Not having a good garden plan is a sure recipe for disappointment. I discourage you from deciding what vetetables plant by choosing from what is available as starters outside the grocery store. Try deciding what to plant by looking at your grocery list. We are lucky to live in a part of the world where you can grow almost anything. Some plants are more practical to grow than others for reasons of space and the fact that some things are just cheaper and easier to buy from the store. If your motivation for growing your own food is purely economic, then it’s probably better to just buy that bag of potatoes or flour than try to grow it yourself. If you’re avoiding all the nasty stuff they do to grocery produce then why not try it?
The first step in making a garden plan is to make a list of everything you would like to grow. Keep in mind the preferences of every member of the household. Then go down the list and put the number of people in the household you expect to eat each item. Kids may count as a half a person in this case unless they really like something, vegetarians may count as two people and if someone only likes it a little, that may count as a half also. If you like to canning or dry your own vegetables, that can count as an extra person or two.
Now after every vegetable on your list has a number value (round the number up) we need to determine how many plants of each variety it takes to satisfy the average person. Lots of lists can be found on line if you search “Garden Vegetable Plants Per Person”. Don’t look at too many because they are all different and you will certainly have to adapt the numbers some. If you can’t find one you like, I can e-mail you the list I use to plan gardens for people. Multiply the number of plants per person by the value you assigned, to determine how many plants of each verity you will need to plant in your garden. I know I slipped some math in there for you, relax, we’re just trying to get some ball park numbers.
Now we need to figure out how much space each plant needs. Every vegetable seed packet and every flat of seedlings has growing instructions that will tell you how far apart to plant each plant. You really should know this before you purchase seeds or starters and you can find this out by searching on line, one vegetable verity at a time. I have a list of this too if you want me to send it to you. Group the plants on the list by the season they grown in. This info is also listed anywhere plat spacing is listed.
Go a head and add up your square feet numbers for each seasonal group and get a total for each season. Then go to your growing space (your yard) and do the “How To Tell How Much Sun You Will Get” blog calculations. Multiply two sides of the garden space to get your square feet available. If your total square feet for each season are more than your available space, I recommend scaling back on your vegetable verities before scaling back the numbers of plants in each. Simplifying the garden makes it a little more manageable and it’s easy to get overwhelmed at first. You can add things next year.
Now we need to find some grid paper. You can just draw squares out yourself or search for “grid” under the image tab of your search engine and print one out. If your garden space is very large you may need squares about ¼ of an inch to represent a foot. Using a pencil mark where each plant will go and how much space it will need. This can be done for each season. Knowing the light requirements of each plant and the light patterns in your garden is essential. The more you know about each plant, successive planting and companion planting the more complicated this task can get. After a few years of crop rotation, trial, and error and you will feel more confident about it.
I realize I may have made this seem way more complicated than it should be, but the more you consider each of these aspects of planning you vegetable garden the happier you will be with your harvest. Remember, one goal of this blog is to help you grow as much food as you can and a good plan is your first step towards that.
So really, even if you just muddle though this process a little, save your garden plan, and keep notes on planting and harvest dates. Keep a garden diary. It will help you immensely when you are planning next year’s garden, and for planning crop rotations.
If this seems too complicated or you don’t feel confident about it, contact me, this is what I do.
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