Spring into Garden Planning With These Steps & Ideas

On any given cold winter day, you might find me sitting inside with a nice hot cup of coffee, excitedly looking at the MIgardener seed catalog and dreaming of my garden! Even then, I am already thinking about what I will plant next year.

Every year, before I drop a single seed, I plan out my garden. So, I figured, why not bring you along with me to design a garden plan?

Garden planning includes choosing a location, deciding what varieties to grow, choosing quality vegetable and flower seeds, and mapping out a plan. Let the planning commence!

The Joy of Starting a New Garden

Starting a new garden is super exciting. Whether you’re starting a vegetable garden, a potager garden, a vertical garden, a cottage garden, or something else, give yourself time to sit and imagine what it will be like and look at other gardens for inspiration.

Gardening has always brought my family together. I am excited you are here and invite you to join the MIgardener family, where we share gardening hacks, stories, lessons from the garden, and top-notch growing guides to help you grow the garden of your dreams!

Why Is a Garden Plan Important

The practice of garden pre-planning ensures better utilization of space, improved management, greater efficiency, and advantageous plant selection, all of which increase your enjoyment and chances of success. Good record keeping and planning will reduce confusion and frustration and streamline the gardening process.

Every project should start with the planning phase, and a garden is no different. However, I can't tell you how many people I see flying by the seats of their pants every spring. Then they are frustrated and overwhelmed, don't know what to plant, don't know where their garden will be, and it all becomes too much to manage last second.

Planning saves money, too. A good plan means fewer trips to the garden center. It helps you avoid buying things you don't need and reduces waste. In short, spending time on garden planning is well worth it.

Something valuable I have learned about life is that it is hard to see things come to fruition without a plan or vision. Applying that logic to a garden, I hope you will use this guide to plan and see your ideal garden become a reality.

Deciding Which Type of Garden Works Best for You

Choosing the right type of garden is an important first step. The most basic options are a traditional in-ground garden, raised garden beds, and a container garden. Each has its own benefits depending on your space, maintenance habits, and plant choices.

I recently shared a blog post on different types of gardens. The post explains 7 common garden types and the pros and cons of each to help you choose the best style for you.

To help you choose, ask yourself some questions and write your thoughts on paper. For example, what is the garden’s purpose? What will you enjoy growing? What will you realistically eat? How much time do you have to dedicate to a garden?

Your garden choice should match your likes, available time, available space, and local growing conditions, whether you’re growing for food production, cut flowers, or aesthetics.

Choosing a Garden Location

The next step is deciding what size to make your garden and where you want it to be. Just like in real estate, location, location, location! You will want to consider access to water, soil quality, sunlight, and space in the proposed locations.

Assess your soil type to see if growing in-ground will work. If the soil quality is poor, you won’t have a very fun time gardening.

In this case, try raised beds or containers as they allow more control over soil conditions. An in-ground garden will also take up more space than a raised bed garden, a vertical garden, or a container garden.

My advice is to be realistic about what size garden will fit in your budget and schedule. If this is your first time gardening, it’s a good idea to start small and expand later on. Starting small will help you get your feet wet and allow you time to learn about the upkeep of your garden.

Before you get your heart set on a location, make sure it gets adequate sunlight by mapping the sun!

Mapping the Sun

Sun mapping is one of the most critical planning steps. It lets you know if the location you have chosen is good. Without it, a gardener will never know exactly how much sunlight the garden gets, which is one of the most important facets of a successful garden! 

It’s important to ensure that your garden receives a minimum of 5-6 hours of sunlight daily to grow leafy vegetables and 7-10 hours to grow tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc. To analyze how much sun the proposed garden location receives, get some survey flags or stakes and use the video above to learn how to map the sunlight.

If you are mapping the sun in the winter or springtime, make sure to account for the changing length of days and shadows that will be cast by trees when their summer foliage grows. This video explains how to walk back the shadows when sun mapping to account for seasonal changes like these.

Drawing Out a Garden Plan

Finally, it’s time to make a map of how you want to lay out your new garden. I can not tell you how often I go back and forth with ideas. Once I lay them out on paper, I can visually assess what is feasible and what needs to be considered again.

I am commonly asked if there is anything that I use, in terms of technology or garden planning software, that helps me garden better. In truth, when it comes to the craft of gardening, I like to do things simply and be as hands-on as possible.

Drawing out my garden plan with paper and pencil is more therapeutic for me than grabbing a laptop and using an app. Plus, it is much less expensive than purchasing gardening software.

That being said, if you do prefer to use garden planning software, I recommend using Seedtime. Seedtime allows you to grid out a visual garden plan and plan sowing times to get a perpetual harvest.

I draw out to-scale design ideas in my garden planner or on graph paper to help me decide on a final plan, but do what works for you. The main thing is getting a visual representation of your garden plan sketched out.

After measuring your proposed garden space, grab a piece of graph paper, a ruler, a pencil, and a highlighter, and follow these steps to draw out a garden plan:

1. Measure - Using to-scale measurements, draw a map of your garden area on paper. Include any fixed things like trees, buildings, or fences.

2. Sketch - Draw out the proposed garden design complete with raised beds, in-ground rows, trellises, and containers.

3. Sun Map - Use the information you collected from mapping the sun to highlight low-sun or shaded areas on your map.

4. Plants - Sketch in where you will plant the varieties you decide to grow, considering the amount of space and sunlight different plants need to grow. Pro-Tip: Laying your garden out in a north-to-south direction will maximize the amount of sunlight getting to all the plants. If this is not possible, make sure that your taller plants (such as corn, sunflowers, tomatoes, pole beans, or peas) are on the farthest north section of your garden, while shorter plants are on the farthest south portion of your garden.

Deciding What Plants to Grow

Most of us want to grow everything, but it’s a good idea to limit yourself to 6 to 9 new plant species each year, especially if you are a new gardener. Start with plants that you love and foods that you will actually eat.

Sunflowers, zinnias, and cosmos are beautiful, easy-to-grow cut flowers. Marigolds are the multitool of the garden. Not only do marigolds help with pest control, but they also help with animal control, beneficial pollinators, and they are edible!

Some vegetable plants can be planted very close together using high intensity spacing and, if fertilized and watered properly, can produce high yields in a small area. Peas, spinach, radishes, beans, and lettuce are great examples of plants that can be planted a lot closer than the information on some seed packets will tell you.

On the contrary, things like squash, zucchini, pumpkin, and watermelon need room to spread out. If you have a small garden, you may want to limit the number of these you plant.

Ordering Seeds

When you’re ready to order seeds, choose quality seeds from a reputable source. (You may want to read about the differences between hybrid, organic, GMO, and heirloom seeds and why it matters.)

MIgardener has a selection of 700+ heirloom varieties of seeds, plus seed potatoes, garlic & flower bulbs, mushroom growing kits, dormant plants, gardening supplies, and other great merchandise!

Implementing Your Garden Plan

Remember to keep things simple and don’t overwhelm yourself with the planning process. The following blog posts will help you know when to plant the garden varieties you want to grow:

• What to plant in February

• What to plant in March

• What to plant in April

• What to plant in May

I also recommend using Clyde’s Garden Planner. It is a helpful tool in all climates and zones for gauging when to start your seeds indoors, when to direct sow seeds in the garden, when to expect your first harvest, and more.

Don't get discouraged if you are getting a late start. There's always time to plant a few seeds or store-bought plant starts.