How to Plan a 1600 ft.² Garden

Gardens

May 30

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The quick version? I don’t plan it.

The longer version, I’ve come to learn what seems to work well in different places and with each other. I’ve had a garden at the farm for the past decade. We’ve had it in different places and tried different spots around the farm to find our ideal location. A family friend has shared the space where our garden currently is long before we ever moved onto the farmstead. He generously gave us a small portion of his garden a few years ago. As he has gotten older, our garden has grown and his portion has shrunk. This year my garden is about 1600 ft.² and I’m hoping to make it bigger next year around 4000 ft.², much to my husbands surprise (I may have just told him my dreams for it this weekend).

With so much space, it would make sense that I would plan everything out carefully to make sure that I am maximizing my space. With so much planted, it would make sense that I would take the time to write it all down on paper and make sure that all of the plants are good neighbors, and that they would thrive next to each other. All of that would definitely makes sense, but of course that’s not how I do my garden.

And when it comes to planting my garden, I typically start somewhere in the middle or to one of the ends, and start with what I’m most excited about. This year it was my big cattle gate hoops from there I just started putting things in where they fit on the other side of the cattle gates, I have wildflowers and all my tomato plants and corn. Closer to the house I have potatoes and onions, a different variety of corn in hopes that they don’t cross pollinate With lots of other stuff in between. There’s not a whole lot of planning that goes into it ahead of time.

In fact to keep track of what I’ve planted, I will often take a video and record exactly what I just planted so that I can remember later on when I go back to write out where everything is in the garden. It’s not the best system, but it’s just how I get it done and I normally love how it turns out.

Here’s how I plan: