garden plans in books,magazines and pamphlets.

Plan, what's a plan?

My garden, like most aspects of my life, is a series of happy accidents. I think the best gardens just evolve naturally over time. You stick something here, something else there and so it goes. With veg growing you would normally have a dedicated plot for the major crops like spuds and onions but that shouldn't stop you putting things wherever you find a space.

I know some people are terrified of chaos but I get along with it just fine.

Sort of. Ideas have to come from somewhere, but I only take bits and adapt it to suit. Hence a four bed rotation for veg. I couldn't tell you books as I chop and change things as I go.
Why, are you after good books for ideas?

I cant stick to plans but like NG I gain ideas but My plot is never the same two years in a row

Mine is a Spreadsheet - the cells coloured up etc. but basically its on electronic squared-graph paper, its evolved over the years, probably started life from something I saw somewhere, but that were a long time ago ...

The first one, which I used years ago, was a great start.
I'd been unable to get my head around rotation or follow on crops until I saw this, then everything seemed to click into place.

Dig For Victory WWII layout of Allotment or Victory Garden

Nowadays I grow some crops that are not even on that plan - but it gave me the basics

My plan is something I am still tweaking, I haven't copied one plan from a book, like a lot of others on here it seems I have taken tips that make sense to me plus things I have picked up from experience to create a vague plan on my allotment this year: Garden Plan - 2015: Allotment

However this is still changing as what I want to grow is changing; for instance in the last few days I have decided I want to grow some Borlotti beans for drying, and I am going to have to tweak this plan to fit those in.

I shall probably tweak it again in the remaining days of the free trial I have but it is a guide for me rather than something I shall stick to religiously. Next year the majority if the crops will rotate as follows:

alliums will follow the potatoes
beans/squash/corn will follow the alliums
cruciferous veg will follow the beans/squash/corn
Root veg/beetroot family will follow cruciferous veg
potatoes will follow root veg/beetroot family

You'll see I bunch a couple of families up with each other, they are intended to compliment each other and like similar conditions/nutrient balance so I can worry about liming the bed that will have brassicas in once a year (plus I won't disturb that bed so they have the soil structure to anchor them in). I'll manure for the hungry crops but enough nutrients are depleted and the soil structure is right due to the previous crops for the carrots and parsnips etc.

That's the thinking, but tweaking always happens in the plan dependant on what I want to grow.... what will grow happily in my soil and location... which is why you'll find very few people will copy a plan out of a book.

No, I haven't and probably never will. Plans in books are usually drawn up for flat, square, unshaded ground. My garden is the complete opposite. I may take ideas from them but that's all.

Biggest issue I anticipate you struggling with, assuming you have somewhat limited space, is that one rotation needs more space than another. For me Brassicas and Potatoes need far more space (twice as much) than Beans, Onions or Roots.

I "solve" that with a second rotation which is Spuds, 2nd batch of Brassicas, Sweetcorn and some cut flowers. So Brasscias grow in both my Primary and Secondary rotation plots, but Spuds [and Sweetcorn] never rotate within my Primary plot, they only ever live in the Secondary.

I solve it by upscaling or downscaling what I grow, have a look at my allotment plot and you'll see I have a bigger bed for this, either a larger or smaller qty, or fewer/more varieties. Serendipity in that I inherited the bed sizes 9 months ago and I'm seeing how it works for me.

This means each year will have it's 'showcase', this year will be my alliums, I am using the excess space on my plot to sow my own shallot seeds for next year's sets (as these are blummin expensive in the shops). I should be self-sufficient in onions, but maybe not in carrots/potatoes. This year for instance I shall only have a few cabbages/purple sprouting broccoli plants which I eat less often than onions anyway. I am also growing my eating peas on the 'cottage garden' area as well as sweet peas to account for the number of beans I'm trying this year. This gives an element of flexibility for overflow - so long as a crop looks the part - these will be on wigwams so it should work.

Next year the big bed will have beans/squash/corn in it and I shall really go to town on them, I will try lots of varieties of pumpkin and squash to see which varieties grow well, which taste great etc. so I can focus on one or two the following year. I shall also take the opportunity to dry a lot of beans and my friends will have to come to lots of BBQs with the sweetcorn

There's several benefits for me doing this; my friends get the benefit of any excesses beyond what I could store so no waste, I get to try varieties I may not otherwise and also I don't get fed up with a glut of the same veg every year I also get to 'specialise' each year on one family which means I learn something rather than trying to learn everything all at once and perhaps not manage to grow things that well.

Sounds fine if you are happy with that approach. There is definitely something to be said, when starting out, for having bouts of variety experimentation. We grow several-of a number of veg each year,and have a taste-test at harvest time to see if we prefer them to our regularly-grown varieties.

My aim is different in that I want to grow 100% of what the kitchen needs. We like to have great flavour from our veg, so picked-fresh and to some extent varieties chosen for flavour (over yield, disease resistance, etc.) is my primary approach.

The other big issue for us is to know the provenance of our food. We don't put any pesticides on our plot at all - things like "Beef is Horse" worry us - not because we wouldn't eat Horse, but because Who Knows? what goes on in food production ... particularly imported food, given that "re-packaged in the UK" can be labelled as "UK produce"

Mucho respect to you spreadsheeters but I get enough of those at work. My plot is ever evolving usually to do with summat I've scrounged which I think I can find a place for. I was an engineer in another life and now rebel against geometry, precision and trigonometry!

I was thinking about buying the book "Groundbreaking food gardens : 73 plans that will change the way you grow your garden" that is why I started this thread.

Free ebook? https://sites.google.com/site/ooifde...ow-Your-Garden

Looks an interesting read and covering a range of areas