Organizing your Space

Every winter around the middle of January I plan out my garden. Here is how I do it. Hope it helps.

First - I make a list of all the vegetables and flowers I would like to have in the garden. I add how many rows or hills I want to plant as part of this list.

Second - Once I have my list of ideas I print out my Garden Plot Map and with a Planting Schedule I draw out where I plan on planting my stuff. The Garden Plot Map is designed for my 20' x 50' garden but could easily be manipulated to fit your garden. I use the spaces on the left side of the first page to write notes about vegetables.

Those are the steps I take not that thrilling but there is some reasoning behind planting things in certain spots which partly come from knowing your garden, but I will share mine and you can adapt for your situation.

Tips

My garden doesn't have very many shade options so I use my beans, peas, corn and other taller plants to shade my shorter plants.

Different plants need different amounts of water my garden is not perfectly level so I try to plant plants that like more water on the lower side of the garden. I also try to keep my plants that don't like a lot of water away from the edges of the grass where water intended for the grass falls.

I try and plant my plants that spread like cantaloupe, squash, and cucumbers near plants that are colder weather plants like peas. This way the spreading plants can grow into the space that the colder weather (already harvested) plants recently occupied.

I don't plant corn, it takes up too much space for what you get and there is enough people around and it's pretty cheap in the stores to not warrant the need to plant it.

This year I got a composition notebook to keep track of all my maps for year to year so that I am moving my crops around. It's not good to plant the same things in the same spot year after year. It also helps jog my memory about what worked or didn't work in certain spots through the years. It has been much better that a stack of papers by my seeds.