Square Foot Garden: The Plan

In winter, I plot and plan. In spring I move. -Henry Rollins

It all started with this- the seed catalogue made it's appearance in January and I found myself carelessly flipping through pages.
Then I was folding down corners, marking pages to come back to, making mental notes of things I wanted to plant.
Then, for the first time, I really read the descriptions of how and when to plant certain seeds. I noticed recommendation for soil temperature and for care. I found a few things that could go in the ground early- forty and forty five degree soil for germination. Suddenly, spring felt close again.
So, I started to plan. I made lists of veggies we wanted to try for the first time (potatoes!), veggies we wanted to be sure an grow again (peas! beans! tomatoes!), and the veggies I wanted to take a break from (broccoli, cherry tomatoes).
And then I really got into it. I started regrouping things by plant times and soil temperatures so I could think about planting order and what I could start.


I roughed out this plan:

You can see, on the side, things are sorted by temp. I also made a code for the order I would plant thing and started to think about what I could plant in a square when my early crops are done. It's all a grand experiment.

I'm doing square foot gardening for the second year. My plot is about 6ft by 8ft, which is huge. Last year I spent a lot of time researching how many of each seed I could put per square foot. There's lots out there to guide anyone who is interested.
This year, I'm trusting my math skills a little more. If something says it need to be three inches apart to grow, I know that means I can do about nine seeds and still leave enough room to not crowd too close to the edge of the square.

I learned a lot last year. Like, trellising tomatoes is amazing- but I can be even more aggressive in pruning and tying them. And I should expect much to grow in the squares right in front of these tomatoes.


Anyway, after my rough draft, I started this one:
This one is a little easier to read and I tried to leave room in the squares for extra notes- things like variety, date planted, etc.

So far I have in the peas, sweet pea flowers, the onion, and the garlic. Potatoes go in this week. Then I'll just be in a waiting game until those first sprouts come up. That's always the best feeling.

This plan will change- and it will change a lot- before the summer is over. I know that. But a plan gets me started and gives me something to hang my hat on.









Below are some of the onion sets being set in place for growing. I put them close together and I'll thin the when they start going.