Planning the Garden for Multiple Harvests Just because those tomato plants need to be spaced four feet apart from each other doesn’t mean that you can’t plant smaller, quick maturing plants like lettuce, spring onions, or kohlrabi in between the tomato transplants. Give your plants the space they need to mature but don’t waste valuable garden space by neglecting to incorporate intensive gardening techniques into the gardening plan. Or placing climbers like cucumbers in a position where you can’t provide them with plenty of room and support yet keep them organized and growing within their boundaries. Also avoid planting a large bushy plant like a summer squash in a spot where it will spread and crowd neighboring crops. You don’t want to position taller plants where they will shade shorter plants that are growing next to them. This will also require consideration of the orientation of your garden and the direction that the sun tracks across your landscape. Sizing Up Your Garden Plan and Crop LayoutĪ very important consideration when planning your vegetable garden is to think about the size, height, and growth habit of the crops and to plant according to these characteristics. Crop rotation helps to avoid nutrient deficiencies and prevent the build up of diseases in the soil. In situations where I mix and interplant various veggies, herbs, and flowers together in the same area I don’t worry too much about rotating the plants. Even without a garden log it’s easy to remember where this group of vegetables was located in the previous season and to move them to a different growing bed during the next season. If you plant a particular crop or family of related crops in one raised bed the previous year, it goes in a different area or garden bed the next time around.įor example, I usually plant tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in the same bed because I use cages to support them all. Companion Plants and Ornamental EffectsĬrop rotation doesn’t have to be complicated or formal.Size, Height, and Growth Habit of the Plants.When planning the layout of the vegetable beds there are four main considerations that I keep in mind to guide my planting and growing strategy: There is also a 10 x 30 foot growing area at the end of the raised beds that I use to grow herbs and perennial vegetable plants. So before I even get started the garden is already divided into four equal quadrants that are easy to identify and keep separated. My garden consists of four raised beds, each measuring five feet wide by approximately fifty feet in length. Tips for Creating a Vegetable Garden Plan The task is made easier by the fact that I do all of my vegetable gardening in raised beds. Rather than use pen and paper, I usually visualize the general layout of the vegetable garden that I plan to grow and organize things in my head. There are also landscape and garden planning software applications that enable you to record and keep track of your garden’s design and layout. If you want to plot the garden on paper before you start planting it’s simple to draw up your selection of crops and their planned location on a sheet of graph paper or on an Excel spreadsheet. Or you can take photos of your garden as a record of what was planted when, where, and the results. I also tend to be spontaneous when planning the vegetable garden but I do think that it is important to record the garden’s design and layout, even if it’s after the fact, so that you have a record that you can refer back to when planning your future gardens. “I’m interested in any details you can share about how you plan your gardening, whether you track yields or other stuff, map it out on paper… I tend to be somewhat “spontaneous” but know I could make the garden more productive if I had more of a plan.” Documenting Your Garden’s Layout Ellen made the following inquiry about planning a vegetable garden:
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