Last updated
05 February 2012
Quest for the Good Life 
Planning the vegetable garden
In 2011 we started using the war time Ministry of Agriculture “Dig for Victory” guide to growing vegetables all year round. We continue into 2012.
Why use this old document when there are many good modern methods?
During war time the emphasis had to be on getting as much from your garden as possible. In some ways were are trying to do the same thing so it will be interesting to see if it works. Being efficient and effective was the norm right from Victorian days through the war. It is only in recent years we have lost most of our food production skills on a small scale. These historical documents are not only interesting but offer real help in getting the most from your land.
The plans for the Dig for Victory guide are based on a garden or allotment 90ft x 30ft. Most people will hit a snag here straight away. The average modern garden will only be a fraction of this. Although ours is larger than this, we are trying to produce other things like fruit, grow chickens and have a wildlife pond. So we too will find restrictions and in realty we will have to reduce the plan by 30% to fit it into the land available. If you have an allotment you may be able to adapt it to fit. In addition, we have many more varieties today to tempt us. The Dig for Victory plan is more basic and set in good old trustworthy varieties. We see nothing wrong in that.
(Approx 14m x 14m)
The problem here is that our plot is square and the Dig for Victory plan is based on a long rectangle! In addition our plot is 1764 ft² and the Dig for Victory plan is 2700 ft². That’s a reduction of 34%. So at best we can only hope to grow two thirds of the Ministry of Agricultures guide. But then how do we fit a long thin shape into a short fat one?
Perhaps the only answer is to divide the plot into two halves, not physically, but with an imaginary line.
This effectively gives a plot that is 21’ wide x 42’ long, twice. Which is 21’ x 84’. That gets as close as we can to the 30’ x 90’ in the Dig for Victory plan. The 21’ width is 30% less than the plan. This way we should be able to run with the same number of rows for each crop but they will be 30% shorter in length.
So we now have the space planned out. The Dig for Victory plan conveniently tells you how many of each type of plant to grow in rows, how far to space the rows apart and planting distances !
The above image is a small part of the plan which shows Potatoes. The crops are named and in brackets afterwards whether they are early or main crop. With these old documents you have to remember that they would have been drawn by hand before being printed. The rows are hand drawn at the side of the text to show firstly how many and secondly the spacing between plants in each row. So the number of rows can be counted and the space between indicated by the number (in feet and inches of course). The number of rows is also written beneath the crop name along with the spacing (again in feet and inches) between the rows.
This makes a nice pictorial guide to planting potatoes. Page 3 of the guide is a larger printed version (if like me your eyes aren’t so good) to help with this further as well as sowing times.
Here is a sample of the text of page 3 of the Dig for Victory guide. This confirms
what we have already seen in the pictorial diagram. The name of the crop, in brackets
the type eg:-
Applying the plan to our plot
So with the space we have available (21’ x 84’) we can now try to split it up according to the guide. If we look at group C vegetables, we know how many rows we need and how far apart the rows are. We can calculate the space needed.
Group C
In feet
We can do this for the other groups. This will show us how much space each one will
need:-
Group C Total space needed 27’.
Group A Total space needed 28’
Group B Total space needed 29’
This gives a grand total of 84’ which is the length of the plot. So growing each group according to the guides rows and spacing should allow us to fit all of the planting in the space we have available (of course each row is 30% shorter as previously mentioned). Phew!