What: Personal Allotment Design
Where: Anstruther Allotments
When: 2020 August – 2021 Summer
SUMMARY
I used GOBRADIMET to create a planting plan and analyse what my needs for this space would be.
My wants and needs
Increase food yield and diversity:
Greens throughout the winter
Clear planting plan so I know what I want to do, where. Needs to be ready by February 2020.
More perennials
Implementation plan – so I have definite tasks to do in my plot in each month
Use the space efficiently
Replenish the soil
Sustainable input and output of energy
Work out a time schedule
Input of energy – my physical time
Output of energy – the food I get from the garden, make sure I’m harvesting at appropriate times.
Find out more about and/or try out edible perennials e.g. welsh onions, perennial kale…
The Design
I came up with a planting plan. Above.
For all the Details download the file.
FOUR YEAR ROTATION PLAN
Year Bed One Bed Two Bed Three Bed Four
2021 Kohl Rabi; Swiss Chard, Beetroot Parsnips Kale Pak Choi Perpetual Spinach
2022 Parsnips Kale, Pak Choi Perpetual Spinach Kohl Rabi, Swiss Chard
2023 Kale Pak Choi Perpetual Spinach Kohl Rabi, Swiss Chard Parsnips
2024 Perpetual Spinach Kohl Rabi,Swiss Chard Parsnips Kale, Pak Choi
REFLECTION
It was so helpful to run through this detailed plan and I have learned a lot about a variety of tools in permaculture and how/when it is appropriate to use them.
In one way it was such a small plot that it feels like it is extensive in comparison to just jumping in and doing a straightforward planting plan but it hasn’t been getting the full use in the past few years so thinking about zoning and areas has actually made it much more simple for the years to come.
This is obviously the goal for permaculture design – not making it more complex but because this particular allotment design had been started and not finished for a couple of years in a row it really deserved some specific thought put into zones. This is also true because we have a variety of different growing spaces and it was important to work out what plants to grow where to utilise what we had more efficiently and include time distance and effort into our considerations.
Having a four year planting plan psychologically takes a lot of weight off of my mind as in this space every year we were starting from scratch.
Having a clear space for perennials has also clarified a lot and I feel really excited about the bulk harvest we will be cropping later this year.