Week 1 - Planning a Garden

For episode/article 1 for This Week in the Garden, we’ll cover planning a garden. This is targeted toward those who are preparing to start their first garden; however, the principles from this can be expanded and used in any garden.

There are a number of small factors that can add convenience and ease to your garden experience when you first start planning your garden. Some of these include placing your garden near a water source so you don’t have to carry water cans, using pre-existing fences as borders to keep out pests, or planting on higher/level areas of your yard to prevent water from pooling. While these and many other tricks and tips can help save you some labor, the most important things to consider when planning your garden can be boiled down to three questions: what do you like to eat, how much do you want to grow, and how much do you want to spend? Answering each of these questions will set you up for success in your garden.

If you plant things you like to eat, and things you’re excited to eat, you’ll be more likely to care for your garden. This is a huge hurdle when temperatures start to boil and you need to be out in your garden watering, weeding, and removing pests daily.

Preparing an achievable size garden is also crucial. Don’t “plan to eat more vegetables” once your garden is in full swing and you’ve planted ten rows of eggplant. If your garden is too large, it will get out of hand quickly and if you don’t have much experience gardening, you’re likely to see a lot of plants die. While failure should be expected in the first year and is the only real way to learn how to garden, it’s magnified when you plant a large garden and can be disheartening. We’ll cover how much you should plant of different kinds of vegetables next week.

The final and likely most important part of planning a garden is setting a budget. Gardens can get expensive quickly. From fertilizer to transplants, seeds, tools, water, soil, fencing, and more, the expense can add up quickly. Setting a budget will help keep expenses down while helping to determine what type of garden you should plan. In general, planting directly into the ground is the cheapest option. Your inputs can be limited to plants, a shovel, water, and fertilizers. Container gardens can also be an inexpensive alternative, only adding soil and containers to the cost. Raised beds are the most expensive, while giving you added control over things like soil moisture.

For additional components of planning a garden to consider, check out the Food Garden Design and Vegetable Gardening: A Beginner's Guide publications. We are going to start our first giveaway/contest next week so make sure you stay tuned to This Week in the Garden.

-Adam