Ah spring time. Such a beautiful time of year. Plants are starting to poke their heads out of the soil, animals welcome new life. Days get longer and the cold, slowness of winter gets nudged aside for warm, exciting days.
This is the time where the hustle and bustle of life returns and also the time to start garden planning!
This post will teach you all about planning a garden.
If you are a complete beginner and want to learn the ins and outs of starting a garden, you have come to the right place. Homesteading means that you take on as much of the responsibility for your own food as possible, regardless of where you live.
This means gardening can be a huge benefit. Let’s just dive right in to planning your garden!
The first step to planning your garden
I believe the first step to planning a garden, is knowing what it is you are trying to accomplish. Many people have different goals for gardening and that is awesome!
Your first step should be to figure out what you want out of your garden. Here are some of the options:
- A hobby- this is something where you aren’t necessary concerned with the outcome, nor about how much gardening you do. You want to fill your time with something that is relaxing and rewarding.
- A specialty garden– I am talking an herb garden, a salsa garden or a fresh cut flower garden.
- Taking on the bulk of your familys fresh produce intake for the summer– this would mean producing enough to enjoy during the summer but NOT enough to store or preserve throughout the year.
- Taking on the bulk of your family fresh produce intake during summer AND having enough to preserve and enjoy throughout the year- this means canning, freezing, pickling, dehydrating and more!
Once you know what you are trying to accomplish, you can plan accordingly. More on that later.
The second most important step in planning your garden
The next step in starting seeds is finding out what growing season you are in. A growing season will tell you about your areas last frost date (which will be the date you can start to safely plant tender seeds or seedlings like cucumber, tomatoes or peppers.)
It will also tell you the first day of frost. Figuring out the time difference between the 2 will help you decide which seeds will need to be started indoors and which ones can be direct sow (planted straight into the soil outside.)
For example: My growing season is a 3b which means it is quite short. If I were to direct sow all of my vegetables, some would barely get started before they were killed off by the first frost. On average, my last day of frost is between May 25 and June 5 and my first day or frost is between September 11 and September 18. That means my growing season is 108- 122 days.
Next you need to figure out what seeds you want to plant
This means you want to figure out what foods your family enjoys eating on a regular basis. If your family doesn’t like Swiss chard, don’t grow Swiss chard regardless of what the popular bloggers say lol.
This will also depend on your goals in step 1. If you are looking to feed your family over the year from your garden, you are going to want to focus more on storage crops. Think carrots, winter squash, onions, potatoes and garlic.
Make a list of all of the fruit and vegetables you enjoy and write them down. Check out my FREE printable for a nice way to keep things organized.
Figure out how big of a space you have to use
It is a common misconception that you need alot of space to start gardening. That couldn’t be further from the truth! There are a lot of ways to make space, you just have to get creative.
The most commonly thought about gardening style is in ground gardening. If you have some dirt and you want to get started super cheap, this will work! The only downside that I have found with in ground gardening, is the intense weeds. If you are keeping on top of it, this isn’t so bad!
Our in ground garden with potatoes and weeds. Hahahahaha
The next option is a raised bed garden. This is my top choice! Raised beds are lovely because you can fill them with high quality dirt and compost leading to huge yields! This is especially great if your dirt is hard to grow in.
You can also build your own with scrap wood. Be careful when using wood to make sure you are not introducing chemicals into your soil (treated wood for instance.)
Finally, if you are low on space, these grow bags are awesome!
I bought these ones last year and they are easy to fill, allow excess water to drip out (preventing root rot) and they are mobile so you can rearrange your garden year after year based on what works and what doesn’t!
Once you figure out which method you want to grow, you will want to sort out how many square feet it is. The math is very simple for this. You multiply the length times the width.
My garden boxes are 4 feet by 8 feet so it would be 4 x 8= 32 square feet of garden space.
It's research time baby!
Now that you have your growing zone, vegetables you want to grow and how much space you have, it is time to do some research!
Grab your free printable and start to fill it in. If you plan to start seeds (a blog post to come) you can fill in the dates you would need to start them inside, and then when you would need to transplant them. This can be easier if you buy starts from the store.
You can also start to figure out how many plants you need of each vegetable to feed your family based on your goals (another post to come on this as well!)
This is exactly how I would search each thing in google.
- “When to start pepper seeds indoors zone 3b”
- How many pepper plants do I need to feed 1 person for a year”
- How many cucumber plants do I need to pickle and eat fresh per person”
- “When can I direct sow my butternut squash seeds zone 3b”
Now, this not a comprehensive list. You can fall down many a hole when planning a garden (companion planting, cross pollination, square foot gardening etc) but this is a great way to start! More gardening tips to come! If you want to stay tuned for future blog posts, enter your email address and I will send you an email when a new post goes live. 🙂
There you have it! The first steps you should take as a beginner gardener looking to plan your garden! I hope this was helpful for you! Happy planting and stay tuned for my next gardening post! Thank You!
