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Post by littleminnie on Mar 15, 2011 10:30:28 GMT -5
I am posting this on all my usual garden forums. I don't think people will need it as much here, but thought I would paste it in anyway. I am teaching some gardening classes. One thing I always stress is that a normal in the ground rectangular garden will produce much more when planted as beds rather than rows with a path on each side. I made a drawing yesterday at lunchbreak of the same garden grown in each way. I figured out what the normal gardener would plant as rows in that amount of space and how it would be spaced. I didn't put all that on the drawing (I am not in math class and am not showing my work LOL). Then below it I figured out mathematically what could be planted in the same space in beds 3-4 feet wide. I could take a lot more time to make it super accurate, but I believe it is close. I think you could fit even more into the bedded garden than I have cited. Plus when you just compost/manure, till, weed, mulch etc your beds rather than the whole garden, you save time and have a much better situation! So if you normally put down some compost/manure on your big rectangle and till the whole thing and then make narrow rows and weed the whole thing and water the whole thing- you are wasting everything! Try putting the compost/manure on 'beds' and tilling only them and then putting something like weed blocker fabric or cardboard and straw on the paths and then don't touch them again. Try setting up drip irrigation or soaker hoses on the beds only and not water the paths- if possible. i guarantee you will never go back to narrow rows!
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Post by willyswoodpile on Mar 15, 2011 19:02:04 GMT -5
Thanks for doing the [head] work for me Minnie. I can't stand trying to run the numbers and combinations through my head.
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Post by blane on Mar 15, 2011 20:55:58 GMT -5
Thanks for doing the [head] work for me Minnie. I can't stand trying to run the numbers and combinations through my head. Reading sideways?....If I get caught doing this....Somebody thinks Im up to something else? LOL
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