Planning is part of the Journey

            

The rush and hubbub of the holidays is past,

and

it's officially time to begin dreaming of spring.

The days are getting longer now, and our bodies

can sense the shift from dark to light.

Oh, I know there's a winter storm forecast for this weekend,

 it's snowing to beat the band at the moment,
and the temperature forecast for the week is anything but pleasant.

It's the perfect time to grab those seed catalogs that have been

filling your mailboxes and start dreaming

of planting and growing this year!

Gardening is a journey.

The physical acts alone are not all there is to it.

Allow yourself to include the planning and the dreaming

as part of that same journey and perhaps you'll enjoy it that much more.

I always plan what I am going to grow.

There are vegetables that we love, and some that we tried but

don't want to repeat.  Don't use valuable garden space
for vegetables that you won't eat.

The next step should be to plan how much to grow.

When I was growing for market, the number of rows

required is dramatically different than growing to have

enough for the two of us and to share with neighbors.

Consider your plans for utilizing what you plant.

For example, do you want enough tomatoes for the table
or are you hoping to do some preserving next fall?

Be sure to calculate how many tomato plants

and what type for your table and the salsa canning party,  then

don't forget the onions, peppers, and papaloquelite.

Finally, but the most important reason to plan, is the location and  
where each variety of veg will be planted.  

Always take care to rotate crops, as different crops

have varying nutritional requirements.
If you plant the same crop in the same location every year,

you will end up with a patch of your garden in which

the soil has been depleted of the nutrients
required by that same crop. 

A perfect example is the monoculture of

industrial agriculture.  If you plant corn in the same field

every year, the fertilizer requirements will be high.

The conventional wisdom on my grandfather's farm was always to plant 

corns and beans in rotation, 

as beans fix nitrogen in the soil, thus

providing for the high nitrogen requirements of the following 

year's corn crop.  This isn't to say that you won't need to
amend with compost, but you will need less.

This photo in early 2013 shows tomatoes planted in the bed on the left, and
beans in the middle bed.  By no coincidence, the layout for 2014
was tomatoes in the center bed and beans and cabbage in the left bed.

(Incidentally, this photo was taken after the tomatoes had been
removed and a cover crop of organic buckwheat had been sown.)

By rotating crops to different locations each season,

 you'll be sure to not deplete the soil of nutrients.
But, there's more.

You won't encourage disease, as many diseases are soil borne

and affect different plants.  Growing leeks where tomatoes were

last year will not provide a host for tobacco mosaic virus, that is 

death for tomatoes, but doesn't affect leeks.  See?

And, crop rotation will improve soil tilth, or texture and structure.

Plant carrots or daikon radish in the location this year, 

and your potatoes the following year will be bigger and

more regularly shaped, as the strong roots of the carrots and 

daikons will have broken up the soil and aerated it nicely.

Soil tilth is an extremely complex subject, but one that
successful gardeners understand.
For more on soil tilth, read
THIS ARTICLE 

And finally, please do remember that a small but very nice

selection of organic, heirloom seeds from High Mowing Seeds will

 be available again this spring at Gracie's Plant Works

in addition to all of our vegetable and herb starts.

Save postage, buy locally, and get the same

quality and products.

Bon Voyage and happy Journey,
Kathy and Patty