At that point in my gardening life, I had little idea of what I was doing, so the amazing part here is that I was very successful- purely by accident. That summer I grew everything from seed started in my house months before setting out using make-shift growing trays that I suspended, macramé planter style, in my sunroom windows.
Later that summer I harvested somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 pounds of tomatoes, a few of which were 3-5 pounds each. I grew a lot of things that summer, mostly common vegetables that I knew a little something about from growing them before in my first little garden plot the summer before in Kansas City or in my mother’s garden growing up.
Back to the present.
A great deal of the planning for this year’s garden is complete at this point and I am on the verge of planting my first seeds! This of course means I need to back up a little and explain what has happened thus far.
I sat down with my 9 year old son, who is always interested in gardening and all things nature related. He and I discussed the types of vegetables our family enjoys and eats a fair bit of. We looked thru a stack of garden catalogs and circled things we liked (he liked almost everything).
I decided to do some reading, being that we are now living in the upper mid-west and it has been a while since I did any serious vegetable gardening in this climate. I have dabbled a bit the past two summers here, but focused my efforts more on my perennial garden. I discovered last summer that I really don’t have enough sustained sunlight to grow a good variety of vegetables, so decided to join the community garden this year.
After checking out my assigned plot (roughly 1/6th acre) and talking with the community garden coordinator, I began to plan in earnest what I would plant now that I have a huge plot with full sun all day. My only challenge there will be fencing it to keep the deer and woodchucks out! I have narrowed the list my son made to approximately 50 items. The physical space I intend to plant is 27’X 55’. This allows several long planting beds, one large block on one end for corn and beans, and several smaller blocks on the other end for carrots, herbs, and such.
I have laid out the garden plot on graph paper utilizing a crop rotation system- “A” plants are the leaf and legumes (nitrogen fixing plants). “B” plants are the brassicas or cabbage family. “C” plants are the fruiting plants like tomatoes and peppers. In this way I can keep track of where things are planted from year to year rotating their locations. This reduces certain garden pests and helps keep the soil nutrients from depleting.
I spent a lot of time researching the best varieties of the plants I chose to grow. Then I spent even more time researching which vendors sold these varieties and at the best prices. Lastly, I began to compile my orders- sometimes shifting from lower priced sources in order to make fewer orders. Once it was all decided upon, I placed the orders and sat back to wait for their arrival.
Interestingly, the smallest seed companies got my orders to me within 2-3 days. The larger seed companies took in one instance almost a month- and that order was sent as a partial order! This fact might just factor into my ordering next year. Perhaps it’s best to pay a little more and support a smaller business that ships orders out faster.
So, here I sit with almost all of my seeds. Next I needed to devise a system for organizing them so that they all get planted at the right time (there are A LOT of seeds). I read over the seed packets and any additional information I could find on the internet to determine the timing and method of planting. What I decided on was a filing box with index cards to file the seeds in order of their planting- whether pre-started indoors or direct sewn outdoors. This didn’t matter, only the date I would first put seed to soil regardless of in or out.
Each packet of seed has an index card with the following information on it:
Full name (common and scientific) of plant and variety
How much space I intend to use for it in the garden (or how many individual plants)
Crop Rotation A,B, or C
Method of planting (Direct or indoors)
Timing of planting and timing of set-out if seeds are pre-started indoors
Days to harvest
Any other pertinent info
The seeds and their corresponding index card are filed together, in order of planting dates, in a plastic shoe box. To make it easiest to put them all in order I decided to make a calendar with the vegetable names written on the appropriate planting dates. This calendar is color coded (purple for indoor starting, orange for set-out dates, green for direct sewn outdoors dates). Once all this info was on the calendar it was simple to put them in order in the filing box. Now I can see at a glance what needs to be planted each week. I also included the important dates on my calendar like average last frost, average first frost, 55 degree nights, etc. Everything is stored together with all my supplies so when the calendar says it’s time, I’m ready to go!
Now all I need is a few hours of spare time to get those first seeds growing. Maybe tomorrow. Or not. I’ll keep you posted!
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