Garden Planning

For those of your who have asked or are interested, here's my 10-step process for making a garden plan.

1. Draw the layout of your available space on graph paper. I prefer to get large-square paper (2 squares per inch) so that each square can represent 1 square foot of garden. This step will help you visualize your possibilities and keep you on track for planting.
2. Make a list of everything you may possibly want to grow. For now, don't be realistic. Shoot the moon. Reach for the stars. Include things that sound good to you or that your family loves to eat or that you've always wanted to try. Gather facts about each plant on the list. Find a good garden book or a website with lots of plant information, and write down the kind of soil each plant prefers, how much space it requires, when to plant it (indoors or outdoors), when to fertilize or tend it, and how long it takes to mature.
3. Estimate how much you can reasonably use of each plant during its harvest time. If you can eat two heads of lettuce per week, don't plant so that a dozen plants are ready at the same time. However, if you plan to can or preserve things like squash or carrots or onions, make sure that enough of it ripens at the same time to prepare a full batch: you don't want some of your produce to go bad while you wait for more to ripen.
4. Divide your available space into separate beds/areas. This will help you plan and also remind you how much can be grown in a small area (hint: it's more than you think!).
5. Figure out your interplanting arrangements. To maximize your space, compare how long plants take to mature. Plant fast-growing varieties like spinach and radishes between those with longer maturation times, like carrots and broccoli. Make sure that whatever vegetables you plant together have similar soil and watering requirements.
6. On your garden drawing, start "laying in" plants. This is where having the drawing to scale helps. I usually designate a unique letter or letter pair for each kind of vegetable, then draw them in on the plot in the space they will go. This will help you figure out how many plants of that type will come to harvest at the same time. Always allow for a couple of extras to replace those killed by a late frost, dug up by squirrels, or otherwise terminated before they (literally) come to fruition. Refer to your plant information to see how close the plantings should be and what kind of soil and fertilizing they will need. Keep plants with similar need in proximity. Plan successive plantings to stagger the crop at harvest. Number the separate plantings on your garden plot. Remember that not all vegetables will produce all summer, no matter how late or early you plant them.
7. Count how many plants you will need and order seeds/plants accordingly. Your garden drawing will help you estimate how many seeds you will need. Of course, get some extra to allow for spillage, replacement plants, and ones that don't sprout, but your garden plan should keep you from order 3000 lettuce seeds when you need about 30.
   
8. Find or make a garden calendar. You can use a regular monthly calendar, but I prefer making a weekly calendar, since the exact day you do something isn't as important as the week in which you do it. Write it the first planting date for each kind of vegetable, then add in succession plantings about two weeks apart for as many plantings as you have. For indoor planting and some outdoor crops, you will be working backwards from your last date (between April 25th and May 1st in the Chicago area).
9. Add in other reminders. Some plants require regular fertilization, such as every three weeks or once a month. Write in these chores in the appropriate week. My sister uses Post-It notes for this, for example writing "Feed the corn" on a note and then moving the note three weeks later after the fertilizing is done. Other notes may be for transplanting or hardening indoor seedlings, mulching maturing plants, or tasks related to overwintering.
10. Follow your plan and take notes. It's easy to get excited gardening and plant too many seeds, or to look out your plot and think that you don't have enough space. If your garden plan is sound, however, it will be a better guide than your in-the-moment guesses. Follow your plan whenever you can. Take notes about general weather conditions, when you actually planted (and how much), what you did for fertilizer, and how much you harvested. All this information will improve your plan for next year.

Some people have garden calendars that cover two or three years of information. These are great because you can compare years side-by-side and make changes to your plan based on your experience from previous years.

And remember, if you haven't started yet, NOW is the time to plan! If you wait until spring to think about your garden, you will have lost valuable growing time and will get a lower harvest in return.