If you’ve ever stared at a seed catalog in January and thought, “I want all of it,” and then somehow ended up with a garden that felt chaotic by mid-summer, today’s episode is for you.
Because most “garden planning” advice starts with the fun part—varieties, colors, wish lists—and then we wonder why the plan falls apart when real life shows up.
So today on Just Grow Something, we’re going to flip the order.
I’m going to give you four questions that can lead you to an actual usable plan. These questions help you decide what to grow, where it goes, when it happens, and how to keep the plan realistic for the space and time you actually have.
And the best part is you can use these four questions whether you garden in a single planter, a few raised beds, or a bigger in-ground plot.
Let's dig in!
References and Resources:
My Plan Like A Pro Course is Open for Registration: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/pro
How to Plan Your Raised Bed Garden, Ep. 269: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/how-to-plan-a-raised-bed-garden-ep-269
Seven Steps to Planning Your Entire Garden Year - Ep. 234: https://justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/episode/7-steps-to-planning-your-entire-garden-year-ep-234
Virginia Cooperative Extension (2025). “Planning the Vegetable Garden.” VCE Publications: https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-312/426-312.html
Washington State University Extension (2015). “Crop Rotation in Home Gardens” (PDF): https://s3.wp.wsu.edu/uploads/sites/2070/2015/08/Crop-Rotation-in-Home-Gardens.pdf
Penn State Extension (2023). “Keeping a Garden Journal.”: https://extension.psu.edu/keeping-a-garden-journal/
Just Grow Something: https://justgrowsomething.com
Just Grow Something Merch and Downloads: https://justgrowsomething.com/shop
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/18YgHveF5P/
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00:00:00
If you have ever stared at a seed catalog in January and
00:00:04
thought I want all of it, and then somehow ended up with a
00:00:09
garden that felt absolutely chaotic by Midsummer, today's
00:00:13
episode is for you. Because most garden planning
00:00:17
advice starts with the fun part. The varieties, the colors, the
00:00:20
wish list. And then we wonder why the plan
00:00:23
falls apart when real life shows up.
00:00:25
Today we are going to flip that order.
00:00:28
I'm going to give you 4 questions that can lead you to
00:00:31
an actual usable plan. These questions help you decide
00:00:35
what to grow, where it goes, when it happens, and how to keep
00:00:40
the plan realistic for the space and the time that you actually
00:00:43
have. And the best part is you can use
00:00:46
these four questions, whether you garden in a single planter,
00:00:50
a few raised beds, or a bigger in ground plot.
00:00:56
Welcome back to Just Grow Something.
00:00:58
I'm Karen Velez, specialty crop farmer, garden consultant and
00:01:01
horticulture nerd. In the best way.
00:01:04
This is season 6, you guys. My goal here is simple.
00:01:09
I want to help you grow your own food with evidence based
00:01:11
techniques that fit your real life.
00:01:14
We're going to keep it practical.
00:01:15
We're going to keep it doable, and we can focus on what moves
00:01:19
the needle in your garden. Let's dig in.
00:01:23
So this is the time of year when motivation is really high and
00:01:28
seed buying temptation is even higher.
00:01:30
Trust me, I am right there with you.
00:01:32
But January is also the perfect month to build the foundation
00:01:37
that makes the whole season easier, especially once planting
00:01:41
time gets really busy. When I tell you I had zero plan
00:01:46
when I started my first garden, I quite literally mean I bought
00:01:50
a few packets of seeds and I tore up the corner of my back
00:01:53
yard and I tossed those seeds in the ground and I said good luck
00:01:56
in there, you know, 0 plant. And about 8 weeks later I did
00:02:02
have something that sort of resembled a garden.
00:02:05
Only about 1/3 of what I planted came up, and I certainly didn't
00:02:08
get any of those diva carrots to grow, but I got a boatload of
00:02:11
cucumbers and a handful of green beans and a few other things.
00:02:15
And then, you know, about two to three weeks later it looked less
00:02:19
like a garden and more like an unruly jungle that was taking
00:02:23
over the lattice work that I had put up to keep the dogs out.
00:02:26
Oops. Well, two years later when I
00:02:29
started a garden on 1/4 of an acre patch of our little
00:02:33
homestead, I had a very loose plan.
00:02:36
The following year when I expanded that garden to a full
00:02:39
half acre and then decided that hey, I'm really good at this
00:02:43
gardening thing, I want to create a side hustle from it.
00:02:46
I was still operating off of a very loose plan.
00:02:50
It was only after realizing that I couldn't get a reliable
00:02:55
harvest every single week that had enough variety in it to
00:03:00
properly feed the 15 families I was serving with that little
00:03:03
side gig that I really started to come up with a very specific
00:03:08
and robust planning routine. And that is the routine that I
00:03:12
have today. And we have been feeding
00:03:14
hundreds of people from our farm every single year since then and
00:03:18
we are heading into our 19th season doing that.
00:03:21
Now I understand not everyone enjoys the idea of sitting down
00:03:25
and really planning out in detail every single seed that
00:03:29
gets started and the harvest window for each crop, and then
00:03:31
working in inter plantings and successions like I do, right?
00:03:35
I am a planner, I love it. But that doesn't mean that you
00:03:40
shouldn't have some semblance of an idea of how your season will
00:03:46
start and how you want it to end.
00:03:49
So today I'm going to walk you through 4 questions that act
00:03:54
like a garden planning framework.
00:03:57
This is not a rigid system. This is more like a decision
00:04:01
making path that keeps you from over buying and overcrowding and
00:04:06
over committing. Because that's the other side of
00:04:09
it too, right? Understanding your budget, how
00:04:12
much space you're working with, and how much time you have to
00:04:15
work in the garden each week is just as important as what we
00:04:19
want to grow. If we don't have a grasp on
00:04:21
those things like I didn't in that little corner of my
00:04:24
backyard, we can very quickly move from good luck in there to,
00:04:29
Oh my gosh, what do I do with this mess in a very short amount
00:04:33
of time? So as we go through this
00:04:36
episode, I'm going to give you like small concrete actions that
00:04:40
you can do right now, like this week, so that by the end you
00:04:45
will have the basic bones of a plan that actually works.
00:04:50
And then you can feel free to go on your seed buying spree.
00:04:52
OK, so grab your garden journal and let's get into it.
00:05:00
Before we jump into question number one, I want to clarify
00:05:05
what I mean by a garden plan. OK, a garden plan is not just
00:05:11
like a sketch of where things go.
00:05:14
A garden plan is more of a set of decisions that all work
00:05:18
together. So what you want to grow, what
00:05:21
your space can support, when each crop fits into your local
00:05:27
season, and then how you're going to organize it so it
00:05:29
doesn't become, you know, a confusing overgrown mess by the
00:05:32
middle of July. If we look at like university
00:05:36
extension guides, they are often emphasizing this idea of a plan
00:05:40
in a bunch of different ways. So it could be site selection,
00:05:43
the amount of sunlight that you have, the layout, the timing,
00:05:46
crop rotation, record keeping, these are all planning tools.
00:05:51
These are not like separate little random chores.
00:05:53
So when I say plan, I mean the decisions that we make ahead of
00:05:59
time that just make the season go more smoothly for us.
00:06:02
OK, OK, question number one. It sounds simple, but it's where
00:06:07
most successful garden plans begin.
00:06:10
Not what looks fun or what looks cool or trendy and or what do we
00:06:14
feel like you should grow right? What do you realistically want
00:06:18
to harvest and then do something with?
00:06:22
Because your intended use changes everything about what
00:06:26
you're growing and how you're growing it.
00:06:28
If you want fresh salads, OK, well then your plan needs like
00:06:31
consistent leafy greens and herbs and maybe the additional
00:06:35
fixings over a longer period of time.
00:06:38
If you want salsa, then you're planning around warm season
00:06:42
crops and that harvest timing. If you want freezer meals or
00:06:46
you're preserving a lot of stuff, then you're thinking in
00:06:48
volume and those peak harvest windows.
00:06:51
And if you just want sort of snacks all the time, well, then
00:06:54
your we're tizing crops that are easy to grab and eat.
00:06:59
So, you know, peas and cherry tomatoes and you know, baby
00:07:03
cucumbers or berries if you're growing them.
00:07:05
So your first action step is to make a top ten harvest list.
00:07:11
I want you to write down your top 10 things that you want to
00:07:15
harvest this year, right? And then next to each one of
00:07:19
those, write the primary use for you, what you were going to use
00:07:24
it or how you were going to use it.
00:07:26
So either this is fresh or preserve or maybe you say share
00:07:32
if you're somebody who grows a lot for, you know, giving to
00:07:35
your neighbors or for making donations.
00:07:37
Or you can just, you know, write experimental.
00:07:39
This might be something that you haven't grown before, but you
00:07:42
want to give it a try and you're not sure how you want to use it.
00:07:44
That's fine too. Just make yourself a key and
00:07:47
figure out, OK, this is the primary use for each one of
00:07:50
these things that I want to grow and just keep it very simple.
00:07:53
And if you're thinking I don't even know what I want, that's OK
00:07:57
too. Start with what you actually buy
00:08:00
at the grocery store. Start with what you cook most
00:08:03
frequently. Start with what you already
00:08:06
like. OK, that's the easiest list to
00:08:08
put together. Now, right away, there are two
00:08:12
sort of planning pitfalls that show up right here.
00:08:15
The first one is over planning for aspirational eating.
00:08:20
All right. You know, if we think about what
00:08:23
happens to a lot of people after the new year when they are
00:08:26
starting on a new health and fitness journey, it is very easy
00:08:30
to like project the person that you want to be onto what you're
00:08:36
actually doing. So if you're getting really
00:08:38
ambitious about I'm going to go on a diet and I'm going to lose
00:08:41
15 lbs this year. And you go into your pantry and
00:08:44
you throw everything out that looks like processed food or
00:08:47
that has any sugar in it. And you completely restock with
00:08:50
things like quinoa and kale. And then about a week or two
00:08:54
into it, you're not eating anything at all because that is
00:08:58
not matching your lifestyle, right?
00:09:00
We don't want to do that with our garden.
00:09:02
It is easy to plan for, like a version of yourself who makes
00:09:06
elaborate salads fresh from the garden three times a day for
00:09:11
four months out of the gardening season.
00:09:13
If that's not your real life, that's OK Don't plan for like
00:09:17
this picture in your mind of what it is that you want to do.
00:09:20
Your garden plan should match your real life.
00:09:23
So look at how you are currently cooking.
00:09:26
It's OK to be a little aspirational, right?
00:09:29
If you're trying to add more leafy greens into your diet,
00:09:33
then yes, you can plan to grow more of that.
00:09:36
But let's not go overboard and, you know, make these commitments
00:09:40
to ourselves that we may or may not be able to keep, especially
00:09:43
in the garden, which is a very long term commitment throughout
00:09:46
about the year. OK.
00:09:48
The second pitfall would be for planning too many crops that
00:09:53
peak at the exact same time. Some crops are really steady
00:09:56
producers for the entire season or for a large portion of the
00:10:00
season. Some of them show up all at
00:10:02
once. So on your list of your top ten,
00:10:05
make sure that you kind of put a little mark there about whether
00:10:08
it's a steady crop that produces over time or if it's a peak crop
00:10:13
that tends to come in, you know, one burst or two bursts.
00:10:17
That is going to matter later on when we talk about timing.
00:10:20
So once you have your top ten list, now you have a really
00:10:23
powerful planning filter. Because every time you're
00:10:27
tempted to add a new random seed packet that looks cool in the
00:10:30
garden center, you can ask yourself, does this support my
00:10:33
top ten harvest goals? And if it does, great, grab that
00:10:36
little seed packet. But if not, maybe it's still a
00:10:39
fun experiment. But you can put that in sort of
00:10:42
the extras category, not in your core plan.
00:10:46
Once you know what you want to harvest, then we move on to
00:10:50
question #2 this is your reality check.
00:10:54
And I mean that in the best way. What can your space and your
00:10:58
life actually support? And this question kind of has
00:11:03
four parts. The 1st is sunlight, the second
00:11:06
is soil and drainage. The third is water access and
00:11:10
convenience. And then the 4th is your
00:11:12
available time and physical layout of your garden.
00:11:17
So let's break that down Part 1, sunlight.
00:11:20
Most vegetables perform best with plenty of direct sun with a
00:11:24
handful of exceptions. OK, we generally as we're
00:11:29
starting in gardening, we're leaning towards full sun as the
00:11:34
starting point. This as a minimum of six hours,
00:11:39
ideally 8 to 10 for fruiting crops.
00:11:42
And this doesn't have to be 6 hours all at once.
00:11:44
It can be broken up throughout the day.
00:11:46
But here's the take away from this.
00:11:48
Your sun situation should decide your crop list and where you
00:11:54
locate your garden. So if you have 8 to 10 hours of
00:11:57
sun, then you have the widest range of options available to
00:12:00
you. If you only have that bare
00:12:02
minimum six hours, you can still grow a lot, but you may need to
00:12:06
prioritize what it is that you plant.
00:12:09
If you have less than that six hours, then you might want to be
00:12:13
focusing specifically on greens and some herbs and the other
00:12:17
shade tolerant options because we have to be realistic that
00:12:21
those fruiting crops like tomatoes and Peppers are likely
00:12:24
going to struggle with that. You know, a little bit of amount
00:12:27
of light. So your action step for this is
00:12:32
to do a quick sun check. You know, pick a day, a day that
00:12:34
isn't totally overcast and check your garden area in the morning
00:12:38
and then the midday and in the late afternoon.
00:12:41
You are trying to estimate the direct sun window.
00:12:43
But if you are doing this now in January, keep in mind the angle
00:12:50
of the sun is going to be different, right?
00:12:52
So at this time of the year in the Northern hemisphere, we have
00:12:55
just passed the winter solstice, which means that now our day
00:12:59
length is going to start to increase as the season goes on,
00:13:03
which means the angle of the sun is going to move from further in
00:13:07
the South and start going up into more of the north, right?
00:13:12
Obviously this is the opposite of you if you are in the
00:13:14
southern hemisphere. What that means is the
00:13:16
availability of light in your garden is going to be affected
00:13:19
in most cases by that angle of the sun, depending on which
00:13:23
direction your garden faces. The other thing that you have to
00:13:26
pay attention to with this sun window is the trees and other
00:13:31
obstructions around that garden area.
00:13:33
So if you look around and you see that you have trees that do
00:13:37
not have leaves on them right now, you have to take into
00:13:41
account that that is going to change once you get into the
00:13:44
late spring and that might block some of the light.
00:13:46
So this is where a garden journal can oftentimes come in
00:13:49
really handy your first couple of years gardening in a new
00:13:52
space because you can track this throughout the season.
00:13:55
And if you write that down throughout the season, then next
00:13:58
year when you sit down to start planning, you will have a better
00:14:02
idea of what your your sun availability is.
00:14:05
OK. And if your garden space isn't
00:14:07
chosen yet, this is the moment to choose it strategically if
00:14:10
you have that option. Part 2 is soil and drainage.
00:14:14
Vegetable roots need oxygen. That means that overly wet areas
00:14:18
and spots where the water sits after rain are not ideal.
00:14:23
So from a planning standpoint, if your site is low lying, or it
00:14:27
stays soggy or it compacts really easily, you might want
00:14:33
to, you know, plan around creating some raised beds or
00:14:36
mounted rows or improving your organic matter over time.
00:14:39
Or maybe you just decide to choose a different location.
00:14:42
Your plan should match your site, not fight it all season
00:14:47
long. Part 3 is water access and
00:14:50
convenience. It sounds boring, but it's one
00:14:53
of the most practical planning factors.
00:14:55
If your garden area is far away from your water source, then
00:14:59
watering becomes a bigger barrier and that affects your
00:15:02
consistency. Especially in the summer, if you
00:15:05
are in a very, very dry climate where you absolutely, even if
00:15:09
you're using mulch, you still have to water your garden in the
00:15:11
summer. You don't want to make that a
00:15:13
barrier to getting out into the garden.
00:15:16
So ask yourself, how am I going to water this garden?
00:15:18
You know, it doesn't have to be a fancy system, but you need a
00:15:21
realistic plan. So figure out where your water
00:15:23
sources are and how that relates to the different areas of your
00:15:26
garden. And then part 4 is your
00:15:29
available time and the physical layout of the garden.
00:15:34
And this is where a lot of gardeners very quietly struggle.
00:15:38
The garden can be technically possible, right?
00:15:43
You can, you can design the plan and you can and you can plan for
00:15:46
all these things. But it could still be too much
00:15:49
to manage if it's oversized for the amount of time that you have
00:15:54
to spend or if it's very poorly laid out and it's no longer
00:15:57
making it, you know, easy to work in.
00:16:00
So from a planning perspective, there are two layout rules that
00:16:04
show up again and again. And rule #1 is to make the beds
00:16:07
narrow enough to reach into them without actually stepping into
00:16:11
them. So a common guideline is around
00:16:14
3 to 4 feet wide for adults, so 36 to 48 inches.
00:16:18
Because most people can reach about 1 1/2 to 2 feet in from
00:16:23
each side, this is going to prevent you from getting in
00:16:25
there and compacting that soil. It also makes it easier just to
00:16:28
work in them. And then the second rule would
00:16:30
be to build in walkways that you can actually use.
00:16:33
So we want them wide enough to move comfortably and manage the
00:16:39
garden often somewhere. This is in the neighborhood of
00:16:42
about 18 to 24 inches wider than that if you need wheelbarrow
00:16:47
access. So your action step here is to
00:16:50
decide what your garden footprint is and all the access
00:16:54
points. Write down how many beds or
00:16:56
containers that you can realistically manage.
00:16:58
Whether you want paths that you can walk comfortably in, or ones
00:17:02
that are wider so that you can get equipment in and out of
00:17:05
there where your trellises will go without shading everything
00:17:08
else. And if you're not sure, then
00:17:11
start smaller than what you think you need.
00:17:14
It is much easier to expand a successful garden than it is to
00:17:19
rescue one that has gotten to be completely overwhelming now.
00:17:23
Once you know what you want to harvest and what your space and
00:17:27
life can support, now you're ready for question #3.
00:17:35
This is where your plan stops being abstract and becomes
00:17:39
seasonal. What is your timeline based on
00:17:42
your local season? This is where you use your
00:17:45
average frost dates and your crop days to maturity and your
00:17:49
planting windows for your cool season and your warm season
00:17:52
crops. So this is basically the process
00:17:56
of working from known dates, so your typical last spring frost
00:18:01
for as an example, and then planning forward or counting
00:18:04
backward for seed starting dates.
00:18:07
So we're basically planning for a season of planting windows and
00:18:13
harvesting windows. So the first thing is to
00:18:15
identify what those key seasonal anchors for.
00:18:18
So your last spring frost date and your first fall frost date,
00:18:23
if these apply to you. If you're not in an area that
00:18:26
frost, this might be, you know, your daylight hours, whatever
00:18:29
your sort of seasonal constraints are.
00:18:31
If you don't know your frost states, you can go online very
00:18:35
easily to look these up. Just do a search for, you know,
00:18:38
first and last frost with your location information.
00:18:41
I promise you it will come up very quickly.
00:18:43
Now, if if you live, like I said, in a climate where frost
00:18:46
isn't a big limiter, than your anchors might be your heat
00:18:49
threshold or when does your rainy season hit or you know,
00:18:53
the cool season window before you get to like really intense
00:18:57
summer heat where you're not going to be able to plant
00:18:58
anything. OK.
00:18:59
But for most listeners in temperate regions, this is going
00:19:01
to be the frost states of the classic anchors.
00:19:04
Then make just a simple sort of two lane calendar, right?
00:19:09
This doesn't have to be complicated.
00:19:10
You don't have to pull out a spreadsheet if you don't want
00:19:12
to. Now if you love a spreadsheet,
00:19:13
by all means go ahead, but all you can do here is just kind of
00:19:17
do 2 columns, right? You've got a cool season column
00:19:20
and a warm season column, and then take your 10 crops from
00:19:24
that first question and place each crop into a column.
00:19:28
So cool season things are things like peas, lettuce, spinach, all
00:19:32
of your brassicas, radishes. This is all going to depend on
00:19:35
your region. And notice I said cool season.
00:19:37
I'm not talking about months of the year because we know that,
00:19:40
you know, the cool season here in Missouri where we can start
00:19:44
to grow things is usually like March, maybe into the beginning
00:19:50
of June. But if I'm further South in like
00:19:53
way South Texas, I know that the cool season is actually closer
00:19:57
to like December through March because then it really already
00:20:01
starts to warm up. Whereas you have warm season
00:20:04
crops, right? Your tomatoes, Peppers,
00:20:05
cucumbers, squash, beans, those things.
00:20:07
Again, this is going to depend on the region and whatever your
00:20:10
local recommendations are. Warm season to me for my
00:20:14
tomatoes is going to be smack dab in the middle of the summer.
00:20:16
They are super happy in the middle of July, right?
00:20:18
But in South Texas, by then it's too hot to grow tomatoes in a
00:20:22
lot of places. So understand your cool season
00:20:26
and your warm season, right? We're not trying to be perfect
00:20:29
here. We're just trying to sort the
00:20:30
crops by the conditions that they prefer.
00:20:34
Once we have those categories sort of defined, then we can
00:20:38
count backwards for like our seeds starting and our planting
00:20:41
dates. So identify the safe outdoor
00:20:45
planting date for that crop for your area and then look at how
00:20:49
many weeks it needs indoors if you're starting from seed or how
00:20:53
long it takes to germinate if you're direct sowing.
00:20:56
And then count backwards on the calendar.
00:20:59
That's it, right? So your action step here is pick
00:21:03
3 crops and build little mini timelines.
00:21:05
Pick one cool season crop and like 2 warm season crops.
00:21:08
And then for each one of them, write down when it can go
00:21:11
outside in your area, whether it is direct seated or if it's
00:21:15
transplanted. And then if it's transplanted,
00:21:18
how many weeks it typically needs indoors.
00:21:20
Again, you can look up all of this information.
00:21:22
It will readily pop up for you in any type of an Internet
00:21:26
search. We're not going to build a whole
00:21:27
calendar right now. You're just proving to yourself
00:21:29
that this planning process works OK.
00:21:31
And any time we're building a plan like this, we need to
00:21:36
understand that buffers are a part of that because weather
00:21:39
patterns shift and life happens and seeds germinate unevenly.
00:21:45
So when you're putting dates on paper, build in a buffer time
00:21:48
because we're not, you know, trying to predict the future
00:21:51
here. We're just trying to make better
00:21:52
decisions as our seasons change. So rather than saying I am going
00:21:56
to start these seeds on this particular date, give yourself a
00:21:59
range of dates, you know, three days ahead or three days behind.
00:22:02
This gets you, lets you be a little bit more flexible in
00:22:05
terms of weather and life in general.
00:22:08
All right, so now you've defined what you wanted, you've defined
00:22:11
what your space can support, and you've started a timeline.
00:22:14
Awesome. Now question #4 is where it all
00:22:17
comes together. How will you organize this plan
00:22:22
on paper or on the computer, however, so it stays usable all
00:22:27
season long? OK, so this is about creating a
00:22:30
simple map or a diagram, having sort of an understanding of
00:22:33
basic crop rotation if necessary, and then record
00:22:36
keeping. Hello, garden journal.
00:22:38
This is going to help you in the future.
00:22:40
OK. Because in real gardens that
00:22:44
aren't just on paper, you might have labels fade out in the
00:22:48
garden. You don't know what you're
00:22:49
growing. The stakes disappear, the vines
00:22:50
take over, and suddenly your plan is just a bunch of vibes
00:22:53
again. So, you know, document your
00:22:57
garden maps, diagrams, photos, journals.
00:23:00
It is extremely hard to remember from one year to the next what
00:23:04
it is that you did. Which also means it's going to
00:23:06
make it difficult to rotate your crops if you need to, or
00:23:09
evaluate varieties if you don't know what was where.
00:23:12
OK, so the first thing to do is just make a simple map, right?
00:23:16
It's just, you know, taking a piece of paper and drawing out
00:23:20
the shape of your growing space, where the major crops are going
00:23:23
to go. Add any notes for your spacing
00:23:25
or your trellising. If you're gardening in raised
00:23:28
beds or containers, and draw each bed as a rectangle or
00:23:31
whatever shape it is, and label them Bed 1, bed 2, bed three.
00:23:35
If you're in ground, draw the outline of those rows.
00:23:38
Sketch out those rows or those blocks and you can label those
00:23:41
the same way. Bed 1, bed 2, Bed 3, right?
00:23:44
If you're gardening in containers, you can draw cluster
00:23:48
or zones in and around where it is that you're guarding.
00:23:51
Patio pot, driveway buckets, you know, back porch, whatever
00:23:55
matches your setup. So your action step is to draw a
00:23:59
first draft map, right? Call it a first draft on purpose
00:24:03
because it it gives you the idea that, yeah, this is something
00:24:05
that you're going to adjust. OK, put the tall things where
00:24:09
they're not going to shade everything else.
00:24:11
Group crops with similar care needs together.
00:24:14
OK, this is going to reduce that friction.
00:24:16
If we need, you know, things need very different watering
00:24:19
schedules and grouping them can actually make it easier.
00:24:23
OK And then if you need to build some rotation into the to the
00:24:28
map. Now I do want to be clear that
00:24:30
crop rotation is harder in small gardens.
00:24:33
I totally get that. But you know, even in small
00:24:35
gardens, rotating plant families year to year can still help
00:24:39
reduce pest and disease pressure.
00:24:41
If you have seen this, OK, I am not somebody who has a hard and
00:24:46
fast rule about crop rotation only because I understand small
00:24:53
spaces and I also am a big proponent for interplanting a
00:24:56
lot of things. So if you're planting a whole
00:24:58
bunch of things together that are not in the same plant
00:25:01
family, it's less likely that you have to rotate these crops
00:25:04
because you're less likely to get those pest diseases, pest
00:25:07
diseases, those pests and soil diseases that are problematic
00:25:13
when you're planting just one crop family in the same spot
00:25:16
over and over again, OK. But if you do start to see that
00:25:19
you're having problems with pests and or diseases that are
00:25:22
coming up out of the soil, then the simplest method to figure
00:25:26
out your crop rotation is just to pick three or four major crop
00:25:29
groups that you the family groups that you grow the most
00:25:32
often. And then decide that each bed or
00:25:35
area is not going to repeat that family in the same spot every
00:25:39
year if you can reasonably avoid it.
00:25:41
OK, so write the plant family next to each crop on your map,
00:25:46
right? So tomatoes and Peppers, those
00:25:47
are in the same family. Squash and cucumbers, those are
00:25:50
also related. Cabbage and broccoli, also the
00:25:52
same plant family. Beans, peas, those are also in a
00:25:56
related group. So, and you can just simply
00:25:59
label these, OK, Nightshades, brassicas, curcubits, legumes
00:26:04
and then rotate them every year. OK, this section moves over
00:26:09
here, these move down here. Whatever it is, the goal is just
00:26:12
awareness so you're not accidentally planting the same
00:26:14
group in the exact same place year after year without
00:26:16
realizing it. OK, That's one of the benefits
00:26:18
to like having a garden map. And then the next part of this
00:26:23
would be to choose a record keeping method that you will
00:26:26
actually use. I know I talk at nauseam about
00:26:30
the garden journal. It is not very glamorous, but it
00:26:32
is absolutely a secret weapon in the garden.
00:26:35
Some sort of log of some sort, something where you can record
00:26:41
things like your planting dates, the varieties that you planted,
00:26:44
any harvest notes that you want to make, any weather events that
00:26:48
have affected what's going on, and then like the pests and
00:26:50
disease issues that you might see throughout the season.
00:26:55
Plus, we also want to write down what worked really well so we
00:26:58
can repeat that stuff again. You know, your own garden is its
00:27:03
own specific environment, so even if you're following
00:27:07
Extension Service guidelines, it doesn't mean that it's
00:27:10
absolutely going to work that way in your garden.
00:27:12
I can talk into them blue in the face about how to grow the
00:27:16
perfect cucumber or whatever, but that's only going to matter
00:27:19
for where I am, right? You have to sort of experiment
00:27:23
and figure out what's going to work in your own garden, and the
00:27:26
best planning improvements for like the next season are always
00:27:30
going to come from your own data over time, okay?
00:27:33
But the journal is only going to help if you actually use it.
00:27:36
So here's three options. Okay?
00:27:38
A notebook with one page per bed, right?
00:27:42
Write the bed label at the top and then just jot your planting
00:27:45
notes and your varieties and whatever.
00:27:46
Okay. The second would be a printed
00:27:49
map that you write on. I mean, this is especially
00:27:51
helpful if you like visual planning.
00:27:53
So if you draw out your map and then make a couple copies of
00:27:57
that, you can keep your notes directly on there.
00:28:00
The third one is super easy because most of us always have
00:28:03
our phones in our pocket and that phone has a camera.
00:28:06
So just take a quick photo at planting time and then do it
00:28:09
again part way through the season and then do it again when
00:28:12
you have your first harvest. That date is already going to be
00:28:15
there for you when you go back and look at those pictures.
00:28:18
That in and of itself can be a garden journal.
00:28:20
OK. So just pick one and then keep
00:28:23
track of the minimum stuff. What it is that you're planting,
00:28:26
the date that it was planted and some sort of a result, you know,
00:28:30
was it great? Was it?
00:28:32
Well, I never plants it again. Whatever.
00:28:33
That is enough to make next year's planning easier.
00:28:42
OK, so at this point we've covered the four questions.
00:28:46
Now I'm going to give you a quick way to combine them into
00:28:49
something usable, a sort of planning snapshot.
00:28:52
And this should take you about 10 minutes.
00:28:55
OK, so we're not sitting down and and spending an entire day
00:28:59
on a planning session, as much as I enjoy that, I know most
00:29:02
everybody does not. OK, so the first thing to do is
00:29:06
just write that top ten harvest list, OK, And then figure out
00:29:10
what your garden constraints are.
00:29:12
What is your sun estimate? What is your bed or your
00:29:15
container footprint? Where is your water?
00:29:18
All right then figure out what your seasonal anchors are, your
00:29:21
last and 1st frost dates or whatever your regional
00:29:24
equivalents are. And then do a quick first draft
00:29:28
map, right? Intentionally place those tall
00:29:30
crops and those trellises where they're not going to shade
00:29:32
things. And then write a note for each
00:29:35
bed or zone as far as what's going there.
00:29:37
It could just be the plant families at this point.
00:29:40
OK, that's it. That gives you a snapshot of
00:29:44
what your garden is going to look like this year.
00:29:46
And if you do nothing else in this entire month besides this
00:29:50
snapshot, you are still going to be ahead of the game because
00:29:52
you've already turned decisions that you have made and the the
00:29:56
evaluations that you have made of your garden into a little bit
00:29:59
of a plant. And then you can just build on
00:30:01
that. Now, a couple of mistakes that I
00:30:03
do see happen sometimes when people are kind of going off of
00:30:06
a very loose plan. First one is buying seeds before
00:30:09
you know what your layout and your timing is.
00:30:11
If you can plan backwards from your goals using the space that
00:30:16
you have available to you, then the seed buying kind of becomes
00:30:19
more strategic, right? The second thing is overcrowding
00:30:23
and then having to fight disease and past all winter long.
00:30:25
If you have a map and you can put your decisions or your,
00:30:29
your, you know, your goal plants on that map, it forces you to
00:30:33
acknowledge things like spacing and airflow.
00:30:36
So you have that in mind when you go to order your seeds or
00:30:39
when you go to the garden center.
00:30:41
The third one would be planting everything all at once and then
00:30:44
having a very, very short harvest window.
00:30:46
We're going to talk about that a little bit later in the month,
00:30:48
but a timeline helps you sink in planting windows, not just one
00:30:54
day of planting, which then gets us to harvest windows and not
00:30:58
just one day of harvest. OK.
00:31:00
And then the 4th mistake would be forgetting what you planted
00:31:03
where. So having a map and some sort of
00:31:06
a log makes it easier for your crop rotation, for your variety
00:31:11
ID selection, and then timing your improvements that all
00:31:15
depend on just that little bit of documentation.
00:31:18
OK, so let's recap this really quick question number one, what
00:31:21
do you want to harvest and how will you use it?
00:31:24
Question #2 What can your space and your life actually support?
00:31:29
Question #3 What's your timeline based on your local season?
00:31:35
And then question #4 how will you organize it so that it stays
00:31:38
usable all season long? Write down that top ten harvest
00:31:42
list. Do a quick sunlight check in the
00:31:44
garden to see what you're working with.
00:31:46
Choose three of those crops and sketch out a mini timeline.
00:31:49
And then draw a first draft map. That is a plan that you can
00:31:53
actually build from. In the show notes, I'm going to
00:31:59
include links to several university Extension resources
00:32:04
on vegetable garden planning and site selection, raised bed
00:32:08
layout, planning timelines, crop rotation, garden journaling, all
00:32:11
the things that you could possibly go and read about.
00:32:14
I'm also going to link to a couple of previous episodes on
00:32:18
garden planning that I have done, so you will have all kinds
00:32:22
of solid references that you can lean on.
00:32:24
Until next time, my gardening friends, keep on cultivating
00:32:27
that dream garden, and we'll talk again soon.