You’ll learn how to plan your garden in detail on the fresh food garden course and if you come to an after-work spring seed sowing session you’ll discover a system for keeping your garden full all year.
1. Measure your garden beds or the area where you grow vegetables
2. Draw a scale plan of your space in pen on paper
3. Mark on areas of full sun, part sun and shade and show vertical supports such as fences, trellis or walls
4. Draw in what is there from the previous year e.g. trees, strawberries, asparagus, rhubarb, perennial herbs, garlic (you have planted it haven’t you?)
5. Make a list of what you want to grow – use a seed catalogue to get some ideas. Don’t forget some flowers and herbs. The seed catalogue will also tell you what temperature things like to germinate and how long a crop takes between sowing and harvest.
7. Group what you want to grow into families e.g. brassicas includes cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower, onions includes leeks, chives and garlic
8. Mark in big area crops first e.g. corn, potatoes and pumpkins
9. Fill in the rest in the gaps with the crops grouped in families
10. Don’t worry if you can’t fit everything in at once. You’ll be able to plant things when you harvest others. For example if you dig garlic in January there’s time for a crop of beans before the end of summer in the same space.
If you grew vegetables last year, try not to plant crops from the same family in the same space two years running. For example, don’t grow leeks where you grew garlic last year. Plants that produce fruit (tomatoes, pumpkins, corn) like sun, leafy plants (salad, silverbeet, cabbages) prefer some shade. Use these five tips to make more of your space.
