Gardening 101: Plant Layout

The simple way to plan your garden layout is to pick up a pencil and paper and start drawing!  That's it.  You don't need a computer program, an app, or special sketching skills.  Those things are tools that you can use, but that are not required.  

The image above shows our layout using the Basic Crop Rotation layout I wrote about last week titled Gardening 101: Crop Rotation. If you missed this post I recommend reading it first before continuing this one. This post shows you how to space your garden and finalize your plan in six easy steps using the SFGM (Square Foot Gardening Method). 

STEP 1: Draw the outline of your garden.  
I will draw one of our 4 x 8 size raised beds for example. 
Typically if this is your first year gardening I would recommend starting with a 4 x 4 raised bed. 

Vertical Frames at the end of the raised beds

Also all plants that vine (cucumbers, peas, squash, vine beans and vine tomatoes) are grown using a vertical frame at the end of the raised bed (which saves a tremendous amount of space).  Add a vertical frame at the north end of your raised bed. Here is a link to my other post on Building A Vertical Frame for a Raised Bed

Drawing outline of garden

Gardening 101: Crop Rotation

It depends on where you live but at our house the snow is falling!  All this time inside with cold weather reminds me that very soon the snow will be melting and spring will arrive. Its hard to believe that its already March which means its time to plan the garden.  This simple  series:Gardening 101 should give you the basics you need to start a successful garden this year.

This my advice to prevent bacterial, fungal, soil quality issues and pest problems in 2015: Rotate your crops!  In simple terms that means: change the planting location of your vegetables each year.  More specifically avoid planting a crop in the same plant group in the same area each gardening season. Basically keep moving things around from year to year.

Bacterial and fungal diseases can overwinter in your soil!

  

INSTRUCTIONS FOR BASIC CROP ROTATION

STEP 1: Categorize your plants into 4 GROUPS

 1. Legumes: Beans, Peas, Peanuts, Cover Crops
 2. Leaf/ Flower: Lettuce, Spinach, Broccoli, Cabbage 
3. Fruiting: Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers, Eggplant, Squash, Melons, Potatoes, Corn
4. Roots: Onions, Garlic, Carrots, Turnips, Beets, Radishes

STEP 2:  Get out some paper and draw the outline of your garden.  Plant a different plant group (family) in each bed. NOTE: If you only have 1 bed you can simply divide it into 4 sections and then rotate the sections every year.

STEP 3: Draw your garden plan for the next 3 to 4 years. Rotate your plants based on the progression below:

Legumes ---> Leaf ---> Fruiting ---> Root

                 (nitrogen fixing)       (both are nitrogen fixing)            (breaks up soil)

         (like loose soil) 

STEP 4: Save your crop rotation plan in a place you can find it for the following year!  The next step is to layout the specific plants within each group. (Look for my next post to learn about planning your specific layouts)

NOTE: If you want to use a more advanced crop rotation system you can group plants based on their botanical family instead of these 4 groups.  But I like to try and keep things simple!  That way we have time to enjoy moments like these....because time is precious!

2012 Garden in Review

 Hand-drawn Garden Plan

 This is the rough plan I drew up in 2012 for our garden layout. 

May 27th, 2012 
Pictured below are the two raised beds we constructed out of pine in 2012.  The vegetables are just starting to grow.  The layout and spacing we used is from the Square Foot Gardening Method.

In the closest bed (#3) we had: (2) Butternut Squash which would grow on the trellis, (12) Eggplant- two different types: (6) Lavendar Touch and (3) Black Beauty, and (171) Bush Beans- Bush Blue Lake 274 variety. 

In the farthest bed (#4) we had: (3) Straight neck Summer Squash, (2) Cilantro, (1) Green Bell Pepper, (1) Yellow Bell Pepper, (1) Pepper Carmen, (4) 1 year crown Asparagus, (256) Yellow Onions. 

We also planted (2) Bush Zucchini plants on mounds.  You can't see them in this picture but they were located to the left of the first raised bed.                                                                 

New constructed pine beds with vegetables growing

Pine beds a few weeks later.

2013 Garden Layout

My husband decided to draw up our garden plans on the computer to get things ready during the winter.  This is the first year we have been this organized.  In previous years I would just make a drawing by hand, but I always found myself having to re-draw it this way I can just re-print any changes!  

We also expanded the garden adding 2 more raised beds (made out of Cedar) to our previous 2 (made out of pine).   We will now have 17 different vegetables growing compared to the 11 from last year.  All of this takes some planning. 

We used the Square Foot Gardening Method which I highly recommend.
Each bed is broken up into increments of a foot and then depending on the plant it may be broken down further from there.  Its simple, economical, efficient and very productive!

BED #1  (made of Cedar)

Plants starting from the top (back of the bed) : 
(16) Peas after peas replant spaces with (4) Beefsteak Tomatoes (3) Genovese Basil*
(25) Jersey Supreme Asparagus 1 year old crowns
(4) Asparagus 2 year old crowns- replanted from our pine bed
(3) Double Curled Parsely*
*added after plan was drawn

BED #2  (made of Cedar)

Plants starting from the top (back of the bed) : 
(16) Peas after peas replant spaces with (4) Beefsteak Tomatoes (3) Genovese Basil*
(48) Pole Beans
(12) Corn
(4) Winter Squash
(4) Broccoli
(4) Cauliflower
*added after plan was drawn

BED #3  (made of Pine)

Plants starting from the top (back of the bed) : 
(16) Peas after peas replant spaces with (3) Summer Yellow Squash
(36) Bush Beans
(4) Cilantro
(112) Carrots
(32) White Onions
(64) Yellow Onions
(32) Red Onions

BED #4  (made of Pine)

Plants starting from the top (back of the bed) : 
(16) Peas after peas replant spaces with (8) Cucumbers
(12) Black Beauty Eggplant
(4) Red Bell Pepper
(4) Sweet Pepper
(2) Dark Star Zucchini

OVERALL PLAN:   (drawing to be added)