For years I planted my vegetable garden with little thought of preparing a plan. That worked fine when I had two 4’x4’ beds and only grew tomatoes and cucumbers. As the size of my garden expanded to 400 square feet, I realized that planning would not only be beneficial but was needed. In my first attempt at planning, I started the planning process when I transplanted seedlings in the garden. While that was better than nothing, I quickly realized that I needed to start planning well ahead of the transplant date. I developed the process below by speaking with and listening to farmers/gardeners and based upon my own trial and error. Planning will make you feel more confident and make your garden more manageable. Let me share my process.
Step 1
Define your garden layout and the size of each bed. In the picture above, you see a drawing of my garden. I first drew this on graph paper and then drew in Microsoft Excel. Graph paper is great because each square can represent one square-foot which makes it relatively easy to layout a garden. Considerations for this step:
- Number each of your beds. In my drawing, you will see that I have 10 beds (each one is numbered) and one bed is a permanent perennial herb bed (I will not use this bed for planting any annual vegetables).
- Consider defining where you will plant flowers. Flowers are a great way to attract pollinators and beneficial insects and are also a beautiful addition to any vegetable garden. For many years, I planted flowers directly in the vegetable beds. I found that the vegetables quickly overtook the flowers. Now, I plant the flowers in containers and place around the vegetable beds. The flower containers are designated in the picture by a square with an ‘F’. You will also see that I have a special space for the Sweet Pea Flowers which are climbing plants. My plan is to have a trellis in this triangle section.
Step 2
Define what you will grow and where it will be placed in the garden. In the picture above, I have defined what I will be planting and in which bed each plant will be located.
Organize seeds
If you have seeds, organize and take inventory of what you have and the age of your seeds. Seeds vary in how long they can be stored. As seeds age, their germination rate will decline. When storing seeds, keep in a cool/dry location. I keep mine in the refrigerator. Colorado State University has put the following fact sheet together on seed storage. Oregon State University has a method for testing seed germination that you can read about at the following link.
Location, location, location
Define where in your garden each vegetable/herb/flower will be grown. This is important because it enables you to calculate how much of each vegetable/herb/flower you will be able to grow based upon the size of the bed. For spacing requirements of popular vegetables, see my blog on Five Steps to Starting Your Vegetable Garden. For example, tomatoes take a lot of space. In my garden plan, I have two 4’x8’ beds for tomatoes. My plan is to plant three tomato plants in each bed because of the space requirements for tomatoes. I will also complement the tomatoes with planting basil in bed 1 and dill in bed 2. When companion planting (e.g. planting tomatoes with basil) it is important to understand the basics of companion planting.The University of Delaware has a good overview of companion planting.
Planning tool
Gardener’s Supply Company has a free ‘Kitchen Garden Planner’ based upon square foot gardening techniques that can be useful. I will use the tool when I have no prior experience with a vegetable. Their tool is aggressive in defining how much can be planted in a square foot. I will generally reduce, by up to 50%, what is stated in their tool based upon my own experience. Experience is the best teacher.
Step 3
Create your plan. Once you know how many beds you will have, the size of each bed and what you will grow, you can put a crop master plan together. I start all my plants from seed and plan based upon four phases listed below. If you purchase transplants, then you can still use this plan but will only have two phases (Transplanting and Harvesting).
- Seedlings – when to start what from seed
- Hardening Off – when to move the seedlings outside to get acclimated to the outdoors
- Transplanting – when the seedling (or transplant) will be placed into the bed
- Harvesting – when the vegetable will be ready to harvest
Let me share another tool that I have found helpful. The Farmer’s Almanac planting calendar allows you to enter your zip code and provides recommendations for when to start seedlings (by vegetable) and when to transplant. Guidance is based upon estimated frost dates for your USDA Zone as determined by zip code. There is also an option to print out the calendar. Prior to getting into planning, I would start seedlings all at the same time and generally much too early. Now I have good target dates for everything I grow based upon experience and the tools that I mentioned.
I created the Crop Master Plan above and have attached a copy in both Excel and pdf. I originally created this in Microsoft Excel because of two key Excel features, the ability of Excel to automatically calculate dates and the ‘pivot table’ feature of Excel to create different views of the information. While the information is still useful if you do not use Excel, the layout is optimized for Excel. I will describe the crop master plan and then describe what you can do if you have Excel available.
Crop Planning in Excel
Master Planning Sheet Description by column name:
- Unique Crop – This column provides the ability to see, at a glance, the unique crops contained in the plan.
- Crop – This column breaks down the crop into the unique variety that will be planted (e.g. Basil-Genovese)
- Phase – This column defines each phase: seedling, hardening off, transplanting, harvesting. If you purchase transplants or direct seed, you will only have two phases either transplant and harvest or direct seed and harvest.
- Category – This column defines the category of plant. For my garden, I have three categories: vegetables, herbs, flowers.
- # planted – This column defines how many plants I will have in each phase (to start, I assume equal numbers for all phases). I then cross check to make sure that I have enough seeds, especially if I am doing succession planting (e.g. multiple plantings of the same vegetable). The # of seedlings is also based upon the size of the space that I have available for planting. I always plant more seedlings that I will place in the garden because germination is not guaranteed at 100%
- Bed # – This column defines where in the garden the plant will be transplanted.
- Days to Maturity – This column defines the point in time that you can see a flower (for flowers) or the point in time that you can harvest a vegetable/herb. This number should be on your seed packet or described on the transplant. The harvest date is calculated from the date that the seedling or transplant is placed in the ground (e.g. transplant date).
- Date – This defines the date by phase:
- Seedling Date is the date that the seed is first planted
- Hardening Off is the date that the seedling is moved outside
- Transplant Date is the date that the seedling or transplant is planted in the bed
- Harvest Date is the date that flower, herb or vegetable is ready to either use or consume.
Benefits of using Excel
By using Excel, the following is possible
- The ‘days to maturity’ column can be used to automatically calculate the harvest date by creating a formula that adds the ‘days to maturity’ to the transplant date. Very helpful.
- Create different views of the information by using the pivot table feature of excel
Planning views
Weekly planning by phase and by crop. This view (pivot table) displays exactly which seedlings need to be started in any given week, what needs to move outside for hardening off, what needs to be transplanted and what is ready for harvest. By looking at the weekly calendar, I see that March 17 is a date when I will be starting 11 seedlings and looking down the column I see exactly what needs to get started. The pivot table also allows for filtering on a date range. This is helpful to look at 4-8 weeks at a glance. Note, that this view was automatically created based upon the Crop Master Plan discussed above.
Summary by category calculates exactly how many plants of each category (e.g. flowers, herbs, vegetables) will be available for the season. This schedule can also be used to cross check that you have enough seeds (or transplants) based upon the crop master plan. For example, when I ran this summary, I saw that I had planned for 384 radishes during the season (multiple successions). When I checked my seed inventory, I found that I did not have enough seeds and had to purchase additional. Again, this view was automatically created based upon the Crop Master Plan.
The key is the Crop Master Plan. If you complete this, then you can manually calculate the rest, Excel just makes it easier. I have attached a pdf version and the excel version (created using Microsoft Excel for Office 365, 32 bit). Good luck!
Please check your email to confirm subscription.