Your Garden Plan

Starting from what you want to eat

The Garden Designer hands you an empty bed and expects you to know what goes in it. This planner starts at the other end: the crops you want, how many people you're feeding, how much space you have and how much sun it gets. It works out quantities, places them across your beds, and keeps sun-hungry crops out of shady ones. A bed marked partial shade gets lettuce, spinach, kale, chard or arugula, not tomatoes and peppers that would flower late and fruit thinly there.

Beds that run warmer or colder than the zone

Zone frost dates are an average over a wide area, and one yard can hold several climates. A bed against a south-facing brick wall or beside a driveway soaks up heat and warms early. A low corner where cold air settles can frost after the rest of the street has planted out. Mark each bed for what it is, and the plan warns where its dates will likely run early or late. In the hottest zones it also names the crops likely to bolt or stall in midsummer and suggests 30% shade cloth over them.

A season's work on one page

What comes back is the whole season in order: when to sow, transplant, feed and start picking each crop in your zone; which ones to stake or cage at planting, before they flop; the diseases and pests most likely to show up on those crops and what the first signs look like; how to tell a seedling is ready to go outside; and where to buy the seed. Print it, or keep the tab open and work down it week by week.