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This is a project that my family and I started in 2008, and it certainly isn't finished yet. (do gardens ever really finish? There's always more weeding to do :)
There are many useful websites with info pertaining to crop rotation, such as Gardening Know How , for example.
The basic idea behind the layout of the garden is that crops can grow in one area, while the chickens are allowed to dig through the soil in another, while the third section is prepared for the next crop to be planted later in the season.
I designed the main structure using Google SketchUp 6, and I'm still working out the finer details for the chook house/tool shed.
The SketchUp model can be viewed and downloaded from here.
We will be planting our third lot of vegetables soon; so far we have grown pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, zuchinis, carrots, peas, corn, broad beans, snowpeas, parsley, lettuce, spinach and silverbeet; some more successfully than others.
If you want to share notes on your own experiences with crop-rotation, or if this inspires you to start your own garden; let me know, and feel free to share some pics of your own in the comments too.
There are many useful websites with info pertaining to crop rotation, such as Gardening Know How , for example.
The basic idea behind the layout of the garden is that crops can grow in one area, while the chickens are allowed to dig through the soil in another, while the third section is prepared for the next crop to be planted later in the season.
I designed the main structure using Google SketchUp 6, and I'm still working out the finer details for the chook house/tool shed.
The SketchUp model can be viewed and downloaded from here.
We will be planting our third lot of vegetables soon; so far we have grown pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers, zuchinis, carrots, peas, corn, broad beans, snowpeas, parsley, lettuce, spinach and silverbeet; some more successfully than others.
If you want to share notes on your own experiences with crop-rotation, or if this inspires you to start your own garden; let me know, and feel free to share some pics of your own in the comments too.
What is the rationale to raise the beds and to cover everything???
How much of an investment (time, money) did you have to make?
I myself cover strawberries, cherries and some young plants with nets on a temporary frame, but why this radical solution?
We needed a large garden because we have a family of seven. People who grow veggies and fruit in our area battle with birds and possums. Possums in particular can be a lot of effort to deal with successfully. If you use netting to keep birds away then you have to put it on and take it off each season. So our solution, although expensive, means we don't have to worry about those things.
Keeping chooks can also pose a problem, as we have brown snakes and foxes around here. The wire we chose keeps out foxes and most snakes.
We found it hard to decide what gauge of pipe to use; but if we had used a smaller gauge we would have had to have more supports, and its the connectors that are the expensive part.
Being fully enclosed meant we were able to easily add overhead sprinklers. However the wire and framing added up to about $3500. Maybe we got a bit carried away, but in our environment it should last for many years. We also added an electric pressure pump at the dam which was another $1000. It's identical to the pump for our house and was actually used as a temporary back-up for it while that one was being fixed.
Hopefully I can supply some sufficient answers :)
The beds are raised because the ground underneath has a high clay content, so we bought some better soil from a local rural-supplies store. This also helps with the drainage of rainwater from the area.
It took 2-5 people around 2-3 weeks to put the main structure up and get the wiring done, however we didn't work on it every day.
I'm not sure of the cost of the materials, as I didn't get too involved in that side of the project; I mostly just worked on drawing up the design, figuring out how many of which parts were needed, and then finally digging holes and concreting poles in the ground.
I'm sure that different people would have done it differently, but the bottom line is that it works well enough for what it was designed to do.
I don't know if anyone else is experiencing the error; but if so, just click on the picture's thumbnail again and it should sort itself out.