Garden Planning

I finally sat down to do some garden planning last weekend. Started on the couch, using the coffee table, but had to move to the floor as I kept pulling books off the bookshelves. I started by making a (very) rough sketch of what the garden looked like last year:

Then, with the help of all those books, added info about companion and succession planting - red is "don't plant this here" and green is "this would be okay/good here." Then tried to come up with a plan that incorporated all this information - whew! it was like working a puzzle. But I ended up with (another) very rough plan:

By this time, my brain was tired, so I put the plan aside for awhile and made a list of seeds I needed, check it against my seed inventory list, and came up with a "Seeds Needed" list. Some new things I'm going to try this year are tomatillos and celery, plus starting broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage indoors. This thought always fills me with dread because my green thumb turns brown indoors when it comes to vegetable plants. But, I've been saving my egg shells and cartons, and I bought some seed starting mix, so I'm going to give it another go.

It's just that I have to wait awhile - this is what the garden looks like:

There's still a couple feet of snow out there even though we've had daytime temps into the 40s and have also gotten a bit of rain. I don't think I'll be starting anything indoors before the middle of March.

I received a great new book for Christmas from a good friend back in Wisconsin:

It has a great chart about what to plant when, both indoors and out. Comes with a warning that some regions may vary depending on the kind of winter and amount of snowfall received. Amen, Brother!