This lesson is about one bed. We assembled, filled and planted it on 7 May 2015.
Below I describe the timeline of harvesting those May plantings, followed by a second and a few third plantings in that same year. We then look at subsequent years of growth in this bed. I used it to trial some exotic vegetables, in terms of the UK climate, and some rarely grown ones too.
Some details from the video
The sides are treated softwood, measuring 15 × 5 cm (6 × 2 in). The treatment, as much as I could discover, was with micronised copper applied under pressure. If softwood is not treated, it goes rotten within about five years. I prefer beds without sides, partly to avoid this issue of treated wood. On the other hand, single beds, in grassy/weedy areas like this, work better with permanent sides.
The end pieces measure 1.27 m (50 in), and the sides 2.26 m (89 in). The inside area is 3.66 m2 (39 ft2).
The compost volume was half a cubic metre by measure, but three quarters in practice, because of how we firmed it down. In weight, this is at least half a tonne, depending on moisture content.
In our area you can buy this amount of compost for around £40 (approximately $50), which is excellent value for the produce it grows over many years. Ask around for deals in your area, and buy in bulk if you can, to save money and packaging.
The compost was cow manure on the bottom layer, and green waste on the top layer. I had wanted to use homemade compost, but that May I had none spare because we had spread it all.
Plant spacings
I’ve plotted out the spacings I used in the drawing below. This is an example, not a template, and the drawing is to scale. The numbers in brackets show how many plants were in each row. Only carrots and radish were direct sown as seeds.
Correct spacing comes from understanding which vegetables can be closely planted, as opposed to those needing room to grow. Two extremes are radish and broccoli:
- A May sowing of radish is harvested and gone within six to eight weeks; here they were a ‘catch crop’ between the lettuce, using space that was free while the lettuce became established. The lettuce continued cropping after the last harvest of radish, whose speed of growth allows close spacing of 1 cm (0.5 in) between each radish in the row.
- At the other end I planted just three broccoli plants, because I know how large they grow, and how long they crop for. They look too spaced out when newly planted, but soon fill the space and use it for a long time.
Plantings/sowings and harvests
May
Everything we planted could also have been planted in April, because these are frost tolerant vegetables. Fleece/row covers are advisable in April because of cold winds (more so than against frost), but are optional in May. The bird netting was more important, to protect seedlings from pigeons, sparrows and rabbits.
The frame which supports my netting here is a commercial product, rather more elaborate than needed. You can make your own hoops from 4 mm (0.2 in) high tensile wire, or use alkathene water pipe, with wood such as bamboo inserted in the ends, to push in the soil.
June
We enter summer and growth speeds to a maximum. You can see it has taken carrots four whole weeks to ‘get going’ and reach the small seedling stage, but now they are growing fast. It’s similar for spring onions, flimsy for a long time then suddenly strong and tall.
On 10 June I transplanted three module-sown French bean plants, close to the dill which was soon to finish.
Harvests through June were all leaves: lettuce, 400–500 g (approximately 1 lb) weekly, radish and chard, and I cut all the cabbage hearts on 20 June, giving 0.8 kg (1.8 lb). I twisted (not pulled) out the stalks, and then planted five clumps of multi-sown beetroot (three to four plants in each), in the row where the cabbage had been growing just an hour earlier.
Although there was no cardboard under the compost, you can see how few weeds managed to grow up to the surface. Only couch grass needed a few brief sessions with a trowel, where it was creeping in along the edge.
Every seven to ten days, from March to November, we mow close to the edge to keep it tidy, reduce slug numbers and diminish the vigour of grass and weeds. Every month we pull the longer grasses and weeds next to the boards (you could also use shears to keep that edge tidy).
July
The chard had been sown in early April, and was flowering by early July when I twisted it out. We harvested spring onions every week in July, and lettuce leaves as needed. Towards the end of the month we picked 260 g (0.6 lb) of broccoli and 350 g (0.8 lb) of French beans.
August
August saw a few final spring onions and lettuce, 560 g (1.2 lb) of broccoli, the last beans, and 4.61 kg (10.2 lb) of carrots. I gently pulled the largest carrots, as they started to push upwards a little. The carrots were straight and lovely, even though it’s commonly claimed that adding compost makes them fork.
On 10 August the lettuce finally rose to flower after nine weeks of harvests, and I planted six chicories of a hearting variety, which produce red radicchios in autumn.
September
This was a month of many plantings, like a second spring. Our oceanic climate, with mild winters (see Lesson 2), makes it feasible to grow winter salads outside. In colder climates, grow these in a cloche, a polytunnel or in boxes/containers – wherever you have weather protection and light.
The final carrot total from this small area was 6.9 kg (15.2 lb). I was fortunate to suffer no damage from root fly maggots; if they are a problem in your area, use a mesh cover.
I propagate more plants than I think I need, and this helped in keeping the bed full. For example, every August I module-sow masses of coriander, chervil, spinach, salad rocket and mustards, for plantings after summer harvests, and to fill any gaps. Think of these vegetables as an alternative to green manure for ground cover; other possibilities are mizuna and radish, which both grow quickly.
The lambs lettuce (corn salad) were sown two seeds per module on 5 September, and I transplanted some when still tiny, after clearing the broccoli on 26 September. The rest remained in modules in the greenhouse until mid–October, after I had harvested the last radicchios.
Autumn harvests and last plantings
Chicories deserve to be more widely grown – here are their advantages:
- They grow best in autumn, from summer sowing (here, early July works well).
- They have few insect pests – only seedlings are at risk of slug damage in wet weather.
- They give high yields and often with dense hearts, and their self-blanched leaves are half bitter, half sweet.
Every few days in November, I cut a sugarloaf chicory from the five on this bed where?, and the hearts/heads averaged 700 g (1.5 lb) each. They are tasty in salads, stir-fries and roasted too (see Stephanie Hafferty’s book, Creative Kitchen, for more recipe ideas).
From mid–October there were decent harvests of mustard, rocket and chervil, but less so of spinach, which I had sown a little too late. The best date here for sowing spinach is 10 August.
After the final harvest of sugarloaf chicory, and twisting out the stumps, came the year’s final planting. It was winter purslane/Claytonia/miners’ lettuce, module-sown in late September – it crops well outside in winter months.
The winter was unusually mild, as the photos show, with so much new growth. There were only 29 nights of frost altogether, against an average of 48, and no nights were colder than -4°C (25°F). Daytime maxima averaged around 10°C (50°F), above average by 1.5°C (2.7°F). However, at the solstice there are only eight hours between sunrise and sunset, and the low amount of light restricts growth, sometimes more than low temperatures.
Most weeks during December to April saw small harvests, including lambs lettuce, mustards, rocket, spinach, chervil, land cress, and Claytonia.
The next four years
2016
I added no more compost until after the harvests of August 2016. We reaped the benefit of having trodden the contents firm when making this bed in 2015: it sank very little during the first year. Then in 2016 I tried some different plants:
- In mid-April I module-sowed green lentils from the kitchen jar, just to see how they might perform in the UK. Germination and growth were both excellent, but in August the harvest of dry lentils was only 230 g (0.5 lb), from masses of small pods and with just two lentils in each – fiddly to pick and shell. After twisting out the plants, I popped in some spinach.
- Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius) grows sweet and watery tubers, of low calorie content. I had kept root buds from the previous year’s plants. In November, after a slight frost, I levered out the tubers, and the weight from six plants totalled 11.3 kg (25 lb). They have a great flavour and are worth growing, if you have the space and can find plants.
- The Carlin peas are an old British variety, grown for harvests of dry peas in late summer. In August we picked and podded 0.94 kg (2.07 lb) of dry peas, a labour of love but more worthwhile than the lentils! They cook up to a firm texture, and have a decent flavour. Spinach followed these peas as well.
2017
The compost level was still good, and, since there was little shrinkage, I spread just one 40 litre sack of multi-purpose compost in late winter. It would then be another 20 months before adding more compost, in October 2018.
Ten years earlier I had grown Chinese artichoke (Stachys affinins, related to mint), and had been disappointed with the small harvest. Meanwhile I kept hearing about their amazing flavour, so grew them again in half of the bed, planting the small, ribbed tubers in April after removing the spinach.
At the other end I let the Medania spinach crop until June, then twisted it out to plant French beans. In July I also popped in eight modules of multi-sown leeks (two or three leeks in each), in the small spaces between French bean plants, with the leeks barely visible at first.
The harvest of Chinese artichokes was again small, fiddly and disappointing. Unless you are a chef looking for something different, I advise you not to bother. They also regrow from any tiny tubers left in the ground, so you need to keep pulling those until June.
French beans cropped well through summer and into September, while the leeks struggled for light and moisture. However they had clearly made some strong roots because they grew superbly in autumn, after I had removed the bean plants. I did a similar interplant in 2018, again with good results.
2018
After clearing the artichokes and a final leek harvest in April, the bed was empty until mid- May, and I didn’t add any compost at this stage.
Soya beans
I grew these for edamame, or green soy beans. I like their flavour and texture, and had been reading that they can be grown in our climate (Zone 8b). However it’s a cool 8b, and summer afternoons average only 21–22°C (low seventies °F).
I was unsure what to expect, as soybeans prefer warmer weather. Plant breeders have responded by producing a variety called Siverka, adapted to cooler weather by fruiting more quickly, partly through growing fewer leaves.
Soy plants are killed by frost but need a long season of growth, so I sowed them in modules in the greenhouse. Also in the greenhouse, I dared to sow a different variety of Green Shell in mid-April (earlier than I ever sow French beans for outdoor growing), while I sowed the Siverka at a more ‘correct’ time, in early May.
It turns out that soy plants resist cold (not frost) better than French beans, and the April sown Green Shell grew fast in a warm May, after being planted on the 10th. The later planting of Siverka was more affected by a June drought, despite watering.
The compost of this bed now has some invading roots from the dwarf plum tree, which is next to the shed. In a wet summer this is not important, but, in 2018, the moisture taken by those tree roots caused smaller harvests. I gave water, but not enough for maximum growth.
Picking began in early August and continued for a month, until the beans became drier and harder. I did not weigh the fresh harvests, but they contributed to several tasty meals. Green Shell gave the most edamame, because they stayed green for longer than the Siverka.
For dry soybeans (shelled), the Siverka gave 790 g (1.74 lb) in early September, and the Green Shell gave 770 g (1.69 lb) in mid-September. I found soybeans worthwhile, but 2018 was unusually warm.
The bed was then empty for a month, until we planted winter salads in October. These would have been better planted in September – the late planting resulted from an unexpected trial of new varieties for a magazine photoshoot.
Before planting, I spread 60 litres of Dalefoot wool compost, the one which performed so well in the trial from Lesson 16.
The fastest grower through winter was pak choi, despite most of its larger leaves suffering insect holes, probably from flea beetles – a result of warm weather. Normally flea beetles are less common in autumn. On the other hand, something always eats pak choi.
The best result was Valentin lambs lettuce, so hardy and with few pests eating its leaves. I started cutting in January, while the nearby cos lettuce were looking woeful – not helped by fleece having blown off in December. It was mid-January before some cold weather established, then I relaid the fleece/row cover. It sat directly on the plants, just above ground level: less prone to being ripped by wind than if suspended on hoops.
2019
Following the mulch in October 2018, a layer of just 3 cm (1 in), we didn’t spread any more compost or feeds in 2019. During the summer there were many second plantings, even third and fourth ones.
I had no precise plan but this is what happened. I mention ‘no plan’ because it shows how you can improvise when you have some experience. Also, you need a ‘backlist’ of plants and seeds ready at any time.
- For beginners, I recommend making a rough plan in winter, and to start raising plants by late February if you can.
- It’s always good to have more plants than you need, for popping in unexpected places where gaps arise. Also for when you change your mind about plantings, perhaps because of unforeseen weather, or because pests eat some plantings and you need replacements.
Through winter 2018–19, lambs lettuce, spinach and pak choi were all growing. By March I had removed these winter vegetables, except for the spinach.
These plantings on 26 March were all new. This was prompted by the arrival of Huw Richards with his camera: he wanted to film me planting the ‘One Bed’, a video which is still buried in his archives – he had a mighty busy year as it turned out. His ‘One Bed’ book became 2019’s largest grossing garden book in the UK.
I carried on making the video, at four different dates through the year; it shows the progression of growth and new plantings, and you can see it on You Tube: ‘One bed, results of succession plantings all year’.
Do follow these photos closely, to see the incredible results of interplanting. I was thrilled to have three plantings in the same year, in the same place and with no feeding. Then I managed a fourth planting in the same year, which is unusual in this climate.
On 29 July I sowed winter radish in modules: a green mooli type, long and firm. We transplanted them three weeks later, in the small amount of free space between the French beans, which were still cropping. All four of the 2019 plantings in the bed’s middle section grew without any new additions of compost or other feeds.
Like all summer plantings of brassicas, insects ate the radish leaves at first, but through autumn this reduced, and the radish grew enough healthy leaf to end up weighing 220 g (0.5 lb) each. They are colourful, dense, and way more long-lasting than spring radish.
The next step was to spread 3 cm (1 in) of compost in December, and to make a rough plan by March. In early 2020 I needed space for trial plantings of different vegetables (for magazine photoshoots) and this bed has proven ideal, illustrated by the two photos below.
Furthing viewing:
- Plant spaces: in this video I explain how closer or wider spacings speed growth and harvests
- More tips on growing chicory in this video
