Making a Garden Plan
Each year in early October I lay out the garden plans for the 3 big gardens. I do it so early because I need to know where to plant the garlic. The 2 veg gardens are:
The Big garden measuring 60’ x 42.5’ for 2550 sq. ft or 6% of an acre.
The Small garden measures 36’ x 30’ for 1080 sq. ft. or 2% of an acre.
These 2 gardens don’t have dedicated rows or walkways and can be planted with an E – W or N – S orientation.
The New Herb garden measures 50’ x 37’ for 1850 sq. ft. or 2% of an acre.
It is laid out with walkways and beds with E – W orientation. The beds measure 4’ x 31’ for 124 sq. ft and there are 7 of them, totaling 868 sq. ft. The rest is walkways.
Before you start laying out a garden, you need some basic information. First, know the cardinal directions: East, West, North, South. Is it full sun? If not, you need to know what plants will tolerate part sun. Onions are a day sensitive plant and if they don’t get enough sun, they don’t grow well.
You need to have an idea of how much produce you want from each veg variety, as that will determine the amount of space needed for that vegetable. You will also need to know the minimum spacing between plants and the distance between rows. For example, garlic needs 6” apart and 18” between rows. Tomatoes prefer having 4’ between plants as they are heavy feeders.
Also, there are plants that either love, hate, or don’t care if they grow next to other plants. Tomatoes do better if they have horehound growing near them. You can see there’s 4’ spacing between them.
The next thing to know is how tall things get, or how much they sprawl. If you plant a row of sunflowers at the front of your garden on the south side, everything behind them for 15’ or more will be in shade for part of the day. In my garden if I was to plant the Howden pumpkin on the west side of the garden, everything to the east of it for 30’ would be covered with vines. So I plant it on the east side, it climbs the fence and goes out into the pasture 20’.
Other things to consider are how long the plant will be in the garden. Most vegs are annuals, so they die at the end of the season. Some, like peas, stop producing when it gets hot. Others, like melons, have a long growing season until they are ripe. Garlic is harvested in July. That leaves a big gap in my garden that I could fill with lettuce or mesclun as they don’t mind following alliums.
If you have any perennial plants in your garden, you need to plan around them. I have a perennial herb row in the middle of the big garden. This year they are all moving to the New Herb garden. That will leave comfrey and rhubarb, both perennials, in the NE corner of my garden. I can work around them.
If you have a small area, you might be tempted to try to reduce spacing to fit everything in. Just remember, you must be able to move around in the garden for weeding and harvesting. Also, crowded plants are stressed plants that do not produce as well and are susceptible to pests and diseases.
Don’t forget to add plenty of flowering plants to the plan to draw in pollinators. I usually have up to a dozen different flowers in the Big garden.
And lastly, you want to try to rotate plant families so you don’t plant the same type in the same place year after year. This builds pest and disease problems. Ideally you want to avoid the same place for 3 years before returning to it.
I have had the Big garden since 1993 and always laid it out on graph paper. In 2012 I came across a planner online. I NEVER buy online programs, but this one impressed me so, I bought the membership. It is: https://www.growveg.com/ and makes laying out so much easier.
The best thing is it tracks your garden from year to year and can tell you if you planted that family in that place within the last 3 years. As I only have 2 gardens, and only 2 places I can plant squashes/pumpkins (the east sides), my rotation isn’t the best for those plants. But I can rotate most of everything else pretty well.
The 2018 Big garden: https://www.growveg.com/garden-plans/871155/
The 2018 Small garden: https://www.growveg.com/garden-plans/871585/
The 2018 New Herb garden: https://www.growveg.com/garden-plans/874058/
I use this planner to lay out the 3 gardens, then I still draw them out on graph paper in pencil. I can take the paper to the garden, it doesn’t mind getting dirty, and I can make changes as I plant. Plus it’s really big as I use 2 17” x 11” sheets taped together for the Big garden and the New Herb garden. I write all planting info on it (how many plants in the row, the spacing between, the variety) and if the spacing is 6” or wider, I mark that on the row or bed too.
So take your time, plan well, and have a beautiful, productive, healthy garden this year!