is to cultivate a line of onions followed by a line of
carrots and then a third of onions, and so on … the smell of the carrot repels the
fly undermining the harvests onions and the smell of onion repels the fly which
ruins the carrots !!!.

Cultivate vegetables respecting the associations is one of the best ways not to
exhaust the soil because the different plants do not take the same mineral
elements in the same quantities. In addition, depending on the size of roots of each
vegetable, the removal of mineral elements is done at different depths in the
ground. Long-rooted plants draw on some of their nutrients in a layer of
inaccessible ground for others. They bring back these minerals to the surface and
make them accessible when the parts we do not consume return to the compost
(or surface in the case of a mulch). Of course, we can “mix” the model vegetable
garden based on rotations with the model based on associations. We must then
 associate plants in the same space of the kitchen garden then sow other
associations at the same place to create a rotation system with positive
associations between plants. That does not be more effective in maintaining the
fertility of the soil and to reduce the risk of disease and pests.

Advantages :
much more interesting at a didactic level, as far as the positive interactions
between living things the kitchen garden; to preserve soil fertility in the long run
and to push back even more effectively the diseases and pests of cultures.

Disadvantages:
request a more search in depth on existing interactions between plants and
between plants and other beings.

For further
A well-known system of ecological garden growers is that developed by Gertrud
Franck in Germany some 40 years ago. She developed a landscaping that took
advantage of the associations between plants, especially with spinach.

 In summary, it alternates lines of vegetables spaced 50 cm apart with a line (called

spacing) of spinach halfway between them and therefore 25 cm away from each line of
other vegetables.
 Each year, the crops are shifted one-by-one (25 cm) and this often solves the possible
problem of reflection on the appropriate rotations.
 In addition, spinach provides a number of benefits: they act as green manure, bringing the
lost depth back to the surface for other more superficial root crops. they decompact the
soils and improve them before other cultures they prevent certain pests can develop too
easily it allows to walk between the lines where the spinach was grown since they are
harvested early in the year then replaced by an inert soil cover and thus avoid packing too
much soil where vegetables are planted they can be consumed.

TYPE 4: The vegetable garden where

everything is mixed
This is the system closest to what you meeting in nature where plant species are
often very mixed within an ecosystem. It is rare to see a forest where a single tree
dominates everything, usually, several species coexist as long as the soil and
climate allow to develop harmoniously. Even if sometimes one, or a small number
of species, dominate an environment because the conditions relating to soil are
very particular and only these plants are able to live on this type of soil.
There is a system associating trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants, called
agroforestry, which allows growing both large fruit trees and small sizes and
vegetables on the same ground. It is the most productive system (because it uses
the space in its 3 dimensions to cultivate and produce) and it is closest to what
would create the nature in most cases on good soil healthy and balanced.

This type of garden requires excellent knowledge and good planning for that each
plant can grow under the conditions of light and space that suit him. For example,
trees should be properly located so as not to overshadow the rest of the crops. If
trees are already growing in the future kitchen garden school, it is possible to start
from this situation to develop a vegetable garden in agroforestry, associating plants
that need shading more important and a cooler growing medium to proximity to
these. You can also use the small trunks and the branches of certain trees to guard
climbing nasturtiums, peas or beans Climbing.

Advantages :
the most interesting at the level of interactions between plants and other beings
living. The most balanced of the gardens where he is difficult for pests and
diseases to spread quickly and annihilate all plants of the same species (or the
same vegetable). Similarly, the more species are mixed, the less we risk
exhausting the soil.

Disadvantages:
can be complicated for someone who starts because you have to be able to
recognize plants at different stages of growth to identify what is what and if it is
desirable to leave it in place. This is even more complicated when working with
young children (difficult to put in place below 15-16 years, according to us).