Planning your vegetable garden - part 2

Once you've got an idea of the vegetables you want to try in your vegetable garden this year then the next thing to do is to look at the space you've got available and plan it out. You can either use a rotation system in big sections or if you're just growing in borders then you can plant in rows from front to back with small vegetables like lettuce, radishes, dwarf beans at the front and big vegetable plants like runner or french beans at the back.

This will give you a range of sizes, flower colour, leaf types and provide you with a good selection of vegetables for the pot. You should also watch out for harvesting times and try and make sure that you're not going to disturb the soil around still growing vegetables when harvesting others. In a dense vegetable garden where you're trying to crawm as many different vegetables in together, usually in vegetable borders around a lawn in the middle, you should plant your root vegetables in a row with easy access from the front and avoid disturbing other growing salad or vegetable plants

Also bear in mind that some plants need support when growing like peas and beans. Vegetables like these need light and air around them to pollinate so you can't grow them on trellis against your fence. Beans do grow well in a wigwam shape using canes.

Soil type is another consideration, nearly all vegetables like free draining loam soil so if you've got thick clay or very sandy soil then you've got your work cut out.