There is nothing better than to lay out a big piece of paper, grab a pencil and plan my garden. Although I live in South Florida, I have the advantage of growing most things outdoors during the season. I still like to get started a few weeks ahead of time and sow some of the seeds indoors.
I take tremendous pleasure in painstakingly crafting a vision for what I want to plant and carefully reproducing it before me, even if my sketches are by no means works of art. Since planning is a process and I always make a lot of modifications along the way, I naturally use a pencil.
Designing Takes Strategy
There are many approaches to designing a garden, however I prefer to use a methodical approach:
- Note down when your area’s last Spring frost typically occurs.
- Enumerate every crop you hope to cultivate. After that, narrow down your list to crops you can cultivate.
- Sort the crops you plan to plant into two categories: warm- and cold-weather crops.
- Sort the crops by color coding them based on whether you intend to start them indoors, use them as transplants from a nursery, or directly sow them outside.
- Determine when to start seeds indoors (if needed) and when to sow crops outside based on your area’s typical last frost date and the information on the seed packet. Put the dates next to every crop.
- Note the plant-spacing requirements, number of plants per square foot (if you’re a square-foot gardener), number of days until harvest, companion plants that work well together, and necessity for vertical supports for each crop.
- Take a piece of paper and draw the boundaries of your garden. Graph paper is useful if you want straight lines and right angles, particularly since each square on the paper might represent a square foot of your garden.
- To make planning easier, try drawing borders to scale for raised beds, elevated rows, or in-ground beds. If you intend to utilize containers, mention their dimensions so that you can calculate the right amount of space between them.
- Include vertical structures like trellises or tall planters in your sketch if you intend to construct or add them to your garden. Add all the crops you want to cultivate to the garden drawing. Tell us how many plants you plan to grow in that area.
- Note whether you intend to produce crops one after the other. If you are not starting a garden from scratch this year, look over last year’s plan to see if crop rotation is necessary and to replicate any successful plantings. Adjust as necessary!
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A Journal that is Uniquely Yours
Your own written notebook will be the best resource for gardening information. Your personal garden diary, with its tiny notes, anecdotes, drawings, and figures, is the best place to record what’s happening in your garden. As varied as the gardeners who maintain them are the journals they keep. Every week, one gardener would jot down a note or two; another might maintain meticulous tables full of information. I keep one, complete with notes and drawings so that I may pass it down to my future children!
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What to Add to Your Journal
Some could meticulously annotate every drawing on each page, while others might document every small aspect of their everyday lives. Diaries might be whimsical, lyrical, scientific, or just plain useful. If it captures your essence, there are no rules when it comes to preserving one. Here are some ideas to get you going:
Overview: List the soil test findings, frost date, and zone. To find your planting zones, check out this guide!
Events in the garden in each month of the year: Keep a monthly journal of the tasks that need to be completed, the plants that are in bloom, and any interesting side notes. As the years go by, you’ll probably add more chores, notes, and observationsโfor instance, when to plant garlic, mulch, clean up the garden, and cover beds with sheeting or row covers.
Collect plants and seeds: Cut out the photographs and information from catalogs if you’re ordering them by mail or online, then insert them into your diary. Plant tags or seed packs, if locally sourced or grown from seed, should be stapled to your pages. Make notes on each plant, such as whether it was tasty, powerful, or hearty, and leave space for these notes. Indicate the pros and cons of planting the seeds and what worked!
A map of your garden: Provide drawings of your garden that indicate the plants you planted and their locations. Your drawing will be useful not just for keeping track of what you planted this year but also for planning what to plant the following year. When you want to recall where you planted fall bulbs in the spring or when you are planning a crop rotation, detailed sketches come in handy.
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An inventory chart for the plants you are cultivating: If you make a table, put columns in it to note the dates that you planted, let the plants harden off, moved them, and harvested them. Additionally helpful is a column for keeping specific comments about each plant.
The fertilizers you applied: To help you keep track of what works and what doesn’t, as well as when you need to apply them again, make a record of the type, amount, and date of any fertilizers you use. One other tool to help troubleshoot growth issues is a clear record.
An inventory of illnesses and pests: Often, the same pests reappear at the same time of year. To assist you be aware of possible infestations in the future years, keep a record of the pests you find and the dates they first appeared. Make a note of all the things you attempted and failed to try to lessen their damage.
Plants gifted by friends, relatives, or other gardeners: If you receive perennials as a gift, note who gave them to you and when you planted them. My late grandfather planted an olive tree from seed and years later, it became this huge beauty that provides more shade. Similarly, and perhaps someday, your children and grandchildren will treasure this information!
Plants that require special attention: It’s important to note whether a particular plant needs annual pruning, deadheading, or staking so that you are ready to complete the operation when it’s needed.
List of plants or projects you’d like to try: To encourage and remind yourself to try new plants, techniques, and projects, paste in pictures.
Take lots of pictures: One day, you and your loved ones will enjoy gazing back at the various ages and stages of your gardenโpictures truly do say a thousand words.
Don’t have time for the full article? Read this!
Planning a garden involves a methodical approach, including identifying the area’s last spring frost, naming crops, dividing them into warm and cold-weather, determining planting times, and determining plant-spacing requirements. Graph paper can be used for drawing boundaries, while vertical structures can be included. A personal garden diary is a valuable resource for recording gardening information. Diaries can be whimsical, lyrical, scientific, or useful, and can capture the essence of the gardener. Keeping a journal can help maintain a record of the garden’s progress and success.
This is great! Thanks for sharing. I love the inventory chart of plants and the inventory of illnesses and pests. I never thought to keep track of it. That would make things a lot easier!
Youโre most welcome! Iโm so glad it was insightful!