Planning Your Garden

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Make the most of your space. A well-planned garden is easier to care for. It saves time in the garden and is more productive than an unplanned garden. Start planning your garden well in advance so you will be ready to get to work when planting time arrive.If the soil was not plowed or tilled in the fall, that must be done early in the spring. Add Fertilizer if needed. Choosing your spot for your garden is important and you need to foloow these tips. Choose a place that has good soil. The right amount of sunlight. Avoid competetive trees and shrubs. Are you close to a water supply? Will your garden be easy to access? Plan your garden around the size you are wanting and the types of vegetables, herbs, and ore flowers you will be growing. Locate vegetables according to their growing seasons. Separate the early plantings from the quick growing vegetables so that after harvesting, this space can be used for later plantings. Perennial crops such as asparagus, rhubarb and berries should be planted at the side of your garden since they will remain in the same location from year to year. To avoid shading plants, the taller crops should be to the north or west of shorter crops. Successive Planting - This provides a continuous supply of vegetables. Don't plant too much of a crop at one time. Two or three small plantings of leaf lettuce and radishes may be made one week apart in early spring with additional ones made in the fall. Onion sets for green onions may be planted every two weeks until they are used up. If space is available, there can be at least two plantings of beans, beets, broccoli, cabbage and carrots - one early in the spring for summer use, another in the summer for fall use and storage. Make several plantings of sweet corn. Later crops can be planted on the same spot where earlier plants were harvested. Early harvested crops such as leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes, green onions, and peas can be followed by plantings of beans, beets, carrots, cabbage, sweet corn, late spinach, late leaf lettuce and turnips. Plan for proper spacing so your plants will have room to grow. Purchase your seed well in advance. and last ,but not least - SKETCH A PLAN Put your garden plan on paper. This will give you a guide for planting. The sketch should include: Location of each vegetable Length of row for each vegetable Spacing between rows and between plants in rows Planting dates What plant is to follow when each vegetable is harvested