Friday, January 20, 2012

Planning

I go through a lot of planning stages before spring. The first thing I do is go through my seed catalogs and buy seeds. I showed you my Fedco order before. I've since placed an order from Pinetree for seeds that I don't really need, but would be fun to have. I bought the following: Summertime lettuce, Ambrosia melon, Big Red Pepper (got to love that name), Alma Paprika pepper, Early Butternut, Soloist Chinese cabbage, Tetsukabuto winter squash, epazote, Masai bean, Jersey Supreme asparagus.

The last I actually needed. Quite a few of the asparagus I planted last year died. So these are a replacement. Sadly they have changed their shipping policy. It used to be a flat fee for everything. But now it is a flat fee for seeds and another fee for live plants. So sad. The shipping costs as much as the plants.

So my seeds have all been ordered. I hope I didn't miss anything. The next planning stage is getting the list of seeds together that I'm actually going to grow. I have sheet in my garden spreadsheet that can calculate the date that they need to be planted and the date they need to go into the garden. It assumes a last frost date of May 1st. I tell it how many weeks old the transplant should be and how many weeks before or after the last frost date it should be planted. I get it all compiled on another sheet in printable format. I copied it to the web so you could see it in its current state.

The first set of plants are the ones that will be done as transplants. The later ones are ones that are direct seeded out in the garden. I might do more direct seeding of things like Asian greens and lettuce, but I haven't made up my mind yet. At least they are on the sheets. This keeps me from forgetting them if I do want to start them indoors. I find that if I don't have these sheets I never know when to plant. I do not follow the sheets perfectly, but they give me an idea.

My next chore is to lay out the garden and figure out how many transplants of each variety I need. If you notice that information has not yet been added. I usually grow more of everything just in case of seedling failure, but I don't grow many more. So it is time to get out my graph paper and start figuring out where my plants go.

13 comments:

  1. I have been working on adjusting some of my starting dates. I am going to start my main tomato crop and peppers much later for a couple of reasons. One, the tomatoes were too much to handle last year and two, the community garden move.

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  2. I need to update last year's planting guide to reflect problems I encountered....like don't start the morning glories inside. Most other things were perfect for setting out at their proper times, so I'll just follow it again this year. I might work on my garden plans today, as it's still too icy out to do much of anything else.

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  3. sounds like you have got everything under control. I think I am going to try and come up with a planting spreadsheet this year i usually just wait till mid may(if the snow is gone) and toss the seeds in the dirt..LOL

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  4. Your schedule looks very helpful. We're in your zone and will follow a very similar schedule. We just need to get it done! When we get it done, I'll add the dates to my electronic calendar. This way, when things get busy, the calendar reminder will help me make the garden a priority.

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  5. Holy veggies Batman! That's a lot!!!!! My husband is just waiting for me to ask him for more beds!!! But adding to the garden means extending the fencing (protection from our dogs and rabbits) so we are creating beds outside the garden for things that are less likely to be eaten by said animals. Anyone out there ever do Jeruselum Artichokes? I want to try them this year!

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  6. I've been working on garden planning a little bit today as well. We had 8-inches of snow fall overnight and it is nice to think of the gardening right now :)

    I have my list together and am trying to fit everything into the garden plan. Some of the small adjustments will be to start pepper seeds earlier.

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  7. This is a great list! I won't have a big garden this year, but I'll grow as much as I can in my front yard this year. I'm putting a copy of your list in my garden book, though, as inspiration for when I get my garden up and running next year when we have moved. It's an impressive list, wow!

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  8. I am working on a similar time table for my seed. Have all the seed ordered I think. Will work on the planting lay out next.

    Question how do you get your harvest record on the side of your blog.

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  9. I'm impressed by your scientific approach to sowing and planting. I'm afraid I don't have such self-discipline, and I tend to do it by instinct (which is not always right!)
    I'd love to know the ratio of seeds bought to seeds sown is in my garden, because I often buy something I would LIKE to grow, but never find space for it.

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  10. Amber, I did Jeruselum Artichokes one year, but I was always worried they would never be able to get rid of them and my garden before was so small. So after they grew I dug them up and got rid of them. I didn't learn much about growing them. But they do get very very tall.

    wilderness, It is done in html. When I update it I go into it and change the values. I used to be a programmer so for me it is a simple little thing. I'm not sure how easy or hard it would be for someone that doesn't know html, but if you want I can send you the html. Just email me.

    Mark, well I do have an archive of seeds that I no longer use. Mostly things I don't need anymore (like sage seeds) or seeds that I've tried but probably won't grow again, or seeds that I don't think I have room for. I do grow most of the new seeds I buy for the year. The only exception might be the solanum family seeds. With my solanine poisoning, it is still questionable if they will get planted. But I think I will be able to. I have a ton of space now. I grow way more food than I can possibly eat. I have space for things. In my last garden I would plan the garden area before buying seed. But I just don't have to here. Plus I have a good handle on how much of what I want to grow.

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  11. We are on the same wave length it seems, as I just wrapped up my seed staring schedule yesterday morning. I am now in the serious phase of seed starting where I have something almost every weekend that needs to be started or potted up etc. I moved my early start onions out to the unheated greenhouse to grow on some more before transplanting later this spring. The move frees up space under my grow lights but also starts the process of hardening them off.

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  12. I'm doing a similar work in these days, I have limited space and I started to decide what to grow (and how many and where) months ago. Now my seed orders are arriving, and I can't wait to start the indoor sowing.

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  13. I never have a real plan for planting. I just pay attention to what the weather patterns are for the next few weeks or so and then I plant. When spring comes I will just plant everything I have. I can't stick to plans! xx

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