To all you gardeners who are feeling blue because nothing is growing, I have some good news! Good gardens come from good planning and now is the time to start planning.
- Use the following link to determine your Agricultural Zone.
- Decide how big you want your garden to be, here are some guidelines: 100sqft/person for light yield all season, 300sqft/person medium yield, 1000sqft/family-of-four for steady medium yield with careful planning and vertical elements.
- Choose your veggies and their companions! Here is a handy table for companions: Click Here
- Plan for vertical elements! Want to grow snap peas? beans? cucumbers? Grow them up! See my previous blog post on vertical elements
- Plan for succession - make a schedule! Dig out your dusty Google Calendar and write it all down - the more time you put into your scheduling now, the better your yield will be, I guarantee it!
- Succession planting is the idea that you plant rows of seeds 2 weeks apart, adding to your garden slowly. Continuous Planting = Continuous Yield (keep this in mind!).
- Begin nurturing your gardens as soon as the frost breaks - good organic matter, compost & mycorrhizae are really important! My advice is to build a worm bin - the castings of worms are the best and least expensive way to create top-quality soil and bring beneficial worms to your garden. Check out this video where I talk about a worm-bin that I built with a small apartment community in Portland, OR:
- Plan for some flowers! Flowers are known to attract bees and bees will pollinate your garden!
Enjoy the creativity! Feel free to post your photos and comments below.
