"Double Your Crops"
 Rotation: When one crop comes out of the ground, quickly turn the earth and plant something else straight away. This could be late summer lettuce or over wintering varieties. Some beans can be succesfully planted in the autumn, in particular the broad bean, along with late variety cauliflowers and other brassicas. Make small cloches to protect your young plants. Cut a clear plastic bottle in half width-wise and voilŕ ! -2 mini-cloches. What you plant as a second crop will depend heavily on your area, climate and availability of seed. However, when this crop comes out in the spring, there will be far less weeds than if you had left your patch fallow all winter.
Don't do this every year as the earth will need feeding and resting, but even a small garden can be divided into rotatable patches, and if you get double your crops from one place, you won't need the extra space every year.
Pile on as much green manure as you can and keep your fallow patch weed free.
 Companions:
Plant your crops close together so those pesky weeds don't get a chance to come up. Companion planting enables you not only to save space in the garden, double your crops and control the weeds, it will also help with pest control. A line of onions next to a line of carrots for example confuses the onion fly and the carrot fly. Plant your good companion plants close together but avoid putting large crops of the same species too close. Plant a tomato plant here and there round the garden, then if one plant gets a disease, it won't easily spread to the other plants. The same with cabbages. The cabbage white butterfly, enemy of all brassica growers everywhere, won't be so attracted to your garden if the cabbages aren't neatly planted in rows. ................................................................
Keep permanent patches in your garden. A small herb patch or corner in your vegetable garden will attract bees and also give you and your family lots of new tastes, natural medicines and even cosmetic preparations. Herbs will establish themselves fairly quickly and will thrive with regular picking. You honestly won’t know what to do with all those wonderful fresh herbs, that would otherwise cost you a fortune in the supermarket.
Another great permanent patch to create is asparagus. Most new
gardeners are put off growing this wonderful vegetable because of all sorts of crazy reasons. I’ve even heard it said that it’s a ‘luxury’ crop – whatever that may mean !
Asparagus is extremely good for you, is ready to pick during the ‘hungry gap’ in the vegetable garden, and best of all, with very little attention, it will produce more and more every year, so will more than double your crops in the long term. Create a permanent asparagus bed and indulge in the luxury !
About the author: Linda Gray is a freelance writer and has written a book that every home should have! Grow Your Own Pharmacy explains what to grow, why to grow it and what to do with it once it's grown! Check out her website for more details. Flower and Garden Tips You may reprint this article on your website or newsletter if no changes are made and the 'bio' block is included. Thankyou. Happy Gardening! Grow Your Own Groceries: Producing your own food is not only rewarding but - in times of economic and environmental changes - increasingly a must! Nature provides everything the human body requires to thrive, and cultivating some of those natural products in your own back garden will not only produce the best food on the planet for you and your loved ones, it is also economical, environmentally friendly and more fun than shopping.
 Gardening is more than a hobby; it's a way of life. Even without a garden, many plants can be grown in containers, on a balcony, and indoors. Order it now direct from the publisher... Grow Your Own Groceries Herb Gardening: Herbs are becoming recognised more and more as superfoods, as if we didn't know that really! 'Herb Gardening' has been beautifully put together by the publisher (Crowood Press) into a well presented book with full colour photos.  Along with growing instructions for forty different herbs, there are lots of great ideas, including culinary delights and medicinal alternatives. You'll also find gardening advice as well as some ideas on planning a herb garden. Order it now direct from the
publisher... Herb Gardening
Grow Your Own Pharmacy: If, like me, you want to be able to eat the best food on the planet, grow your own!  • Clear instructions on planning, planting, growing and harvesting the fruits, vegetables and herbs required for a healthy vitamin intake. • Recipes and menus to help incorporate the fruit and vegetables into your daily diet. Granny's Book Of Good Old Fashioned Common Sense is packed full of great ideas and tips. Granny brings traditional home-making up to date with cooking, gardening, needlecrafts and even games to play with the kids...Click on the link below to order your copy.  Cooking doesn’t have to be a chore and preparing nourishing home cooked meals for the family will certainly keep them away from the goodie shelf. Gardening encourages physical exercise and a good healthy dollop of fresh air. And you can get the kids involved too. Before the days of computer games and electronic pets, children used to have fun without rummaging about in the fridge every five minutes. Enjoy a few rainy-day games and crafts of yesteryear with today’s kids. They’ll love it and so will you!
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broad beans 
brussel sprouts 
Chile Peppers 
Sweetcorn 
Tomatoes