Planning Your Growing Season
A single sheet of paper saves a dozen mistakes
1 min read
Ten minutes with a pencil in late winter is worth more than any amount of improvising in spring. A rough plan keeps you from sowing everything at once, running out of space, or forgetting a crop until it is too late.
Sketch the year
Draw your beds to scale and pencil in what goes where, working around your last and first frost dates. Note what grew where last year so related crops move on β this simple rotation cuts down soil-borne disease.
What to pin down
- Your average last spring frost and first autumn frost.
- Which crops start indoors and which are sown direct.
- A sowing date and a rough harvest window for each crop.
- Two or three small re-sowings of salad and beans for a steady supply.
Plans are not promises. They are a starting point you are allowed to change the moment the weather does.
Keep last year's plan and scribble on it all season; next winter it becomes your best reference. The principle behind moving crops is crop rotation.
