January Blues, Making a Garden Plan, and a Subscriber-only Discount

Greetings Folks,

I hope this newsletter finds you all warm, dry, and enjoying this slushy, messy weather— from the comfort of your armchair I hope, or if not, and you work outside, then soldier on! Spring is not far away.

As for me, instead of doing farm chores, I would rather be here:

Alas, needs and wants don’t always line up. While I really, really want to swim in tropical waters, what I need is to do my farm plan for the year. The farm, or garden, plan is really simple in theory: it is what you want to plant, where you will plant each crop, and when you will start them. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want as long as it has the basic information of what, where, and when.

Even if you have a small garden I recommend that you make a garden plan. Why? You will harvest much more food because you will be organized, and will avoid (hopefully) the panic runs to the garden store to get transplants of something you don’t really want. And you grow only what you like instead of stuff that doesn’t get eaten.

Here is a simple way to make a plan. Get a blank piece of paper and a pencil. Draw out your garden area roughly, with all of your beds, or rows, marked out “A” “B”, or 1,2,3… You get the idea. Title the paper something like “2024 Garden Plan”. Now in each bed pencil in what you want to grow in it. For example, in bed 1, Kale (10 plants) and broccoli (5 plants). It is good to keep plant families together. Do this for every bed or row. If a bed will have more than one crop, note that simply: First spinach, then tomatoes after.

Once that is done, get another piece of paper and write down all of the crops you are going to grow again, and beside them write down the date you are going to start them, noting if they are getting started inside as transplants or if they are going to get started in the bed. Obviously, if the weather is terrible on the outside starting day edit in the actual sowing day when you do it.

You’re almost done! Now, make a note beside each crop on what (if anything) will be added to each bed. For example, if you going to add lime and compost to the kale and broccoli bed, make a note of it.

In the end it will look like this:

Bed 1: Spinach first, then Tomatoes.

—Start Spinach inside March 1st.

—Start Tomatoes March 15th.

-—Add compost for both spinach and tomatoes.

Bed 2: Kale and Broccoli

—Start both inside March 15th.

—Add lime and compost to bed.

Bed 3: etc.

Some people will only need the plan written down like above, but I like to also have a visual aid as well, which is why I draw out the beds. You will figure out the best way for you. As I mentioned above you can make the plan as complicated as you want, and add more information: harvest dates, transplant dates, crop failures, even weeding schedules. This is just a basic guide to get you going, but even a simple plan like this is super helpful and will make you a better gardener. And after even just a few years, you will have a detailed record of best starting dates, what has worked and what hasn’t, and so on.

Finally, in the spirit of getting the season going, we are offering a subscriber-only offer (which you are, since you are getting this newsletter!) of 10% off for the next two weeks, to inspire you and help you plan this years garden. Type “Gardenplan” in the discount code at checkout to receive your discount.

I will do my plan as well, and try to cultivate some winter serenity.