Planning the Vegetable Garden
I’m a little later than usual in placing my seed orders this year, but finally getting around to it today. Before I can order new seeds for the vegetable garden, I need to take stock of the seed that’s already on hand, and sketch out a preliminary planting plan.
I have a lot of seed packets, both purchased and distributed for trial growing, so it takes a while to sort through them and then decide what new varieties to add. I have to be careful, or I’ll end up with ten kinds of beans and forget the beets altogether!
That’s why I’ve started keeping track of my seeds on a computer spreadsheet. I have columns for the type of vegetable, the variety name, the vendor or source, the date the seeds were packed for, and comments. I have similar records from past years, tediously kept by hand in a gardening notebook. I’m thinking the computer spreadsheet will be easier and more useful.
Now I can easily look back over past year’s orders, and let that influence my decision-making. I can see what seeds are getting old and should be replaced.
Ordering enough, but not too much . . .
It is pretty easy to determine how many kinds of vegetables I can squeeze into the garden since I use an intensive gardening plan similar to the square-foot-garden planting technique. With this method, a certain number of a particular type of plants will fit in each square foot.
from Gardener's Supply Company
My spacing recommendations for intensively-grown vegetables:
2- inches apart, or 36 per square foot: Green Onions, Radishes
3- inches apart, or 16 per square foot: Arugula, Carrots, Leaf Lettuce
4- inches apart, or 9 per square foot: Beans, Beets, Garlic, Kohlrabi, Onion, Parsnip, Peas, Turnips, Spinach, Rutabaga
6- inches apart, or 4 per square foot: Cilantro, Dill, Head or Romaine Lettuce , Kohlrabi, Leeks, Marigolds (dwarf types), Parsley
9- inches apart, or 2 per square foot: Basil, Calendula, Chard, Cucumber, Corn, Endive, Fennel
12- inches apart, or 1 per square foot: Bok Choi, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cauliflower, Eggplant, Kale, Okra, Pepper
18-24 inches apart: Muskmelon, Pumpkin, Squash, Sweet Potato, Tomato, Watermelon
I have three four by twenty foot raised beds. That is 240 square feet. I also have an “auxiliary garden” where I grow potatoes in bags and vine crops like pumpkins and melons that take up a lot of room. The vines can sprawl around the base of my young blackberry bushes. I don’t grow corn any more, because it requires a 4 X 4 foot block for adequate pollination - too much space for one crop!
I sketch out the beds, and then start to fill in the vegetables, always rotating the plants from one bed to another each year. I start by filling in the larger plants, like tomatoes, and those that will be in place for the whole season until fall frost. I commandeer large sections for the cabbage family members, cucumbers, eggplants and peppers. Then I fill in with the smaller stuff. I always include a few flowers and herbs, although I have separate gardens for these.
I also plan to replant some areas of the garden when quick-growing crops like lettuce and radishes have been harvested, and to plant more of these after the peas and cabbage family plants have been picked.
The Gardener’s Supply Company has a fun interactive Kitchen Garden Planner that lets you try out different planting plans for garden spaces up to 4 X 12 feet. It is fun to play around with different planting options, and it’s amazing how many plants you can harvest from a small space!
Happy Gardening,
Sue Trusty
I love the idea to keep track of all your seeds on a spread sheet, it seems like a great way to stay organized!
Thanks for posting spacing tips. I have a tendency to put too close – and not thin them either. I was telling my father about you growing potatoes in bags. He has never heard of this. Thought it was really interesting.
Thank you for your helpful intensive vegetable planning guide! I have a narrow strip of dirt along the side of my rental house between a sidewalk and the foundation that is about 1′ wide. It faces east. It’s full of weeds, so I need to dig it up and amend the soil before planting. Do you have any recommendations of what might successfully grow here?
It depends on how much sun you get. You can grow just about anything if you get at least 8 hours of sun. With an east exposure, though, that might not be the case. If the sunlight is limited, you can still try these in part sun: cabbage family members like broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cauliflower; root crops like beets, onions, garlic and radishes; leafy greens including collards, mustard greens, spinach, and kale; peas and beans; salad greens including leaf lettuce, arugula, endive, cress, and radicchio; chard and chives. You would typically NOT get good results with vegetables that produce a “fruit” – tomatoes, peppers, melons and such.
Yes, Sheri, the bags are wonderful! So easy to harvest. Just make sure to keep them watered well.
I have raised beds as well. And like you I think this year I will plant pumpkins and melons in a large bed that has young shrubs in it (it has lots of space to spread out).
As far as seeds, every year I try to grow many varieties of heirloom tomatoes. I am alway looking for many colors: green, yellow, purple, and red. Each color has a unique flavor. There is one that I avoid: currant tomatoes. The currant tomatoes are so hearty they took over and overshadowed my other tomatoes. Lessons learned.
When planning out a vegetable garden it seems like you have to stay very organized. You have done a great job of doing so!
I love the spacing recommendations and the link to the Gardener’s Supply Company! My roommates and I have been looking to start a veggie garden and just recently have moved to a house with a big enough yard. Do you have any recommendations on which plants should or should not be planted next to each other or is it all based on growing preferences (like sun exposure)?
Thanks!
Good question, Carly! Tall things should be grown to the north of shorter things to prevent them from giving too much shade. Other than that, I mostly like to mix things up, to confuse any pests. If all the cabbage family members are right next to each other, then aphids or cabbage worms don’t have far to go to get to them all. Mixing them in between other kinds of plants might make them harder for the pests to find. Planting aromatic herbs and garlic or onions here and there might help with this, too. And planting flowers here and there will to encourage pollinizers near the veges that produce a fruit (tomatoes, peppers, melons and such). Some people swear by Companion Planting – that some plants enhance the growth of others. You could Google that for more information.
Luke, I think it depends on the gardener. I prefer to at least start out in an organized fashion!
Organization is something that I lack. Great tips!
I really like your idea of using the computer for keeping track of your plant seeds; I never realized how tedious gardening really was. I guess I always assumed it was just plant it and grow it, I didn’t realize how much time, effort and seed spacing had to be put into it. I will never look at gardening the same way again!
This is great! My roomate and I are looking into starting a garden at our house, so I will definitely bookmark this page. This is very helpful.
I love the idea of the potatoes in the bags and maybe this will prevent the deer in my back yard from eating the actual potatoes!
Dominic, it isn’t really tedious, and you can just plant and grow. I’m an organized person by nature, and it is satisfying for me to do the planning and to be efficient!
I am going to share this page with Len Thomas–the Campus Planner. This is a great tool to show him, as well as other campus designers to propose our proponents of edible landscapes committee. Thanks!
The idea to keep track of all your seeds on a spread sheet is really practical, thanks for giving so many spacing tips!
[...] have questions about how to space your vegetable plants, I described my method in this post about Planning the Vegetable Garden last [...]
This will be a great resource when I start my own garden thank you!