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Food & DrinkGood Growing

Now Is the Time to Plan Out Your Spring Garden

The author started a beneficial (natural and self-­sustaining) garden last February. Credit: Erin France

The seed catalogs are falling out of my mailbox; how about yours? I love perusing all the photos and descriptions, then making inordinately long lists of favorites. If you’re planning a garden this year, here are a few things to keep in mind to keep your feet (and plants) firmly rooted in reality.

Start with the non-negotiables that you know you’ll use and love. Maybe you have a great pesto recipe, so three or four basil plants are a must. Maybe your family (like mine) eats a wider variety of hot peppers than are available in the grocery store. Maybe you’d like to try growing your own herbal tea garden this year. Whatever your plan, get excited about it! Gardens take work, and if you’re already dreading picking beans every other day this summer—skip the beans. 

I start my garden planning with a few basics: snow peas in April; cucumbers in May; and squash and tomatoes in June. I’ll harvest peppers at the end of July. I’ll eat okra starting in September. October marks the final crop of beans and cucumbers until the frost comes. From there, I fill out the rest of what I’d like to eat and try to be realistic. No matter how badly I want it, I don’t have the infrastructure to produce tomatoes much earlier than June. 

I plan my flower beds in a similar, but much less structured fashion. My front flower bed contains lovely oriental lilies, day lilies and false blue indigo that look great until the fall. Then, the bed gets swallowed by ropey morning glory vines seemingly grown overnight. This year, I’ll plant perennial yarrow and annual marigolds for more fall blooms. Besides giving the bed a little fall color, taking the time to transplant the marigolds will help me remember to stay on morning glory seedling patrol.

When are your favorite plants the most beautiful or producing the ripest fruit? Make them your No. 1 priority in your planting plan for that month. This will also make troubleshooting insects and diseases a bit easier if you’re focused on one problem at a time—admittedly, a difficult thing for many gardeners. 

Also consider, what can you fit in the space? This is one of the hardest questions to answer because it varies so much. Popular heavy feeders like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers favor 18 inches of space, but can easily grow well in smaller spaces. Some plants compete for resources if planted with anything else (carrots typically just want to be planted around other carrots), while others thrive with friends (tomatoes with basil are a well-known example). Then there’s the bruisers of the veggie garden: The squashes. Squash plants want at least two feet of space, and may smash everything within four feet in order to achieve their goal of garden domination, but I’ve also grown them successfully in five-gallon buckets.

If you’re foregoing veggies, it doesn’t get easier. Flowers, particularly perennials (camellias and roses are examples), start small and can take years before they grow into their mature size. Though you’ve planted, watered and cared for these floral delights, the display might be a bit underwhelming while it’s still growing. 

I tend to err on the side of a little too much space—now. I planned my garden two years ago specifically for companion planting based on the best information I could find. While I discovered some neat tricks (planting kale underneath okra is great), overall, the garden suffered from easily transmitted diseases, pests and too much competition for resources. 

If you’re worried about how many plants to fit into your plot, stick with your favorites and see if there’s room at the peak of the growing season. If you’ve got a foot or more, consider adding annuals, including herbs (basil and cilantro) or pollinator favorites (like Georgia-native salvia and the cardinal flower), to fill up the space and add interest. 

For more specific questions about seed and transplant spacing, I often refer to Johnny’s Selected Seeds for detailed growing specs or Territorial Seed Co. for a basic overview. You don’t have to buy anything to use their good information.

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