Goals for the farm in 2021

I'm only 7 weeks into being a farmer and it's August already, so with only 4 months to go the goals for 2021 will be modest. There is very little "farm" setup at the moment and therefore the focus will be on creating beds and installing infrastructure. But of course I also want to start growing!

The Vision

I would like to put this area of the lower field into vegetable production, following the principles of sustainable no-dig farming. It measures roughly 10m x 50m, so 500m² or 1/8^th of an acre. The crops planted would be a mix of longer cycle staple crops and shorted cycle vegetables.

I plan to layout the vegetable production using the popular market garden system of 75cm wide beds and 45cm wide paths. I would like each bed to be 13.3m long to give an area of 10m², which is a convenient round number for crop planning. 

Beds could be oriented NE-SW, which follows drainage towards the river at the south of the field, or NW-SE which runs across the slight gradient. The field is actually quite flat but water will naturally try to run towards the river, which favours NW-SE beds. This is so that beds and paths act as swales rather than being washed away by running water. The prevailing wind in the valley is from the north west and I think this also favours NW-SE beds, with the wind to blowing along the path and only the end plant on each bed being fully exposed. The beds will therefore run NW-SE.

How many beds would fit this area? A beds total width including a path is 1.2m so a 10m wide area can therefore accommodate 8 beds. A beds total length including paths is 10.8m so a 50m long area can accommodate 4.7 beds... but I have little extra space so will expand to 5. That gives a total of 50 beds in the planned area.

Is it achievable?

Following no-dig techniques for creating a market garden I would like to put down 15cm of compost to create each bed (after broadforking the slightly compacted, heavy clay soil), and 10cm of wood chip in the paths. How much compost and wood chip will I need?

Each bed is 10m² so requires 1.5m³ of compost (10m x 0.15m). Each path is 6.2m² (13.8m x 0.45m) so requires  0.6m³ (6.2m² x 0.1m) of wood chip. For 50 beds I would need 75m³ of compost and 30m³ of wood chip.

Not a problem if I was buying materials, but I plan to make all the compost and wood chip on-site from the forestry and field materials. It takes about a day of work to collect and chip the material for 1m³ of compost, so including days off I would need to spend 2 months solidly doing nothing but compost creation. Unfortunately I can't dedicate that amount of time, there are many other jobs that need doing around the farm.

The compromise... and the goal

Realistically I can spend 2 days per week creating compost, not including the daily turning of compost piles (which I consider to be my daily workout so I will do regardless). With 19 weeks of the year left, at 2 days per week composting, I should be able to make 38m³ of compost. The wood chip is extra but it's also a "nice to have" and I'll work on that only if I end up with enough time. Compost is the priority.

38m³ is enough for 25 beds. Only half of the area I wanted to put into production, but I'll be very happy if I get 25 beds into production this year. So this if the result I want to achieve by the end of 2021:

25x 10m² market garden beds in production