single crop rows three feet apart?

After seeing the video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2brHfHPusac ), I wrote to them with these questions (waiting for response now):

I’m wondering what are the reasons for having single rows of vegetables three feet apart?
Ease of mulching?
Machinery?
Any other reason i’m not aware of?
Are rows alternating and on different spot each year, in other words are you turning deep mulch paths into crop rows each year?
Is single row used for most of veggies you grow?

I got the answer from Theresa.

It’s a food production system.
Main reasons for such wide paths is ease of mulching and ease of movement between rows.
It’s easier to move and maintain the system when plants are fully grown.
Also minimizing shade and competition and ease of harvesting.

They don’t alternate between paths and rows and they are having some problems because of that and are thinking to alternate them next year because soil in paths is just great.
Year to year they didn’t alternate and growing rows are lower – sort of sunken in as compared to the mulched pathway – disadvantage in heavy rain, rows get saturated and sometimes too wet.

There are mostly single rows, but sometimes single rows are planted in double row pattern (carrots, oninons, beets,…)

Single row grow system

I was never a fan of rows, but we are moving into more production, bigger field crop no-till system and i think it’s going to be single rows.
I was questioning this method, more in a way of – why not use standard beds?
This article is quite good on answering me the question why one row system – http://www.cropsreview.com/row-planting.html
We are still growing big veggie garden with standard double reach beds, and one row system is going to be a good addition for growing crops such as corn, bush beans, potateos, cabbage etc.
Can’t wait, especially because it’s going to be no-till and we are already preparing the ground with compost, old hay and leaves.

Would still love some inputs!

A diverse, no-till veggie gardenis  already established here on a farm.

We are now adding bigger and simplified crop field system and looking for “the best” way.
Less plant varities, more quantity is general idea.

No machinery.
Mostly plants that don’t need everyday care or harvesting, so mostly plants that are harvested for storage in large quantity, quite far away from the house, visited once a week maybe.

Alternating rows with different veggies will take care of polyculture aspect, so i’t not going to be monoculture.

The question right now for me, how wide should i make the beds and paths?
Probably best to decide what i will grow and where and make variable dimensions?

Hi Zuf I would be interested to know if they suffer from soil errosion as having so much unprotected by crops it must be vunerable to heavy rain?

Current advice to farmers in UK is to not leave fields without a crop as significant amounts of top soil is being erroded by heavy rain. With our changing weather patterns I can only see this becoming more of an issue.

I’m holding and scratching my head right now. I love beds, been using them since i started gardening, so it is hard for me to go away from them, but i just don’t think they are right for what we want to do.

I got kind of a AHA moment right now why i would like to go with single rows and 0.4m paths. Main reason is mulching/covering.

Main garden takes all fine mulch we can produce. By fine mulch i mean compost, and other fine grade broken down materials. It is very easy to maintain garden beds with this kind of mulch, easy to spread any time of year, if needed also inbetween growing plants. Garden is producing very good, we are not greedy, but we need a bit more of some type of veggies for our consumption. Main garden and it’s maintanance is staying with us, but new growing areas are on horizon next spring (rotten hay and leaves are already prepared to be used).

For new growing areas there will not be enough fine mulch and main source of covering material will be hay or long partly dried grass in summer and leaves in fall. Single rows are very convinient for this kind of maintanance. Our farm is hard to reach and we can not afford outside sources of compost in such quantities. If I don’t see something please point it out! I’m very open to doubts and ideas how to do it better.

Using rough mulch such as hay and leaves, which are our main source of organic material is time consuming and very hard to do on garden beds when plants are growing. Also using them to cover beds in fall is a challenge for sowing and planting in spring.

To make myself clear, my written words is mostly thinking out loud, no permanent decisions. There is 50/50 chance of using rows or beds.

Charles and others, thanks for sticking with me on this one, it’s quite important for us.

Imagine you got this crop and it’s growing on 1.2m beds. Soil gets bare because mulch is eaten, and it’s time to mulch again. The only material you have is long fresh grass or hay. So hard to mulch beds versus mulching paths and single rows, because you only mulch paths and you mulch rows at the same time. Do you see where my thinking goes?

Zuf

I”m not sure what your target yields as a grower are, but I got well over 3lb per tuber planted for Desiree maincrop in 2014 spacing them at 40 cm across a 1.5m bed and 50cm between rows. Far less than normal suggestions and the ‘earthing up’ was mostly done using comfrey leaves, grass mowings and a bit of soil on top. The ‘hills’ were much smaller than I’ve done before and no green potatoes emerged as a result.

Personally, I don’t see any logic in large distances between rows if your space between tubers within a row is only 40- 45cm. My experiment this summer shows that an even 40 – 45 cm space between tubers has no effect on yield per tuber and a consequent increase in yield/sq metre.

I guess, if space constraints aren’t your primary concern, you can afford to space things out more though……

Yes, space is not a problem, i’m more into applying coarse mulch as easy as possible. We are extended family and we would like to grow as much food as possible.

Guess i will go with beds for some veggies and rows for others.

Ground will be prepared as a whole anyway, using only rotten hay and leaves. I can decide in spring where and how big the paths and for what veggies to use single row, double row or beds.

For mulch, nothing else is available, and also in future there will be only hay, fresh grass and leaves for this growing area. Around 50m x 5m.

I am thinking to compost the material available, just need to figure out how much i can dedicate to composting as i need to prepare the ground now with what i have available and by the summer this mulch will be gone and bare soil will start to show.

Am i to diciplined to mulch straight away? Be it with compost or something else. In my garden there is no bare soil at any moment. Do i use too much material because of that?

I should remember this, when i decide on dimensions for new plot. Better to use thicker mulch on less area, than thinner on bigger. Done this mistake so many times now, it’s funny! I hope it’s not going to happen this time. I measure tomorrow. Thanks for all the help, things are a lot clearer now for me.

rtj, i read your comment again! Another AHA, when you were talking about wide spacing of plants in a bed. Before they grow we can apply easily long fresh grass in wide spaces.

Each 1.20m bed is actually 40cm of growing area more if i decide on 40cm paths.

If there will be any rows (20-30cm), they will also have smaller paths (20-30cm).

I can also play with 60cm beds…

This is fun!