Bed 1

Then broad beans with later planting of peas, climbing beans, french beans. As legumes are harvested replace with cagbages, caulies broccoli & sprouts.

Bed 2

root crops, beetroot, carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic & leeks. To avoid forking of roots….no extra ferts to be added.

Bed 3
sweetcorn, pumpkins, zucchini, cucumbers. Be generous with fert trough out the season.,

bed 4

green manure…… then tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants….. then lime ready for the legumes.

That is from Uncle Pete’s book The Practical Australian Gardener….

Hope this helps anyone who needs it.

With a 2 bed rotate….. just don’t plant it in the same area the following year. Even by missing the same spot for 1 season you are breaking the disease hold in your garden…… the higher the bed rotation amount…. the higher chance there is of not developing a disease in your soil.

Think I’ll take this book with me on Friday and see if I can’t get Uncle Pete to sign it………. wish me luck as every other stalker will be out for him too…..

Lucky1 said:

Think I’ll take this book with me on Friday and see if I can’t get Uncle Pete to sign it………. wish me luck as every other stalker will be out for him too…..

He’ll sign it for sure. They will have a time when he will be available for autographs. There’ll be a queue but worth it. Make sure you have your camera and you may get a photo with him like I did, which I then took back a couple of years later and he signed it. :D

bluegreen said:

Lucky1 said:

Think I’ll take this book with me on Friday and see if I can’t get Uncle Pete to sign it………. wish me luck as every other stalker will be out for him too…..

He’ll sign it for sure. They will have a time when he will be available for autographs. There’ll be a queue but worth it. Make sure you have your camera and you may get a photo with him like I did, which I then took back a couple of years later and he signed it. :D

I’m taking my big 512 MB card and 2 sets of charged batteries………… I have printed off info of what is on and where………. Gosh wonder if I’ll sleep Thursday night????

i can see why people are calling in complicated. pete follows toms with legumes here – yet the patch shows bed 3/4 following toms with corn and pumpkin.

He’ll sign it for sure. They will have a time when he will be available for autographs. There’ll be a queue but worth it. Make sure you have your camera and you may get a photo with him like I did, which I then took back a couple of years later and he signed it.
————
groupies LOL
- i wander if sophie wants her shoes shinned – grovel.

pepper said:

i can see why people are calling in complicated. pete follows toms with legumes here – yet the patch shows bed 3/4 following toms with corn and pumpkin.

Yep Pepe, the more I read the more confused I get.

It’s Pete’s bed system I have been reading up on , but looking up other’s too, and they are all different.
I will draw up a small box grid thingo and print it and add what I have growing there atm, then change it for the next season’s.

Yep Pepe, the more I read the more confused I get.
———
my 4 bed rotation is-

- toms (caps, basil, eggplant, parsley)
- onions (leeks, garlic)
- corn (beans, pumpkin)
- the rest ( lettuce, spinach)

my beans, carrots, cueys, climbing peas,radish etc are sort of rotated on the trelissed beds.
no room for spuds or melons so they go elsewhere.
and perenials – rhubarb, strawbs, berries etc go elsewhere.
and i like to mix a few flowers in with veges to attract bees and detract pests.
i have memorised it but its not so simple that i can stick to it religiously.

pepper said:

He’ll sign it for sure. They will have a time when he will be available for autographs. There’ll be a queue but worth it. Make sure you have your camera and you may get a photo with him like I did, which I then took back a couple of years later and he signed it.
————
groupies LOL
- i wander if sophie wants her shoes shinned – grovel.

Oh you sweet talker you;)

Sophie has said in the ‘Sunday Mail’ that in Australia autumn (not spring) is the best time for planting.
Her reasoning is that lots of plants go dormant in the aussie summer whereas in europe they are dormant over winter in the snows.
she’s referring to the native plants i guess.

pepper said:

Sophie has said in the ‘Sunday Mail’ that in Australia autumn (not spring) is the best time for planting.
Her reasoning is that lots of plants go dormant in the aussie summer whereas in europe they are dormant over winter in the snows.
she’s referring to the native plants i guess.

I have heard that about native plants – except for in the areas that snow I suppose…

g’day BG
her article is a bit thin on names – she only says tropical plants should be excluded – and learn more at the expo !
her theory is to plant in early autumn and then collect seed in spring. this ties in with jerry’s seed collection idea on GA this week. so i presume she is actually thinking that plants will acclimatise over a period of years.

there are 2 things to consider about crop rotation:

First is to provide as big a time gap as possible between like crops to break disease cycles, and second is to maximise the use of available nutrient in the soil.

So one year you enrich your bed with lots of manures etc. and plant hungry plants like leafy veg. The next year you might plant tomatoes or something that doesn’t need so much nitrogen but still likes a rich soil. Following that you might grow root vegetables that don’t want a rich soil. After that you could grow legumes that will start putting nitrogen back into the soil for a year of leafy veg. and so the cycle goes.

I think though that it only works well with a minimum of 4 beds and you are able to grow (and eat) a diverse range of crops.

For myself I really only have 2 beds and in spring/summer I mainly grow tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum (which are all related) with maybe one zucchini plant and some beans. Autumn/winter is restricted to maybe silverbeet, kale, leeks and garlic. I prefer to plant something that I can get continuous picking from rather that something like corn that seems to need to be picked all at once. So I just try and mix stuff up and not put things in the same spot the following year.

pepper said:

her theory is to plant in early autumn and then collect seed in spring. this ties in with jerry’s seed collection idea on GA this week. so i presume she is actually thinking that plants will acclimatise over a period of years.

certainly in SA it might be the way to go due to your hot dry summers where everything struggles.

Like in Australia cyclamens are active in winter and dormant in summer, but in the US it is the other way around.

I think though that it only works well with a minimum of 4 beds and you are able to grow (and eat) a diverse range of crops.

For myself I really only have 2 beds and in spring/summer I mainly grow tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum (which are all related) with maybe one zucchini plant and some beans. Autumn/winter is restricted to maybe silverbeet, kale, leeks and garlic. I prefer to plant something that I can get continuous picking from rather that something like corn that seems to need to be picked all at once. So I just try and mix stuff up and not put things in the same spot the following year.
———————————————————————————-
Yeah I am the same as BG…….. I don’t actually have 4 beds….. I do try and make new beds and paths different sizes, depending on what I am growing.

I do keep notes (photos) of what I grew where. That way I am rotating them in some way.

The choice of winter crops is also influenced by what grows easiest in your area. In the frosty Adelaide hills we found that brussel sprouts grew to a metre high and you could harvest the little cabbage like sprouts over a long period.
We therefore learnt to use them in cooking. They are excellent in minnestoni – a rich soup for a cold winters night. They also steam well in a saucepan with butter and pepper and then cheese added at the end when they are soft.

I do keep notes (photos) of what I grew where. That way I am rotating them in some way.
—-
i leave a corn stalk in until next spring – so long as i know that rotation is anticlockwise i know where the rest grow. i disagree that corn is an all at once crop. if the cob is a bit overripe you can run a knife down it and use it as kernels in stir fry or mexican.
why am i talking of food ? – must be dindin time.