How to Plan Your Summer Garden

It is Winter still but Spring is on the way, as demonstrated by all the ladybugs in my house 🙂 Now is the time that you should be planning your garden, so get to work!

Keep in mind, through the entire planning process, that to have a successful garden you will need time to weed and care for your plants, harvest your produce, and process your food. Do not plant more than you can handle! If you have big plans, I recommend you start smaller and build a little bit each year.

If you need help choosing your garden location please read my post Where to Plant Your Garden. Once you have chosen location you need to decide layout and shape. You may think of a garden as a giant rectangle with long neat rows of vegetables, but this is not an efficient way to grow produce. Consider beds shaped as rectangles, 3 or 4 feet wide. You want to be able to reach to the middle of the bed, and the size will depend on your height and if you are able to work on your knees.

I have a circular garden area that has rows that cut it up like a pie. A rectangle is the most obvious shape but have fun with it if you would like. Another option is to grow vertical, I love vertical as its easy to tend to, there are less weeds, and you are able to see all of your produce easily. Vertical gardens are good at keeping produce from pests. Another option that is good at keeping pests away is raised beds. It is amazing how raising a bed three feet can keep bunnies out of your food. Raised beds are more work to construct but worth it. Don’t forget rows! You want to make sure you can get the tools you need to your garden bed and get a wheelbarrow through your rows.

Now you get to do the fun part, decide what you are going to grow! Grow what you will eat and what you have the time for. There a lot of factors that affect what you are able to grow, please read my post Things to Consider when Ordering from Seed Catalogs.

We are adding a new Vegetable area to our garden this year, it will consist of 9, 4 x 5 ft., raised beds. It is easiest to plan your garden by drawing it out or using Excel/Numbers. Here is what ours looks like right now, it might still need some fine tuning.