Replanting Beds in Winter

Because my garden is relatively small (less than an acre/4000m2), I have to make the most of the bedspace I have. This means intensive plantings for most crops, but it also means I can’t afford to leave beds fallow for any length of time.

So as soon as a crop is finished, it's time to prepare and replant the bed. My standard bed size is six metres long by 800mm wide, with paths of 400mm between beds. The paths are generous to provide easy access to beds with a wheelbarrow, while the bed width allows a variety of sowing/planting options (one furrow for potatoes, two furrows for peas and beans, three furrows for carrots and spring onions, as well as salad, beet and allium seedlings; or two passes with the six-row seeder for 12 rows to a bed maximum).

This bed is very weedy after hosting a crop of Miners Lettuce (or Claytonia), which dislikes being transplanted, is slow to germinate, and which I didn’t get around to hoeing. I used to get stressed out about weeds amongst the vegetables, but I've have had to come to terms with them. Without using herbicides, and without paying for labour, my garden is always going to have a few weedy areas, and ultimately, if I’m still getting a good harvest, then the weeds are just grist for the compost when I do get around to attacking them.

The IF in that last sentence is the kicker, though. When the weeds are out-competing the vegetables, or are going to prolific seed, then they are a real problem, and I try to address them as soon as possible (not that this always happens!).

On the other hand, sometimes weeds do me a favour: they reduce water runoff, they provide matter for the compost, they can act as a ‘living mulch’, improving water retention and soil drainage, and in a few cases they have actually improved a crop. One example of this was my green garlic last year, which was well established before weeds took over the bed. The weed growth caused the garlic to climb to the light, providing me with much longer stems than I would have had otherwise.

Over the past year, I’ve been using bed replanting as my main method of weed control -- that is, I don’t worry too much about weeds growing when the crop is almost harvest ready. Then when the crop is finished I clear out both the crop residues and the weeds, then replant. 

First I use my chipping hoe to chop out the weeds as shallowly as possible.

Once I’ve removed the majority of the weeds and dumped them on the compost (food for next year’s crops!), I run my trapezoidal hoe over the bed to make sure all the remaining roots are cut.

Then the bed is raked to a medium tilth and the remaining plant residues removed.

The bed is dressed with fertiliser and compost. At the moment I am using poppy seedmeal (five litres per bed) as the base for my fertiliser, with added agricultural lime (that’s the pale one), kelp meal (circling to the right), guano and gypsum (at a quarter of a litre each).

These are mixed thoroughly and spread over the bed, followed by a good helping of compost. In the photo, the fertiliser layer is the lighter part, while I have only composted the top half so far. My faithful companion is assisting with some quality control.

Then it’s time for lunch (filo triangles with collard greens, spring onion, lemon and Tasmanian fetta, and salad mix with balsamic vinegar. Yum).

Back in the garden, the fertiliser and compost are raked shallowly into the soil, then I make furrows for the seedlings with the edge of my trap. hoe.

Today I am planting ‘Rhodos’ endives which were sown in plug trays 6 weeks ago. I use the plug trays continuously over the colder months. Seeds germinate faster in the plug trays in the warm potting shed than they do in the cold soil outside, and one plug tray of seedlings will fill one or two of my standard beds (depending on how close the plants are in the row). This saves me six weeks of bedspace each time (because the seedlings are germinating and growing for six weeks while there are still crops growing in their future bed). The trays also save me six weeks of the weed growth that would occur if seeds were sown directly. This is particularly important during the short, cold days of winter, when weed seeds  germinate much faster than most vegetables.

The seedlings can be pulled from the plugs with their root systems intact, meaning there is little check to their growth when transplanted.

So there’s the bed planted out with just over 100 seedlings. With the soil as moist as it is right now, I won’t bother watering them in.

Then it’s a quick lick of the file to put an edge on the hoe, and onto the next beds!