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| layout design by garderns.com |
I spend a lot of time in planning my kitchen garden. This means a lot of calculations.
After spending an hour on gardners.com, I was able to make several layouts for my garden projects. Next, I calculated average yield per plant based on my own experience and research papers available online. This one produces 40 kg of a variety of vegetables from a small space of 3 by 6 sqft.
How to get 40 kg of vegetables from a 3 by 6 sqft garden
Raised beds gardens are said to be most productive. Different types of vegetables and herbs are planted in a square foot according to the space requirement of each plant. Plants grown this way create a micro climate and benefit each other even more if companion plantation is practiced.
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| A layout that I made using gardeners.com garden planner. |
Companion plantation is one of the most important element of my garden layout. This simply means growing two vegetables together that benefit each other. For example, Beans provide nitrogen for corns to grow healthy, tomatoes deter pests that attack cabbage and lettuces while chives keep tomato protected from pests. This is how brilliantly nature works. We just need to learn more from it and mimic its ways.
Other important element of a garden plan is to know which vegetables do you want to grow, how many plants will you need and how long will it take you to get the harvest. Keeping in mind average yield per plant, I calculated how much will a 3 by 6 sqft patch or a raised bed will produce based on my layout.
Tomatoes 14 -20 kg
Cucumber 2 kg
Eggplant 3.5 kg
Corn ears 4-8
Spinach 0.75 kg
bell peppers 2.6 kg
hot pepper 1.5 kg
beans 5.5 kg
Lettuce leaves 0.5 kg
Squash 10-25 squash
Chives a few bunches
Out of all these vegetables, Corn can be planted twice or thrice during a 5-6 month season. Peppers, chives and eggplants will stay for more than a year or two during which they will produce even more. Radishes and micro greens can also be included in this plan.
Each plant has a different space requirement. In a 1 sq.ft area you can plant 16 leaf lettuce plants, 2 cucumbers or 1 squash.
More Variations
A raised bed of same dimensions with 14 tomato plants can produce 40-70 kg of tomatoes along with bunches of basil, chives and leeks.
Here is a garden layout by gardeners.com. This is how a raised bed will look like when planted according to the plan in the next image.
Kitchen gardening is a never ending learning process. You can sketch your garden plans or use one of the garden planners online. Make gardening fun, challenging and productive!
Do share your plans with us crops.in.pots@gmail.com or www.facebook.com/cropsinpot
Happy Living!
Note: Due to some technical issue, I am unable to reply to comments made here. If you have a query please feel free to write to us on crops.in.pots@gmail.com
