Really want to start a garden this year, but don’t know how to plan a garden? We’ve got you covered, in this post, we are sharing everything we know about how to plan a garden and our best tips for success! Gardening has been passed down from generation to generation here at the Cottage, so planning our spring garden has become a family affair. We gather around the table with piles of seeds on cold days and whittle away at our garden planning.
This year we’ve actually expanded our garden to bigger than it has ever been before! And we are so excited to begin growing, but before we do that we need to plan our spring garden.
Pin for later!
This post contains affiliate links
What You Need To Plan A Garden
- Garden Planner, notebook, or calendar (Snag our garden planner here)
- Tape measure
- Pencil or Pen
- Ruler
- Seeds (don’t know where to buy seeds? Here are some great places)
How To Plan A Garden
How To Plan A Garden Step 1:
When planning your spring garden the first thing you do is figure out your growing zone, Burpee has a great resource to do this with. Next Google your location and “last frost date”. Now that you have that information you’re ready to start planning a garden.
How To Plan A Garden Step 2:
Grab your planner or calendar and markdown your last frost date. Now for the fun part of planning a garden, deciding what you want to grow! The way I like to do this is by starting a list of things we eat a lot of, if you don’t have a lot of room this can be a good way to help replace what you are buying at the store. If you have quite a bit of room and want to try growing some things that you don’t normally eat or try out new varieties.
How To Plan A Garden Step 3:
The next step in planning a garden is figuring out when all your seeds need to be planted [check out our post on when to start seeds by your growing zone], the best way we’ve found to keep track of this is using a journal or notebook and writing down each month and then writing down what needs to be started in that month. From there you can break it down even more on a monthly calendar to keep track of the things you’ll need to sow again (things like lettuce and greens).
How To Start A Garden Step 4:
Time to draw! Drawing out your garden is a really great way to see where everything is and figure out how much room you have. To do this measure how long and wide your garden is (if you are using things like raised beds measure the individual beds) and then sketch it on your paper and make note of the size of your plot or plots. Once you have the basics in place begin filling in, in as much detail as you want where all your plants are going to go.
Tips On How To Plan A Garden
Planning a garden is always one of my favorite tasks! We start sometime in January (don’t worry there is still time to plan your garden), to beat the winter blues while we wait for spring. It’s a great way to get a head start on the season, ok if I’m honest it keeps me from buying everything in the seed catalog.
Still, feeling a bit overwhelmed? Here are our best tips on how to plan a garden!
- Don’t go crazy, you don’t have to buy special tools or planners (though if you want to invest in a garden planner you absolutely can).
- The drawing doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t even have to be to scale. You just want to be able to track where everything is.
- Start planning your garden as you begin buying seeds. This way you know what you’ve bought and what you need.
The Best Resources On How To Plan Garden
These are some of our favorite resources you can use while planning your garden:
- Better Homes & Gardens has a really neat free online garden planner.
- Or go the old fashioned paper method with our garden planner.
- Free Garden Planner Pages
- Downloadable Plant Profiles Gardening Records
- Downloadable Garden Bed Planning Templates
- Check out our growing guides to help you get started
That’s it! Garden planning is pretty simple, and with a few tools, you can plan your whole garden out and be ready for spring! Did we answer all your questions on how to plan a garden? If not drop them in the comments and we will do our best to answer them!
Before you go, check these out!
- How To Start A Garden From Scratch
- How To Plan A Fall Garden
- How To Start Seeds
- The Best Subscription Boxes For Gardeners
