2014 Garden Planning.

Gardening is one of my favorite activities.  Since the onset of winter there hasn't been much gardening to be done.  I normally start seeds in January, but I thought this year I'd hold off and start them in February.  So I thought this year that I'd plan things out a little better.  Normally I just look for empty spots in the raised beds and either directly plant seeds or transplant seedlings.  Sometimes I transplant seedlings where I've planted seeds and I end up with lettuce growing under my peppers.  I want to be better about that this year.

That requires more planning.  I decided to draw a map of my raised beds.  That should enable me to keep track of what goes where.  I might even layout things out before planting the first seed!  What a concept.

I could use plain old graph paper, but then I'd have to locate some.  Instead I started up Sketchup.  I use it so infrequently that I had some difficulty at first.  I had to reference the help several times.  Anyway, here's a picture of what I came up with.

Keep with the square foot method, I marked a grid on all of the beds.  Not all of the physical bed actually have a grid on them.  Actually I think only one of them does.  That'll be easy enough to add in the spring.  Anyway, the two beds on the left have 16" squares instead of 12" squares.  I plan on growing tomatoes in those beds and I want to give them more space.  The ones I planted last year were too crowded. 

I'm anxious to see how this works out.  I would probably be better to do on a giant dry-erase board.  That way if something dies, or I pick something, I can cross it off and put something else there.  That might not be as easy to do on an 8.5x11 sheet of paper.