People do amazing things with vertical vege gardens - you can grow a lot of food in just a little space using hanging bags etc.
Chooks - they can be part of a permaculture garden. Use a chook tractor to scratch up a bad prior to digging it and then rotate it over unused/spelled beds to scratch up the last crop.
Spuds will ruin your soils for other veggies for several years if you want to grow them, you are best to grow upwards (stacking old tires etc. it usually doesn't work out to be viable to grow spuds at home as you have to so a significant amount of "work" to rehabilitate the soil.
As you mentioned, it really can be up to you how big you go. Chooks will eat your veggies, so you don't want them in your active garden but they are awesome for feeding scraps and digging over gardens when you are done with them. I have seen situations where chooks are in a movable pen that is put over sections of the garden that is not being used in a cyclic rotation. The rest of the time they are free ranges outside a fenced off veggie patch
Replying from phone so will come back later to reply more.
Pumpkin can and will grow anywhere. Depending on variety, it can take over your yard as it is a sprawling vine sort of plant. We are experimenting with growing pumpkin upwards this year. Not much progress yet as we only planted a fortnight ago. In the past we've just let it take over but smaller yard and kidlet using it means we have to be more practical...
ok am at laptop now so i can make some suggestions - have a look at some permaculture type blogs - they will explain cyclic planting. there are certain plant families that shouldn't be planted in the same place twice in a row, so if you can get an idea on what plants clump together (like cabbage/cauli/broc), it will help you plan your garden. it's always a good idea to have "blocks" of vegies, and what you plant in one block one year, you plant somewhere else next time.
work out how much you want to get from each veggie - what works for me won't work for you. for us, because we go through at least three or four capsicums a week, dedicating a big section of the garden to capsicum plants isn't a drama - but if you don't use capsicum, it would seem wasteful. we have something like 40 lettuces in, all at different stages of development, as we go through a couple a week (and have staggered planting so they mature at different times) - again, it works for us, but wouldn't for someone else...
definitely do some investigation. look at what will genuinely be viable in savings (spuds and onions rarely are when you take into account the rehab of the soil, carrots can be a it hit and miss too - but so yum fresh from the ground!). we currently have almost 30 square metres of vegie patch on the go. it's all planted out except for about 2sq meters. we have sort of planted in staggered waves so that things mature at different times. we also have strawberries and herbs elsewhere, and the pumpkin and more tomatoes in pots around the place. none of it will go to waste - we feed the three of us, plus we have people over for dinner at least once a week, mum puts in some money to the seedlings so she takes some of the food, and we share with a couple of friends that help us out in other ways. it is perfect. for US.
i guess the thing with vegie patches is that you can make them fit in around everything else. we have ours curling around the corners of our yard, so even though it's very large, it doesn't seem that much seeing it is in a couple of spots, and hugging the fenceline so it's not taking a big chunk of the yard away kwim?
Onyx; I didn't realise vertical gardens could be so productive. It will be good to keep in mind. I would , if possible, have to make sure the walls are facing a certain direction. Like North, so the plants get the sun they need? A property I am keen to know more about would have more than enough space for a 'traditional flat garden'.
BG; From your replies, I may give the old spuds a miss. Again, I had no idea about what growing potatoes does to soil. At least I got the chook-thing right, lol. I think I might come up with a chook yard once we have a place. I will look at some permaculture blogs, thank you for directing me that way. Again, wouldn't have known where to start looking. I will also try to note down, I guess, how much of what vegetables we go through. I totally understand what you mean about what suits your family won't suit mine. I forgot what else I was going to say, but thank you very much for taking the time to write such detailed (and numerous!) replies. I really appreciate it.
You need to rotate most things around to reduce the risk of plant and soil diseases. Have a search for vegetable crop rotations to get some ideas. Plants like broad beans and other legumes are fantastic plants for putting nitrogen back into the soil - on their roots they develop nodules which look like little lumps along all the roots and if you can get this to happen, then you're doing it right and they will put essential nitrogen back into the ground without you having to add it yourself artificially.
Most of all you really need to have a think about what types of vegies your family eats - not much point in growing something that you wont eat. Plus you may get a bumper crop of something (Like we did with our broad beans and peas this year - I didn't buy peas for nearly 2 months and I still have several kilo's of broad beans) and you may need to look into preserving it so 1 it doesn't get wasted and 2 so you can eat it out of season. Some of those things are really hard to grow well - like carrots and garlic. Garlic takes a long time to mature so it's not something you're going to get a reward off straight away. And carrots are just soooo hard. We try them every year and we have problems with them every time, from either being eaten by bugs or them just not growing big enough etc. We only have a small vege patch set up atm, it's probably only 6-8mts sq, but it's more of a hobby for DS than anything else. But we have plans to set up a much larger one when we have the funds to extend the watering system
Thank you Trillian. I will be sure to plant some broad beans or similar for the potassium returned to the soil. However, I think I could be the only person who eats broad beans. I used to eat them as a kid. And gosh, I remember peeling them too, Mum used to grow them. Maybe peeled and with butter the family might eat them. If not, I'll find something to do with them. Aside from those, I'm not planning on planting foods we are not going to eat or make use of. I am anticipating having to do preserving, would love to be able to enjoy our own produce out of season, where possible.
I also didn't know carrots were difficult to grow. I remember growing those when I was little, in a little patch just for carrots, and I am sure they grew well.
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