Why
is it important to plan your garden? There are a number of reasons.
With a garden plan you can figure how much and what variety of seeds
you need for the next season. This could also be used to figure how
many transplants that you will need. The plan can also help you with
succession plantings as to when they need to go into the garden. The
plan would also help with crop rotations so that the same veggie or
it allies are not continuously planted in the same spot year after
year. This helps with garden pest control.
I
like to do my garden plan for the year in October. This may seem
early but I like to start a number of my next years plants around the
end of December for the middle of February out planting. The October
planning insures that I can order all my seeds that I will need for
the year and to have them on hand when I need them.
I
used to put my plans on graph paper. With 32 beds this sometimes got
a little cumbersome. What with erasing and rewriting, then making
sure that there was a proper length of time before replanting the bed
to that veggie. It got to be a lot of paper and difficult to keep
track of.
One
year I found out that the Mother Earth News had a garden planner.
This planner could be accessed for a free trial. So I gave it a
whirl. This really was a game changer. I can have a look at the whole
garden or zoom into an individual bed. It is calendar driven so you
can plug in your successions, so you can see when the bed needs to
prepared for the next crop. It will calculate how many plants are in
each bed. This is a big help with seed and plant ordering. The plans
can be achieved and it keeps track how long ago that a veggie was
planted in that bed. It is very easy to use. The best part I no
longer have paper I need to keep track of.
Because
of the plan my succession cropping is more precise and I find that I
can more easily maintain production.
Now
the plan is just a guide none of it is set in concrete. A year or so
back I had a bed that was planted to peas and was scheduled to be
succession planted to tomatoes. Most years peas give up the ghost in
April due to heat. Well this particular year there was healthy peas
and harvests way into May. The long pea harvest was a surprise but I
had my tomato plants waiting.
So
if you like here is the link to this garden planner. There is a free
thirty day trial.
Good
luck and happy gardening!!! Questions?
I can be contacted atmarkdirtfarmer@gmail.com.
Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com
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