Planning your garden in advance helps produce maximum crops in minimum space. The less space you use, the less work you have to do. Also, you can improve the soil in a small plot much more rapidly than in a large area and at less expense. This sets up, within limitations, a chain reaction. The better the soil, the smaller the area required to produce a given quantity of peas or beans or corn, and, the smaller the area, the faster its soil may be improved.
The best time to plan your vegetable garden is right now in midwinter. Unless you are a draftsman, you will probably find it easiest to draw the plan on cross-section paper, which you can get at any office supply store. Use sheets which provide plenty of space for both the simple plan of our vegetable garden, and for additional notes to be made on the margins during the season to help plan a better layout for next year. You will also need a pencil and a ruler.
There is just one other planning aid which you will find indispensable. That is a copy of the bulletin on home vegetable gardens published by your state agricultural extension service. You can get it free or at nominal cost from the main office in your state or from your county extension agent. The bulletin will help your initial work in laying out your garden plan by telling how far apart to separate the rows of different kinds of vegetables. It will help you in many other ways as well. Our plan for this year's garden is not to suggest what you should plant, but simply to illustrate how easy it is to lay out such a plan on cross-section paper. Nobody else is likely to want as many rows of beans, for example, as we intend to plant. We happen to like them. And there is no provision for parsnips because we hate 'em!
Leave Room to Turn
As you can readily perceive, each little square on the cross-section paper is allowed to represent a square foot of the actual garden area. The first step is to outline your garden with heavy pencil lines, counting as many spaces on each side as the garden measures in feet. You will want to leave some space between the ends of rows and the edges of the garden to allow for cultivation and a path. If your garden is surrounded by mowed lawn, a two-foot strip is sufficient if you use only hand tools. If you use any type of cultivator, it is safer to allow four foot strips for turning at each end of the rows in order to protect your lawn.
For several years we have been gradually reducing the size of our garden without reducing its yield be it vegetables or outdoor foliage plants. Apparently we can carry on this trend if we are careful to continue improving the soil and if we plan each year's garden carefully. This year, for example, we are going to raise cucumbers on a rough trellis made of 2 by 4 posts and horizontal slats instead of letting the vines spread out on the ground for six feet on each side of the row. In the next year, you may opt for colorful plants instead of the climbing plants. This figures out to a net saving of 280 square feet in our garden.
A nice little city garden 14 by 20 feet, covering that area, could produce a lot of lettuce, radishes, parsley, carrots, beets and onions. Not too sensibly, I fear, we intend to offset that saving by planting two rows of early potatoes. Our plan is to harvest them in July when potatoes are most expensive on the market. At that time they should be about the size of golf balls, the stage at which they are claimed to be most delicious. - 15266
The best time to plan your vegetable garden is right now in midwinter. Unless you are a draftsman, you will probably find it easiest to draw the plan on cross-section paper, which you can get at any office supply store. Use sheets which provide plenty of space for both the simple plan of our vegetable garden, and for additional notes to be made on the margins during the season to help plan a better layout for next year. You will also need a pencil and a ruler.
There is just one other planning aid which you will find indispensable. That is a copy of the bulletin on home vegetable gardens published by your state agricultural extension service. You can get it free or at nominal cost from the main office in your state or from your county extension agent. The bulletin will help your initial work in laying out your garden plan by telling how far apart to separate the rows of different kinds of vegetables. It will help you in many other ways as well. Our plan for this year's garden is not to suggest what you should plant, but simply to illustrate how easy it is to lay out such a plan on cross-section paper. Nobody else is likely to want as many rows of beans, for example, as we intend to plant. We happen to like them. And there is no provision for parsnips because we hate 'em!
Leave Room to Turn
As you can readily perceive, each little square on the cross-section paper is allowed to represent a square foot of the actual garden area. The first step is to outline your garden with heavy pencil lines, counting as many spaces on each side as the garden measures in feet. You will want to leave some space between the ends of rows and the edges of the garden to allow for cultivation and a path. If your garden is surrounded by mowed lawn, a two-foot strip is sufficient if you use only hand tools. If you use any type of cultivator, it is safer to allow four foot strips for turning at each end of the rows in order to protect your lawn.
For several years we have been gradually reducing the size of our garden without reducing its yield be it vegetables or outdoor foliage plants. Apparently we can carry on this trend if we are careful to continue improving the soil and if we plan each year's garden carefully. This year, for example, we are going to raise cucumbers on a rough trellis made of 2 by 4 posts and horizontal slats instead of letting the vines spread out on the ground for six feet on each side of the row. In the next year, you may opt for colorful plants instead of the climbing plants. This figures out to a net saving of 280 square feet in our garden.
A nice little city garden 14 by 20 feet, covering that area, could produce a lot of lettuce, radishes, parsley, carrots, beets and onions. Not too sensibly, I fear, we intend to offset that saving by planting two rows of early potatoes. Our plan is to harvest them in July when potatoes are most expensive on the market. At that time they should be about the size of golf balls, the stage at which they are claimed to be most delicious. - 15266
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