Re: Introduction
- To: v*@eskimo.com
- Subject: Re: Introduction
- From: W* B* <w*@net.ntl.com>
- Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 07:49:25 +0100
- References: <199907010030.UAA25594@smtp0.mindspring.com>
- Resent-Date: Thu, 1 Jul 1999 23:50:20 -0700
- Resent-From: veggie-list@eskimo.com
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- Resent-Sender: veggie-list-request@eskimo.com
Compulsory reading:
'Creative vegetable gardening' by Joy Larkcom
published by Mitchell Beazley
ISBN 1 85732 805 1
William Perez wrote:
> Hello everyone. My name is William Perez, and I just joined the veggie
> list. I am twenty-nine years old and live in Fleetwood, New York, a few
> minutes from NYC, and I am a gardener at the New York Botanical Garden. I
> hope to learn lots from this list. Actually, I know I will. I've just been
> given a veggie plot, and am pretty much starting from scratch in the
> knowledge department.
>
> Well, the first question that has been floating about in my racing brain (I
> have seven other display gardens to contend with!) is crop rotation. I'm
> familiar with rotating crops in the traditional sense, but I've been
> wondering how crop rotation comes into play in small mixed beds. Our veggie
> garden is composed of eight rectangular raised beds. Obviously, one could
> simply grow related veggies in each bed and just move them around year to
> year. But I don't want to do that. The inspiration bug has bitten me a
> good one, and I want to create ornamental beds with veggies planted in
> pretty patterns. This of course means that a bed could have any variety of
> vegetables which would complicate the basic design of blocks or rows of
> similar vegetables. So, do I just throw crop rotation out the window and
> just change the soil in the raised beds every year, or is it the case that
> growing a variety of vegetables mitigates the problems associated with
> monoculture so that crop rotation is not necessary?
>
> Second question, can anyone suggest must have vegetable books? Books that
> no vegetable gardener should live without?
>
> Third, but certainly not the last for as long as I'm a member of this list,
> can anyone suggest any seed places that carry seeds of wild or original
> species of modern day vegetable hybrids?
>
> Okay, that's all for now. But be forewarned, there'll be many "why is a
> tomato red?" questions coming from this novice. Thanks so much in advance,
> and I hope to be able to help anyone in the future as my knowledge and
> experience grows.
