Garden Planning During Winter
After packing and recovering from the busyness of the Holidays, I love to start looking through the many seed and plant catalogs that come in the mail! I have a spiral notebook of graph paper that I plan out what I want to grow this summer and where each type of plant will go. (I SHOULD also be going through the house & closets & decluttering. But that’s NOT fun! LOL)
You may be aware that it is recommended to rotate your types of plants each year (even in a small backyard garden) to avoid over taxing the soil of certain nutrients, as well as avoiding disease and pests. So keeping a notebook helps me to remember what I planted where.
This is also very helpful i you have different varieties of some plants that you want to also rotate. For example, I have 4 different varieties of green beans I like. Since I have a small garden (30 ft x 15ft) I don’t have the space to grow all the veggies I want AND more than one variety of each. So I each year I grow one variety and the next year a different one, until in year five I start over with the first variety again. I can never remember which variety I planted unless I look at my written plan.
I also like to start my seeds ahead of time. I’ve done this on tables cluttering up our living space many years. The last couple of years my husband got me a grow light & I set up in the basement. But I didn’t have enough grow lights for all my seedlings, so they didn’t do the best. Even after 30 years of gardening, I still have lots to learn! LOL!
This year we bought a very small greenhouse that we will be setting up soon IN my garage! We bought extra grow lights as well. I’ve been watching lots of gardening videos. I enjoy watching David the Good (The Survival Gardener) as well as Charles Dowding (The No Dig Garden). And as both of them are constantly experimenting with different things in the garden, I will be experimenting by combining methods from multiple sources.
Try new veggies & fruits when you have the chance, and especially if you can get them from local farmers. Years ago i tried growing turnips and they turned out horrible and bitter. We never tried turnips again. I recently heard David the Good mention how much it matters what variety of turnip you eat, to determine if they’re good or not. Apparently the typical purple topped turnips are not the best tasting. In My local Market Wagon farmer’s market someone offered small white turnips & they were described as sweet and even their small children love them. I gave them a try and they ARE sweet and good! Like a sweet, juicy radish-ish. So I may try getting some seeds and growing them myself.
What will you plan to grow this summer? Don’t forget you can grow many things in pots if you don’t have ground space available.