Now is a great time of year to build a raised bed for overwintering vegetables such as broadbeans, garlic, onions, green manures and perhaps even some winter wheat. With all the sunshine in recent days I managed to make some headway getting the second lift of logs into place and securing these with wooden stakes cut with the axe. 
The cardboard has been down for a while now covering layers of the leaves , nettles and soil/compost from the ditch.
That’s a ton of soil mix, soil content (45%) ,compost (45%) and grit (10%) barrowed on top. The bed is 6 metres long so I divided it into 4 parts each 1.5 metres long. The basic rotation plan is Cabbage family, Onion family, Pea family and Potato family.
In the cabbage ( brassica ) section I’m putting in a few russian kale and perpetual spinach. The kale is spaced 600mm each way.
In the onion section (Alliums) 3 rows of radar onions and 3 rows of vallelado garlic The rows are 25cm apart with the onions 100mm apart and the garlic 200mm apart.
In the pea section ( Legumes) 4 rows at 450mm spacings with staggered aquadulce broadbean seeds at150mm apart. It’s possible to have a catch crop of lettuce between the rows if you have transplants or alternatively broadbeans do even better undersown with a green manure such as a Landsberger mix of rye grass, vetch and clover.
I like to line out the sets and seeds before planting to check the spacings. When planting garlic and onions I just push them into the soil with the roots pointing down, the roots may still retain a fe tiny root hairs to help figure this out. The basic sowing rule is a max depth of twice the size of the seed, about 2 inches for the garlic. The onions can be planted just below the soil surface to reduce the chances of birds disturbing them. Netting these for a while untill rooted is advisable as the bird do tend to like to investigate.
The seeds and sets were sourced through Fruithill farm and the topsoil mix through landscape depot.
Gardening & Permaculture Design 