Garden Planning

“Don’t Overthink It!”

🌱 Go outside, and let the plants do their thing

🌱 Connect with many different kinds of growers

🌱 Use the internet, social media, or your local growing community to find guidance and inspiration

Table of Contents

10 Steps to Plan Your Spring Garden Design

1.Take stock. Your garden is usually more successful if you take the time to figure out where you’ve been –  what worked, what didn’t, why it didn’t work, and what your goals are moving forward. Make a list of things you didn’t like during the previous growing season and put some thought into how you can do them differently, and then create action plan.

2. Add Dimension & Variety. If you started with an in-ground garden, you now know the pros and cons of growing in your soil. You may have to amend your soil quite a bit, you may have battled some of those digging critters more, or you might have been limited on what you could grow in your soil type. 

This is a great time to look at incorporating raised beds into your garden, you can control the soil composition, perhaps improve drainage, and add in barriers to deter those diggers.

Shrubs and trees are another great addition, offering a perfect backdrop to your dazzling flower display and give the eye a place to rest. Reach for those evergreen shrubs and trees recommended for your area that can naturally coexist with the growing requirements of your flowers. Ornamental grasses add a contrast of texture and form, while adding in flowers with new color schemes and can introduce a new mood to your garden!

3. Create More Space. Do you need more space? Go vertical. Look at your fence or areas that are being underutilized and go up! You can use hanging pots, felt bags, or you can get creative and repurpose rain gutters in which to grow.
 
If you had some plants that got too much sun last season, put up an arch or trellis and grow some sun-loving plants over them. You will give them some shade and increase your garden yield, not to mention add some beautiful, bountiful height to your garden.

4. Get Efficient. After a season or two or three, you start to know where you want to spend your time and where you have to. The offseason is a great time to add in time savers. You can incorporate better water usage and distribution systems into your garden, with drip systems that are on timers or raise up one area so the water trickles into another, or add rain barrels and water capture areas.

How about your compost? If you don’t have one, this is a great time to make space for one.

You’ve probably accumulated quite a few garden tools that you would like to have handy. This is a great time to add in outside storage with a small (or not so small) shed.

5. Perk Up the Pollinators. Gardens grow faster, stronger, and have higher yields when there are plenty of pollinators present. Entice those beautiful pollinators into your garden with food and water. Look at planting just for your pollinators; bring in flowers and plants that will attract and keep pollinators around.

Don’t forget about all of those good bugs that help keep the bad bugs away! Plant for them as well. Water is not only important for your plants but your pollinators need to be hydrated too. Add in some water features that will add purpose and beauty to your garden.

6. Extend Your Season. In planning your garden for next year, going bigger is great but how about going longer? This is a great time to research how you can extend your garden season by growing different plants at varying times, rotating your garden a bit more, or by making room around your garden beds to incorporate cold weather cover. In your planning, also look at adding in cold frames, lean-to’s, or other smaller structures to keep your plants protected for expected and unexpected weather changes.

7. Plan Your Offseason. Gardening doesn’t stop when there are no more plants to tend to. Plan out how you are going to better utilize next offseason. The offseason is a great time to enrich and amend your soil. What does your soil need that it doesn’t have now? In the offseason, you can work on getting your soil the nutrients and minerals it needs to create the perfect environment for microbes to flourish. It’s also a good idea to incorporate different types of plants like flowering shrubs and ornamental trees that will bloom throughout the year, not just in the spring. This will give you something to enjoy during the offseason while you plan your big comeback! measure and take notes so you won’t forget.

8. Get crafty. You can use graph paper with ¼” squares, tracing paper, a soft pencil, and an eraser. Draw out new garden beds, bed extensions, and garden features. Your scale can be ¼” = 1’ (that’s what I use in my professional designs) — just be sure to make notes of where existing trees and other structures are, how the sun rises and sets, and any other information that will help you plan. Now you know how large your bed will be, where plants will go, and how many plants to order/buy.

9. Create a vision board. Search for plants that you like, garden features, materials, color schemes, and layout options. Use it for inspiration, knowing that the final product will likely look different than what you started out planning.

10. Get some paint. Landscaper’s marking paint, that is. It’s an inverted spray paint can available in the spray paint section of the home improvement store, and it allows you to spray out the lines of new beds and features. This is a great option if you are very visual and need to see something in real time and space. What looks fabulous on paper often winds up being way too small, too large, or impractical in real life, so take a trip out to the garden and spray away! Then step back and make any necessary adjustments. When you’re happy with the final layout,

Hear from David Toledo on Garden Scheduling — tips on how to care for your garden year-round.

Seasonal Tasks

Soil

  • Cover the garden with leaf mulch in spring and fall to allow it to slowly decompose and add nutrients to the soil.
  • By the end of the growing season, soil will lack nitrogen and need to be fed
  • Feed soil with compost at least once every 2 years

Garden Planning: Worksheets

Resources & FAQ

What features make a “good” grow light?

  • “Cheap ain’t good, Good ain’t cheap”
  • The red and blue light bulbs do different roles – want to make sure you have both spectrums
  • Some are better for larger plants like cucumbers, tomatoes
  • Some only give ability to grow nice leafy greens, microgreens
  • Better lights will require more energy
  • Can use a combination of grow lights and light from windows
  • Can use smaller grow lights or grow lights with 4 wands, move the wands around – but it likely won’t be able to grow as much

I’m curious if we can / should start seeds earlier this year since Spring will be coming earlier? And how do we plan for that

  • Planning Resource: Old farmers almanac
  • Great grow guide
  • Great calendars
  • Might need to experiment a little
  • It’s okay if plants bolt because they can help bring pollinators and provide seeds.

Does non-soil grown food have the nutrition of soil grown food? – it’s complicated 🙂

  • Good soil is always good, but the nutrition benefits of soil grown food is still unknown. 
  • Generally better to grow and eat home grown food than none at all.
  • Nothing wrong with hydroponically grown.
  • Keep in mind that fertilizers are not healthy either, in the process of using soil you might end up using other materials.

If you can’t start your seedlings, are there places locally you would recommend?

  • Shared in chat – when I buy seedlings, I have enjoyed purchasing from Seguin Gardens in Cicero, Gethsemane and Farmers Market Garden Supply, as well as pop-up seedling sales like the Garfield Park Conservatory annual tomato seedling sale, the Tomato Man, buying at farmer’s markets, and trading with my friends who are growing perennial medicinal herbs as well
  • Urban Growers Collective has seedling sales as well. Reach out to them for more information. We will have seeds and seedlings available from the African Diaspora Collection and Southern Exposure collard varieties. Will be offered in the spring. 
  • Farm on Ogden does seedling sales as well!
  • Go to a nursery and ask questions:
    • Do you spray with pesticides or fertilizers? What do you use?
    • Where do the seeds/seedlings come from?

Do you do succession planting with microgreens during the winter as well?

  • Because of the one-cut nature of microgreens, succession planting is necessary to produce a steady supply of this crop. Sowing dates and quantities of seed sown should be based upon customer demand, delivery schedules, and varietal growth rates. As noted, different varieties grow at different rates. Keep records and modify your system as needed. (Source and More Info)

I heard it only makes sense to save seeds from heirlooms since they’re the most similar to their parent. But have you had success from 2nd generation hybrids?

  • Yes. Anytime you see seeds, do a germination test. Collect seeds season after season. They might not all grow, but it is worth trying. 

Does succession planting look the same for all plants?

  • Depending on your growing zone and how long your gardening season is, you can succession plant just about anything.
  • Guide to Succession Planting

 

  • Succession Planting: Succession planting, sometimes called successive planting, is the intentional staggered planting of the same crops in your garden that will allow you to harvest continuously throughout the season. This way of planting will also help you extend your season and allow you to grow different varieties appropriate for various parts of the season.
  • Grow Light: A grow light is an electric light to help plants grow. Grow lights either attempt to provide a light spectrum similar to that of the sun, or to provide a spectrum that is more tailored to the needs of the plants being cultivated.
  • Hardening Off: “Hardening off” is the process of getting your indoor-grown seedlings accustomed to life outdoors.
  • Brassicaceae: belonging to the broccoli family – broccoli, radish, cauliflower, arugula, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, mizuna, cress, broccoli raab, etc.
  • Microgreens: Microgreens aren’t a special breed of vegetable: They’re just ordinary vegetables, any kind, that are harvested very young. Among the vegetables that are popularly eaten in micro-form are: peppery radish and arugula; tangy sorrel; ruddy beets; alfalfa; broccoli; and peas; as well as herbs such as basil and parsley.
    • What’s the Difference Between Microgreens and Sprouts? – When a seed is sown in soil, it germinates, sending out a single shoot, tipped with a proto-leaf (or pair of leaves) called a cotyledon. Properly nurtured, it can grow an inch or more in a week until it eventually becomes a full-grown plant, but we have other plans for it. We can eat it before it gets any new leaves, when it’s just an inch or two long that’s called a sprout. Once it gets a pair of true leaves, it’s considered to have graduated from sprouthood: Now it is a microgreen. If it grows further, it will become a “baby green,” and finally a full-fledged vegetable.
  • Bolting: While plants do not “run away” physically, their growth may run away rapidly, and this is basically what this phrase means in the gardening world. Plants, mostly vegetable or herbs, are said to bolt when their growth goes rapidly from being mostly leaf based to being mostly flower and seed based.
    • Why Do Plants Bolt? – Most plants bolt due to hot weather. When the ground temperature goes above a certain temperature, this flips a switch in the plant to produce flowers and seeds very rapidly and to abandon leaf growth almost completely. Bolting is a survival mechanism in a plant. If the weather gets to be above where the plant will survive, it will try to produce the next generation (seeds) as quickly as possible. Some plants that are known for bolting are broccoli, cilantro, basil, cabbage, and lettuce.
    • Can You Eat a Plant After it Bolts? – Once a plant has fully bolted, the plant is normally inedible. The plant’s entire energy reserve is focused on producing the seeds, so the rest of the plant tends to become tough and woody as well as tasteless or even bitter. Occasionally, if you catch a plant in the very early stages of bolting, you can temporarily reverse the process of bolting by snipping off the flowers and flower buds. In some plants, like basil, the plant will resume producing leaves and will stop bolting. In many plants though, such as broccoli and lettuce, this step only allows you some extra time to harvest the crop before it becomes inedible.

 

Grow on 1/10th of an Acre