I was super early when it came to choosing crops and ordering seeds this year. Now that it’s March, I needed to get going on my planting schedule & garden map. It’s time to start sowing my first seeds, and I didn’t have a plan yet! Who am I? I don’t even recognize myself without a plan.
So, I sat down this morning and got to work over some coffee and eggs (backyard fresh from my favorite suburban chicken farmers – perfect inspiration).
Schedule:
Our last frost date is around April 2-15. I plan for 4/15 to be on the safe side. To plan the timeline, I always pull up a Zone 7 planting schedule for backup, but I mostly just use the guidance on the seed packet.
I lay out all of my seed packets on a timeline and sort by whether I am sowing indoors or outside.
Then, I can translate that into a rough, written planting schedule. All of my planting has to happen on the weekends.
Planting starts tomorrow!
Garden Map
Because I will start planting my cold-hardy spring crops outside next weekend, I also need a map of where everything is going.
In terms of space, I have 3 primary beds (4′ x 8′, raised a few inches). I use buckets or grow bags for potatoes. I have a small ground bed in the back corner for sunflowers. And this year, we are converting some raised flower beds around our patio into beds for strawberries and herbs.
There are some key things I try to consider when mapping out the garden for the year:
- Spacing & Quantity: This is the most obvious. How much space does each plant need / how many plants per square foot? How many plants do I want of each vegetable? That will let me know the square feet needed for each.
- Height: I don’t want tall plants blocking sunlight from shorter plants. In the diagram below, the bottom of the page is South, which is where the sun is coming from.
- Structures: This year, my tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, peas, and snake beans will all need some variety of support structure. So, I have to be cognizant of where and how I will place those.
- Timing: The planting & harvest timing of different vegetables allows me to rotate crops during the same year in the same space, which can help me grow more and optimize the small space I have. For example, lettuce, kale, and spinach are cold weather crops that I can grow around the edges of the tomato beds. By the time it gets too warm for the greens, the tomato plants really start to take off.
2019 planning is complete! Time to garden.