How would you feel if you could walk out to your backyard and pick your favorite vegetable right off of its plant? You may choose to take a bite out of it right then and there, or you may bring it inside, wash and slice it, and throw it on the skillet. Either way, you have to admit, that is a luxury!
But before you can enjoy the fruits of your labor, you must do some work. The first step if you want to plan your garden is to decide what you will grow in your garden.
Every year, I like to treat myself to a new journal* to write all my gardening notes in and some brand new colorful felt-tipped pens*. Now let’s get started!
If you like something with a little more guidance and structure, check out my new Garden Planner on Etsy. (It has everything you will need to help keep your garden organized while you are planning, growing, harvesting, preserving, running a produce/product business, and more!)
Here are four easy steps to making that list in preparation for the growing season.
1. Determine your purpose.
What is your reasoning for growing a garden?
Everyone has their own purpose(s) for their gardens:
- For enjoyment
- To help with the grocery budget
- To feed your family year-round
- To sell produce and make a living
- To help provide feed for your animals
- To have pretty flowers to look at and enjoy
- To sell cut flowers in bouquets
- To enjoy pollinators like butterflies and bees
- Any combination of the above
- And more!
Determining your purpose will help you decide which plants to grow, which is the next step.
2. Make a list of what you would like to grow.
Deciding which plants to grow in your garden is not a very hard task. The hardest part, in my opinion, is narrowing down your list to what you are able to plant!
So first, make a list of all of the plants that you would like to grow.
If you are growing a garden to grow your own food, what produce do you and your family enjoy eating? What flowers will help keep pests away from your vegetables (check out Marigolds or Nasturtiums)?
If you are growing a flower garden, which flowers will be best for cut flowers, or butterflies (depending on your purpose)?
Speaking from experience, let me say this: don’t go crazy here! You will always be more motivated in the beginning than in the middle of your gardening season. It’s easy to plan to take care of all the plants and eat all the produce or cut all the flowers that come from your garden. Actually doing it is another story.
If you are a beginner, try not to choose more than 5 different plants. Too many plants can become overwhelming quickly, especially if you are new to gardening. Ask me how I know!
3. Determine which plants grow well in your area.
Once you have your list, you will need to mark out any that don’t grow in your area.
If you live in the US, you can use this website to help you determine what hardiness zone you live in. The hardiness zone map is a tool used to determine what plants will grow best in a certain area of the US.
I am not familiar with other countries, and whether or not they have tools such as this, so you will have to research that on your own if you live outside of the US.
Once you know your hardiness zone, you may need to do a little research to make sure the plants on your list grow well in that zone. Most vegetables grow well in most parts of the US, but obviously something like oranges wouldn’t grow well in the northeast, unless you are growing it indoors or in a container so that it can be brought in from the cold.
4. Decide if you will start your plants from seed or buy starts.
Once your list is finished, you will need to decide if you are going to start your seeds indoors, or just buy starts.
Some plants, like lettuce and peas, will grow better if they are sown directly into the soil. Others, such as tomatoes and peppers, can be bought as starts, or started from seed indoors.
If you aren’t sure, do a simple Google search and find out which plants do better as direct sow, and which you can buy as starts, and make a note next to each plant on your list.
If you are like me and enjoy a challenge, you can start all of your plants from seed! Just remember that you may need to start some of them indoors earlier than you would normally plant outside. You also may need to have a greenhouse or an indoor seed-starting setup, or you may experiment with an alternative method using milk jugs.
Now you have your list made, and you have an idea of how you will grow each plant! The next step, which I will cover in the next blog post, is to buy your seeds.
If you don’t have a way to store your seeds yet, check out my seed storage system to see if it might work for you!
*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This means that if you purchase an Amazon product from a link that I share, I will receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you! Thank you for supporting me!
What do you plan to grow in your garden this year?
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
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