Spring is here and planting time is just around the corner!

Every year that I have been married I have had a garden – even if it was just a couple pots – yes, that does count! And every year I start out the same way and that is with making a plan. Here are some tips to help if you are new to gardening or just trying to get a handle on this year.

First you want to start with some questions:

• What do you want to grow?
• How much space do you have?
• How much sun does it get? (Some plants need more sun than others.)
• How is the soil? Do you need to amend the soil?

My planning actually starts in January. The arrival of the first seed catalog is a tonic for the winter blues. After thumbing through them…multiple times, I start working on a plan. I also have a bunch of gardening books, but the first ones I always reach for in the winter are: “The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener” by Niki Jabbour, “The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible” and “The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible” by Edward C Smith. And online I like savvygardening.com – It’s a great site that has a little bit of everything garden related. I also like to make multiple plans and decide which I like the most.

After that I get a couple pieces of paper and pencil; I write down my want list of plants on one and sketch out how I want to put them in the garden on the other. I also try to keep an eye on how it will look. I mean, I don’t want to do all that work and look at a mishmash of a garden for 5 months – I want it to be pretty!

Here are a couple other ideas that may help:

• New to gardening? Start small, because you can quickly overwhelm yourself.
• Still stumped? Look online or go through books for ideas. I am a junking for vegetable garden pictures – I know weird – but when gardens are all weeded and orderly it just makes the world seem more calm!
• Don’t know what plants to start with – or what their needs are – get some good resource books and try looking online.
• No place to garden? Try pots! We have a large garden along with 5 raised beds in another part of the yard – and I always have stuff in pots. A couple years ago I made some self-watering pots and they are wonderful. I followed the instructions in the book “The Vegetable Gardeners Container Bible” by Edward C Smith

I hope this helps you plan your perfect garden!

-D