How to Plan a Garden Layout
In some areas of the world, the snow is starting to fall while in another Spring has sprung. Still, no matter what time of year it is in your backyard, it’s never too early to start figuring out how to plan a garden layout. There are certain things you need to figure out before you just start planting vegetation willy-nilly. Here are some tips on how to plan the perfect garden layout for your backyard.
What You Want vs What You Can Grow
We would all love to have an acre or so to play with where we had rows of every vegetable we’ve ever loved but the reality is, where you live greatly dictates what you are going to be able to plant in your garden. You may want corn, but if you have a small backyard, you might have to skip it for space availability and not to mention the shade it will generate from other sun-loving plants.
Know what you want and make sure you have the space, the weather, and the sun availability for that kind of vegetable, herb, or flower. Don’t forget to find out the way your choices interact with each other. This helps when you decide where to place each plant or seedling.
Sketch It
You don’t have to be a professional artist with a Copic marker sketchbook to do this part. However, if you are adept with this, your sketch can be as detailed as you want it to be and maybe sell it to a collector someday. But if you are an average artist like the rest of us, grab some paper and a pen and draw out your space.
Get the measurements and write it down on that paper. When you start assigning spaces for your choices, be sure to leave enough space around them to grow. Most plants require a specific amount of space to grow into so make sure to take that into consideration when you are sketching out your garden. When in doubt, leave a little more room.
Get What You Need
Now that you know what you want, and you made a map of your garden area, it’s time to get supplies. If you are a beginner, then you might need to pick up some tools like a hand shovel, gardening gloves, tiller, hand saw and Sprayer. Your knees can become very sore when bent over a backyard garden so consider investing in a nice cushion meant to be knelt upon.
Every year I try the seed route. And every year one type of plant or another refuses to grow from seed which I then have to hunt down that plant, or plants, from a nursery. But with each failure come knowledge of what went wrong. I have a shorter growing season in my new place of 6 years than where I came from, which pretty much you could at least grow lettuce year ’round. So it’s been a challenge of what seeds are better for the shorter season. Gardening is all a big experiment. It helps to keep all of your sketches of each year so you can rotate your crops accordingly, too.