What's the plan?

As I am trying to explain to my better half; the plan is really really simple.

When you clear a patch, replace it with the next thing that needs to go out - as long as it is a different family [so don't follow garlic with onion sets, for example].

This way, things stay really really simple.

If you don't have anything to go in, select a green manure relevant for the current season and sow that.

I was a bit worried Holly when you started saying 'have you ever been caught short..', I thought you meant '& watered your plot with an unusual natural product!'
This question probably isn't aimed at me as I only have a garden veg. plot but I do have bare spots during the winter sometimes. The veg. bed is 4ft x 4ft & I used to religiously stick to a 'square foot' type system & plant up each 1ft square with a different crop, this was useful as you could hide the carrots in between the onions & shallots to confuse the carrot fly! Now though I tend to plant up some of it fairly permanently with strawberries & use the rest for a section of salad leaves & tomatoes in the summer & then winter salad & shallots & or onions in winter under a polythene cover. I don't rotate I just throw on a load of homemade garden compost in autumn & plant away.
Where I've grown veg. in pots in the summer I empty out part of the compost & top it up with new & plant up with spring bulbs & winter bedding to brighten up the garden & then empty them out early next summer to reuse for courgettes, aubergines, chillies etc.

Plan? what plan?

If there's a bare patch fill it with something.

I have a rough crop rotation plan of 4 beds. I say rough, because things will self-seed and be in the 'wrong' bed sometimes, eg chard is everywhere this year!

Next year I'm going to make permanent beds for onions & spuds, because these are difficult for me to grow well.

That leaves 3 beds in the rotation:
1) brassicas
2) roots
3) legumes

gaps are quickly filled with salad or green manures (I include violas & limnanthes in green manures) or French beans (I use all the beans I can grow, as dried kidney beans)

I'm a bit sloppy with my planning, and just sow as much as poss in the greenhouse, and plant it out when there's a space. I don't measure or work out how many plants I need per foot of land, or anything. It's all very rough & ready, but it works for me.

I find it difficult to have an efficient crop rotation as the area required for each group of veg varies considerably. I always start the season by moving each group on to the next bed but find that by mid summer I am back to putting stuff where there is a space and always have plants awaiting a spot. I thought I might be al-right for next season as I have taken on another half plot, but I have increased the fruit area so will be back to shortage of space.

Ian

As this was my first year it has all been a bit hit & miss,but looking back most of the misses seem to be related to poor soil condition,so that is the main priority at the moment,to that end as things are coming out the ground is being rotavated & then covered in a good layer of well rotted manure.