How are you laying out your garden? In your head, spreadsheet, drawing, sticky notes or?
I finally did some planning today. I have lots of space and irrigation water. I don’t have much help or time… so that’s my main limitation. I have lots of responsibilities this spring, so I’m pushing starting everything as much as possible. Last year I started my tomatoes too early so I’m feeling OK about waiting a bit. Anyway, this is my current plan laid out spacially (each line is a row). I have 3 pepo projects-- acorn/delicata, hullless, and summer squash, so I spaced them as far apart as possible. And 2 corn projects. The whole is I think 300 ft wide (150 ft rows). Anyway, this is subject to change a lot but today here are my projects. The biggest block this year is devoted to the Lofthouse promiscous bush beans, because I want enough to share with everybody who wants them and eat them all winter.
What’s missing is a pretty big Astronomy Domine block… other part of field.
Mostly in my head, but I do some calculating how many row meters I have and how much I need/can use for specific species. Then some improvising at the time of planting when plans are more optimistic than reality. Do plan to increase area a bit from last year, but also try to maximise my use of space since for me it would be more work as I only have rented plot that is tilled whether I want it or not. Also try learn from my mistakes in terms planning and management so that I need to use as little effort during growing season. For example try to make supports for tomatoes as simple and easy to set up, sow seeds as late as it’s possible and making little adjustments to beds for better water use. Tomatoes I have been sowing later for the last couple years and this year sowing them only after mid april plus direct sowing some. My classed balcony, where I grow transplants, can be quite cool during april and only gets good amount of sun in may so it’s not really worth it to put them earlier. Plus it gets quite crowded by late may taking care of all plants is a bit chaotic.
Graph paper. 1 square = 1 sq ft. I have several sheets taped together. I find this the best to visualize the whole garden. And some things need separated like sweet and hot peppers so I can start with placing these as far apart as I can manage, then fill in the rest.
I use X and O to mark where bigger plants will be and label them and number of plants in the path soace below the bed. Then in the bed write names of plants that can be interplanted there with the main crop.
I also made a graph of every plant (vertical) and months (horizontal). Jan-dec, Jan-dec to show fall planting and overwintering. For the grains, garlic, biennials for seed. I put a star in the box of every month that the plant grows in. The star is also circled in the month that they can be direct seeded/planted outside.
For example tomatoes are filled in with stars from May through October, with May circled because that’s when they get planted out. I may add a different shape to fill in the month things get started inside but haven’t yet.
And things like radish that can be spring and fall planted have two blocks. March, April, May and then Sept, Oct.
I also made a list of planting by date based on DTM to account for succession planting and spring/fall planting. So if I have space open up I’ll be able to just look at this list and see what options I can plant then.
It starts at the top with…
30 DTM. Plant up to- sept 10. bok choy, spinach, wheat, winter pea, rye
Then each row is ten days so 40, 50, 60, etc DTM.
It goes all the way to 200 DTM. March 24. Oats, barley.
Additionally, I keep records of sowing dates and results, in Excel, but I hope that thanks to landrace gardening approach it will no longer be necessary for the majority of crops.
On an almost-to-scale sketch we made a couple years ago and with a few notes from previous years. Also, it’s an evolving thing because we have a marauding critter causing us grief.
I have a spreadsheet similar to yours. It has the plants i want to fit in, when to plant them outdoors, when to plant indoors, how much space I need for how much I want, and then a column calculating based on when to plant inside what day I need to plant inside.
Then I calculated out how many linear ft I had total (I do things in 3ft rows, and 1 linear ft is 3 sq ft), and filled that up using my space column.
I tend to be more organized with the school garden so that hopefully others on my team can follow the plan (and find plants later), so there’s a paper map plan with beds and varieties, a large white board that’s updated as we go - it records “reality” – what really ends up being planted in that spot, as well as a calendar with planting/transplant dates. Lately I’m looking for ‘out of the way’ spots to tuck in seed saving projects where the students won’t be tempted to eat the plants. For the landrace projects, rather than labeling varieties in the field, we’re just labeling the kind of plant (species), then I’m keeping a list on the computer of the varieties that went into the patch. I’m thinking I’ll only use this to be sure not to duplicate those varieties in future years when I want to add diversity.
At home, I just have a sketch of beds and what I want to plant where. But when I have seeds in my hands, anything can happen. I have a relatively small space, so numbers of plants matter, but I always end up planting the ‘extra’ plants that grow from indoor seeding. I give away a lot, but I refuse to kill any of them, so I’m always looking for places to sneak in the extras. I’m excited to branch out of the amended/irrigated garden area more this summer and plant in unirrigated patches to see what makes it – this will mostly be spur of the moment.
Well, let’s see. The long row left of the central path will be Lima beans interspaced with something else, probably squash of some kind. The little beds to the left of the gate extending to the south fence get radishes, lettuce, carrots, and some other stuff. Dill, marigolds, dahlias, zinnias and gladiolas go wherever they end up or volunteer. Herbs and most of the onions are being moved to new spots outside the fence. The biggest bed second from the central path to the south gets field corn, second biggest bed all the way to south end, gets popcorn. Narrow bed next to and south of the Lima beans is currently brocco-ish and will be interplanted with cowpeas. Between the two corn patches goes tomatoes and common pole beans. Swiss chard goes over there on the west end in that empty spot by the garlic. Some amaranth, okra and sorghum go up against the west fence. That messy spot in the northwest corner gets watermelons and muskmelons. That stupid clary sage is being exiled to the flower garden by the mailbox. Half of the area north of the central path gets sweet potatoes in pots and another quarter of it gets sweet potatoes in the ground but I got to do something with all those volunteer peach trees, which should have been done last fall but wasn’t. Or maybe I’ll just say screw it and set the sweet potato pots among them. The other quarter of this section gets peanuts, soybeans and some more cowpeas. I guess those giant fennel plants will stay where they are this season, and those big hibiscus plants too, why didn’t somebody tell me that stuff is perennial? And then those goofy little potatoes that keep growing back every year from when I grew them from seed one time, they are little purple things and don’t make much but are quite tasty, so I’ll leave them alone for now too. The back garden will get our favorite heirloom beans including Ky Wonder, Blue Lake and Greasy Grits and of course sweet corn, the woman here is addicted to sweet corn. She has invaded and mostly taken over the back garden so I don’t know what else will go there except of course peppers, lots of peppers and things like cucumbers and summer squash. I don’t care that much as long as she leaves my grape vine “sticks” alone. They’re not sticks! they’re cuttings and they are alive, don’t mess with em!
I don’t know how you people with your charts and graphs and spreadsheets get along, I’ve never seen such disorganization.
. Plant moderate vining types on the outside beds. Allow them to spread out into the yard. Cull the ones that move too much inside the garden.
. Plant watermelons and pumpkins in their own patch, away from everything else.
. Build a trellis on the north section. I expect its shadow to cast away from the garden.
. Plant a variety of flowers around the whole garden and around each bed.
. Build a bee hotel.
. Allow the flower border to get a little wild, promoting a beneficial insect habitat.
. Discover and plant a type of ground cover that can replace clover in my pathways. The clover doesn’t like to be walked on too much and struggles when it gets too hot.
The above mentioned plans are the ones rolling in my head at the moment but hope to accomplish a lot more than that this year.
I’ve also attached an image of the flower seeds I plan to scatter out soon.
I have a scientist’s mind and an artist’s behavior… so I make detailed plans and spreadsheets but then end up out in the garden planting things differently.
For a more visual representation of the garden I use the garden planner from GrowVeg.com. This is the current version of my frequently changed plan. I’m going to try planting outside of the deer-fenced garden this year - we’re getting a puppy next week and I’m hoping that’ll help keep the deer away once I start planting my May crops. We’re also adding a weed barrier covered in mulch around 3 sides of the garden to help with Bermuda grass.
I do all mine in my head mostly. I find it too difficult to plan on paper/computer for some reason. I actually have most of my garden planted out already so at this point I am just planting things where I have room for the most part.
We’re using Garden Planner software too. I think it’s less than wonderful, but it works. Also using spreadsheets for dates and results, but can’t always remember to enter the results!
Been working on tilling the garden. I have a master plan drawn up but it’s going to get fudged in reality. The actual tilled space is a bit smaller than the nice neat graph paper… surprise, surprise! Oh well I’ll figure it out.
For now my hands are sore and my arms are tired. Not as bad as shearing school but pretty beat up haha…
Oh and I had an enormous rock in the garden that is broke up and mostly out now. I’m thinking on what do do with the giant hole it left. Clay subsoil so simply filling it in will make a swampy spot from it holding water. Thinking about just making it nicer and letting it be a little garden pond. We’ll see!
I have a spreadsheet of our seed inventory to at least give us an idea of what kind of madness we can descend into each year. Then I have a spreadsheet of the year as a planting calendar, frost dates marked, moon cycles at the top, list of seeds that we’re likely to plant this year and their germination/harvest times. Last year I’d tried filling in the color of [this many days til harvest] for each plant, but about halfway through the season I never looked at this again, so I’m putting less effort/time into things that aren’t as important to me.
Last year I measured and drew out all the garden space, filled it in with what was going to go where, and when it came time to plant that plan was loosely followed. Generally the tomatoes went where I planned. Brassicas as well. The rest? Well… they got planted. It doesn’t help that the last two years have been in two different states with very different soil. This year? Same thing. New state, new soil. Pushing the hardiness zone up a couple notches.
Kind like what Heidi said, “when I have seeds in my hands, anything can happen.” That’s what’s happening this year. The beets got their own area because I can’t figure out how to tell beets from chard, so we carved out a couple short rows in front of the grape vine for them. The peas and garlic cloves got some semi-stable planting, both purposefully getting put into the soil. Everyone else? Might as well call me “Seed Bae” because I tossed and sprinkled all the other packets all over the place. My garden bed is going to be a tasty treat… assuming things grow.
I did my best to note down on a drawing where I scattered what so I would have a rough idea of what’s growing when things pop up. I also noted on my seed planting calendar when things were seeded so I can track germination/death/etc. I have done this for my indoor seeding as well. Helps to get an idea of actual germination days vs seed package claims. Also, gives me an idea ‘it’s been weeks since I planted [this] and it hasn’t germinated; time to reseed or choose something different.’
The soil blocks we currently have sprouting? They’ll find space in there… somewhere. Transplant isn’t for another month (good grief, they’re getting so big already), so we’ll get the new bed made up and ready for some of them. We’re also having to adjust where we plant things because our landlord is planting his stuff nearby and doesn’t want his plants crossing with ours. I’m fine with this… but he’s got his melons nearly a mile away because he’s afraid they’ll cross with his delicata… Last I checked, it doesn’t work like that… but I’m not going to argue with him. He has his landraces and he doesn’t want new genetics.
That all being said, we might try planting in the forest in some clearings to get some space from his so we can cross the heck out of our squash and corn babies. Hope he’s not planning to grow tomatoes because we have twelve varieties that have sprouted and are looking strong this year, and I might just run out of places to put things if he starts cracking down on where we can plant. Can’t wait to buy our own land…
I don’t have much room so I just cram in whatever I can and let nature take its course. Unfortunately most of the things I like to grow take lots of space.
Me all winter… meticulously planning every square foot of garden space…
Me trying to do everything in the spring, around the crazy weather, around everything else I’m working on, after getting a new livestock guardian dog puppy that I didn’t really prepare for,…
uhhh so ya… it’s not going to be like on paper but I’ll figure it out…
I have a spreadsheet with the numbers of each transplant plant and variety/project. In past years I’ve blocked out square project spaces which then somewhat got trashed by crows (corn) and replanted with tomato seedlings; I’ve done elaborate mandala plantings; I’ve done rows.
This year I’ll have a dear friend and engineer/gardener coming up to help plant for the week. I’ll work out how much space each project needs before he comes and I’ll decide on my tomato organization groups (I DO need to plant all my green-when-ripes together this year!). I’ll probably discuss planting options with him as we’re tilling and see what his straight line engineering mind thinks and come to an optimized plan between the two of us. I’d like to do a lot more interplanting this year, even if it means carrying corn pollen some.
Individual crop placement will definitely be on a “vibing at the moment” plan this year. Obviously taller corns will be in the north and shorter in the south etc, but which ones go where, density and area of seed plantings, and which greens etc get intercropped will be very intuition-based.
I am absolutely in the mad scientist category when it comes to gardening. I’ve got way too much to plant and a very little space to do it in. I’ve learned the more I let it play together the happier it all seems to be. My garden goal is to keep the ground covered while producing as much food and medicine as possible. My note keeping/ planning consists of the highly technical system of H for Harvested seed, OS for original stock, or OP to signify the varities my little pollinator friends created for me. Up until a month or so ago I had to keep all the varieties separated and painstakingly isolate fruit in little bags. Planting naturally occurring varieties in bulk? I wouldn’t have dreamt it until this year. I’ve kept them but thought of them as a guilty pleasure! Look at me now! I still have hundreds of tomatoes neatly labeled in soil blocks in an unheated greenhouse. On April 20th I direct seeded the same varieties in a large row. I kept the smaller (cherry) ones toward the East side and larger (beefsteak) toward the West and to climb the porch. Excited to see which reaches fruition first! I am a direct seed kind of gal. Never would have thought it possible with tomatoes until now. Even though I see them come up by themselves year after year? Wild!
Planning… As much as I can possibly fit that will grow during that season. Totally in it for good eating all year round! I write it down as I run out the door and throw them in. I do observe the moon phases in regards to sowing seed. It feels right to me. Also, it keeps me from burning out or becoming overwhelmed.
My garden does way more for me than I could do for it. To me my garden is an absolute testament to the World of abundance we live in!
Not quite safe conventional planting time yet but I did drop a couple Cucumber seeds from the group in an unmulched area along with some other stock I had. Still a month away from warm nights. Definite weird Spring. Dry and cool here in the Midwest. By May it’s usually damp and starting to warm. One could really see how plants adapted to these conditions would be awesome ! So excited for the coming season!
but here’s a screenshot of part of it:
Oh well I’ll figure it out.
uhhh so ya… it’s not going to be like on paper but I’ll figure it out…
