Allotments 4 All
Allotment Stuff => The Basics => Topic started by: TISH on October 05, 2009, 10:13:40
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Hi -
Am just plotting out my allotment, and have read in books (Caroline Foley's allotment handbook and others) that you should plant rows north-south so the plants don't shade each other. However have noticed most of the folks on our allotment have run their beds east-west. Wondered what people's experiences were?
Thanks,
Tish
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I must be terribly thick, but I have never really understood this. ??? If you have several plants in rows, what difference does it make? I have not noticed some plants doing better than others when planted in a block, and yet presumably they are all getting differing amounts of sunshine.
I would have thought that what you plant matters more than the direction of the rows, for example if you plant lettuces behind sweetcorn it will shade them more than swedes , but with rotation that limits the placement of crops anyway. I don't worry about it, the state of the soil is more important IMHO. ;D
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I have dug beds in a East-West direction, and then I plant short rows accross the beds in a North-South direction.
I don't think it is too critical which direction you plant, I decided on my way, just because how I wanted to lay out my plot, and I only wanted small managble rows, the fact that they go North-South is just a bonus.
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My plot is in the middle of the site so it gets the sun all day long. That means whichever way I plant anything it all gets plenty of sunshine!
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you can just about see how it makes sense, especially away from high summer time, but I bet it doesn't make much of a difference. My beds mostly run north-south, but that's for convenience. Actually the rows in the beds mostly run from east to west, so work that one out Caroline Foley :D
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i put taller crops on the north side - i.e climbing beans so thay dont shade too much. Having said that, the sun is higher in summer and its not the be all and end all.
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and some crops benefit from a little shade in the middle of summer...
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Well i intended to plant North-south but didn't ever remember to take a compass with me when I first got my plot and assumed my plot was N-S aligned but it's more NW-SE aligned so my plants are in NW_SE rows but they're fine perhaps i've accidentally sat on the fence in this debate! ;D
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couse if you have your tall plants on the north edge of your plot, you get all the benefit of the full sun, and the shadow falls on the next plot :D
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I don't think it matters as long as you don't plant tall things where they're going to shade smaller ones.
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I have tried both alignments in my veg plot, and east/west does better for me. Only way to be sure is to experiment.
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All my fruit bushes go north/south but my veg go east/west. As mentioned before, shading plays an important part. I grew my best ever swede under the shade of sweetcorn in my first year ;) It's all trail and error and finding what's best for your site.
Ninny
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Thankyou Ninnyscrops,
I am doing a tree bed rotation, and for next year I was trying to work out how to plant so that my beans did not shade my brassicas too much.
Having read your comment about your swede, I did a google, and apparently brasicas like a bit of shade, so that makes things a bit easier :D
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I'm with Kea on the diagonal. Have a bit of a slope on mine so tended to put the tall things at the top. Pinched a bit of extra sun by shading the path. Put my beans NE to SW but lots on site did NW to SE. All beans did well and did most other things on site.
One person sowed diagonally to the paths can't say they were any different to anyone elses crops.
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Most of my beds run east-west, so the rows run north-south.
I always plant my climbing beans on wigwams. (We have a very windy site.) It's very noticable that at the start of the season, the beans on the south-facing side of the wigwam are always the first to ripen, but as the season progresses the north-facing beans usually do better.
OK - not very scientific, just casual observation.
But as others have said, try not to let tall crops shade the others.
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I do also wonder about the effect of shelter from the wind/frost/rains that the direction of planting effects rather than exposure to more sun........I could see the effects of this most clearly in some sweetcorn I grew, they got bigger the more shelter they had!
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My plot is on the side of a mountain, the top is about 15 feet higher than the bottom. The plot runs from north to south. I plant east to west in ridged rows so that I can catch the rain as the soil is very free draining. I don't think it matters a lot which direction you plant you just have to plant according to the way the land slopes.
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DebP - I'm with you on the shelter thing, being on a site that gets exposed to the wind, I've noticed that the more shelter I give plants the better they seem to fare - again not very scientific but seems to work !
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Well I think someone has been reading my mind :o. Just got back from lottie and most of our debate today was about why no one on our site plants their rows down the length of the plot( I don't know my north from my south so best describe it this way). I couldn't see that it would make any difference but as everyone plants across the plots my friend thought there must be a reason. I was going to ask on A4A for opinions and hey presto a thread already up and running. :) :) Will read with great interest.
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I've noticed an interesting thing about my raspberries but I don't know why it happens. As I said my plot runs lengthways NW-SE and so does my planting. I have two rows of raspberries at the top end of my plot and another two rows at the bottom. There is a very, very minor slope lengthways down the plot but all the raspberry plants are taller at the south east end of their rows. The Autumn Bliss have the most noticeable difference they are very short one end about 18" and 4ft at the other. I don't think the slope is enough to have an effect as there isn't a slope from one end of a row to the other. :-\
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Are they taller at the top or the bottom?
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South east end or the bottom/front
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I've noticed an interesting thing about my raspberries but I don't know why it happens. As I said my plot runs lengthways NW-SE and so does my planting. I have two rows of raspberries at the top end of my plot and another two rows at the bottom. There is a very, very minor slope lengthways down the plot but all the raspberry plants are taller at the south east end of their rows. The Autumn Bliss have the most noticeable difference they are very short one end about 18" and 4ft at the other. I don't think the slope is enough to have an effect as there isn't a slope from one end of a row to the other. :-\
A guess: More water at one end? Better soil that retains water or has more nutrients?
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Must be however the soil on lot of raspberries is on is completely different from the other set and yet I have the same height gradient!