Optimising your Grow Beds for Maximum Plant Growth

[Castaway]

One of the things you soon discover after you've planted out your Grow Beds with seedlings is that some things naturally grow better and faster than other plants if you plant them in the right spot and not crowd out other plants.
One of the things I'm still learning to understand is how to optimise your Grow Bed for maximum crop yield.
I soon discovered that some careful thought and planning before we put in our seedlings pays dividends and helps maximise the amount of food your grow bed produces.
Vertical space above the Grow Bed and the space below it can help double your harvest. Having a good sunny position and watching the angle of the sun as it rises and sets in the west can also helps you to decide which plant can go where and in what stacking order in the system.

I try and plant out the taller plants towards the East or morning sun (Australia) so that taller plants do not obscure smaller plants from the warmer western sun. I've been planting my Silverbeet more or less to one side of the Grow Bed away from the Western Sun so shorter plants like Lettuces have a good chance to catch as much sun as possible and are not obscured by the taller plants shadow. Also, climbing plants like tomatoes can be staked up on a trellis or on suspended timber frames so fruit can be grown one or even two metres above the Grow Bed.

Some good advice I got on this forum was to trim all the lower tomato leaves to allow maximum crop and vine growth. I seems to work well.
I also plant cucumbers in the Western side so the vine will trail out of the Grow Bed and fall down towards the ground bearing fruit. This way we can plant more seedlings and have a bigger harvest.

Planting the smaller plants in the centre and the taller vine-like plants on the edges is something worth trying.

Please share your experiences, tips and suggestions on how you optimise your Grow Beds potential. We can all learn from each others vast experience (and mistakes).

[Julia]

All very useful advice. It's surprising how growth rates and plant health differ from grow bed to grow bed, even among the same plants.

[dufflight]

You can also move plants around a bit. I had a lot of plants in one gb and have moved some of these to fill spaces in others. There does not seem to be any transplant shock.

[Murray]

You are right Duff about the transplant thing. Recently I changed an entire grow bed over. Large tomato bush with loads of fruit on it....just carefully removed it with minimal root damage, and replanted it an hour late when I had finished. no problem...it had fully recovered by next morning.

[fishfood]

Thats true Murray last season i was pulling cellery in a bed of vemiculite and thought gees this is hard and pulled out a fully grown tomato plant just dug a hole and re planted it it dident look back

[Castaway]

Here's some snow peas planted right up against the edge of a grow bed allowing the plant to tumble over the side to grow. Snow peas normally like to grow up a trellis but these ones don't seem to mind growing down in this narrow gap between the fence and the system. If we had more space, I'd have a bigger corridor to walk around the grow bed. The tomatoes in the background have taken up all the vertical space above the grow bed. I need a machete now to get through to the other side! :lol:

[dufflight]

If you use dwarf snow peas they will take longer to get to the ground. :mrgreen:

[RupertofOZ]

You sure Duff... wouldn't they be closer to the ground to start with... :mrgreen:

[Little drummond boy]

Not sure if this is the right place but...How do you plant seeds direct into grow media, I was thinking of wrapping seeds in cotton wool or some such. Is this necessary? Also my system is about 3 months old, should I stick to light feeders, and how many per bed (250l beds) in 3 bed system.

[Castaway]

Hi LDB I was looking at your other post and noticed your Silver Perch are quite small. How are your Nitrate levels at the moment? That will determine what load your plants can take. I haven't planted seeds directly into grow beds but I'm sure they will work. Why not sow them into punnets first and plant out when the seedlings reach a certain height?