Deciding On Your Garden Plan

Gardening is one of the things in life that teaches you great patience. But it also rewards your patience 10 fold. But before you plant the first seed or plant, you have to figure out a lot of details. Things like what you grew last year, what you plan to grow this fall, how long does a plant take to reach maturity, and so much more. While I will touch on those things in this blog post, I really wanted to focus on the emotional aspects of deciding on your garden plan. Because there is a ton of negative emotions that can come around with planning your garden.

My Garden Plan

As I sit here writing this blog post, I am actively avoiding one of my favorite parts of the garden…. the planning stage. I am a planner by nature and this is usually my favorite part of the garden. But this year, I am overwhelmed with a ton of other things and it’s bleeding over into my garden. Nothing bad, but the overwhelm means that I am looking at my list of things to grow, where to put them, and harvest times with dread.

I’ve been putting off doing this because it’s just not fun this year. And that’s okay! I’m still going to do it, it’s just going to be slower than previous years. So how do you decide on your garden plan? Well, I don’t recommend throwing seeds in the ground to see what grows. But if that’s what your mental health needs? You have my full permission…. Even if you don’t need it.

Start Your Garden Plan Out With What You Know

For me, I let both my kitchen garden and big garden go fallow (I didn’t plant anything) this fall/winter. It wasn’t for any other reason but a mix of laziness and needing a break. Yes, it hurt our budget a bit. But the mental break it gave me was huge. Because it went fallow, I don’t necessarily have to worry about timing harvests and figuring what to plant when. I get to start my summer garden with a fresh start.

If you aren’t starting with a fallow garden, look at what you have right now and start trying to figure out when that plant or bed will be ready for summer planting. Then, marry that information with your local weather. For example, you have a bed of broccoli that will be done producing around April 15th. That means that you can start planting your cucumbers, squash, and other not quite so frost tender things.

Figure Out What You Need

One of the things we are really focusing on this year is bulk growing the things that we eat a ton of and can preserve easily. Things like green beans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, etc. I don’t want to “waste” a ton of space on things that don’t preserve well like melons. We are still going to grow melons, but it will be a much smaller amount.

If you know that you need to put up 60# of green beans, make sure that you have plenty of space in your garden for that. Skip the melons so you can use that space for green beans.

If you aren’t sure how much a plant produces, Google it, then write it down.

Consult Previous Garden Journals

I know I sound like a broken record, but make sure that you are writing down, taking pictures of, or some other way of documenting what is working or not in your garden. No, you won’t remember. Trust me.

A small notebook like this, or a full spreadsheet like this are great ways to keep up with what your garden is doing every year. Honestly, I don’t care what you use, as long as you are tracking previous garden plans, harvests, etc.

When I consult previous garden plans, what I am looking for is what performed well, what didn’t, and how I felt about the garden. The last part is actually really important to me because I want to see if planting 300 bush bean plants caused me to get stressed, say screw it, and then let all that food go to waste. Because if it did, then I don’t need to plant that much again.

If you are pushing yourself to burnout every year, you aren’t going to truly enjoy your garden. And that’s not fair to you or your garden.

Working Within Your Homestead Goals

I’ve talked repeatedly about how one of our big garden goals is to grow 75% of our family’s food needs from the garden. This is a huge goal, and is totally achievable. But.. and it’s a big but…. if I am growing a ton of flowers, that really doesn’t fit with my goal. Now, that’s not to say that you can’t have any flowers but make sure that you are being mindful of what you are actually growing.

I am constantly checking any new projects, plans or ideas against our why and our goals. If one of your goals is to put up a years worth of green beans, don’t waste your space on growing a bunch of roses. It’s okay to be picky about what you are growing and ultimately working towards.

In that same vein though, don’t be so goal oriented that you aren’t flexible. I talk about the art of semper Gumby here and it’s really a valuable lesson that we have learned over our lives. It’s the idea that it’s okay to have goals and dreams and plans. But it’s not okay to be so immovable with those things that you lose sight of life.

Deciding On Your Garden Plan

Personally, I will be getting back to work on my garden plans. It’s a huge garden plan because it encompasses about 1800 sq ft of raised bed space and about another 1000 sq ft of in ground space. But I have looked at previous garden plans, checked my goals and am ready to get to work.

My kitchen garden (about 700sq ft) is going to have stuff for fresh eating throughout the season. Things like slicing cucumbers, shelling peas, pole beans, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and a mix of herbs.

My big garden (about 2100sq ft) will be for bulky items or preservation quantities. This will be things like corn, bush beans, tomatoes, potatoes, pumpkins, winter squash, etc. It’s going to be a huge garden but I am so excited for the 2025 season!

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