This year we are planning our garden with the assistance of 2 books.  I will do a review on both of them at a later date.  The first is Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades by Steve Solomon.  The second is All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew.  Oddly enough, these two books are vastly different in technique.  Mr. Solomon claims that 1000 sq ft of garden space can keep a family of 4 in veg year round in the Northwest.  Mr. Bartholomew says he can do it in 144 sq ft.  That’s a huge difference.  How can I combine two vastly different gardening methods?  It actually is not that difficult.  We are using West of the Cascades for culture of plants.  It gives more information on how the plants grow, pests and diseases and gardening in the winter.  Square Foot is the foundation of what we’ll be doing this year.  Again, this is not a review post.

Last year we added on to our vegetable garden by constructing a 5′x10′ bed and 2 5′x5′ beds.  That would mean that we have 150 sq. ft. of potential vegetable growing space.  According to Mel Bartholomew that is plenty for our family of 3.  Let’s hope he’s correct.

In order to plan our our garden I drew a scale plan of my 4 vegetable beds.  Hey, I’m a landscape designer by trade, would you think anything less?  I then broke it up into a 1′x1′ grid.  I also made a list of the seeds that I had purchased this year (which have yet to arrive).  Theoretically, everything will fit into my 150 sq. ft.  Including the herbs and some squares filled with flowers.  I think that’s rather impressive.  The trick will be if it will give us enough veg to last the year.  I’m doubting it.

To help keep me organized I also used one of our many calendars and made a rough plan of when I need to plant things.  This would be great if I actually had my seeds.  Trouble with this much planning is not having a reference as to when things should happen.  There are so many resources out there to tell you when to plant things, but the majority of them are based on last frost date.  Around here that last frost date could be mid-May.  Ok, that’s a little excessive but considering it has been snowing off and on for the past 3 days I wouldn’t rule it out.  The range of last frost for the Puget Sound region can be from March 24th to May 24th.  Pretty broad wouldn’t you say.  I haven’t kept records in the past so I split the difference and went with April 20th.  (I’ll cover tender plants in another post).  Having an estimated last frost date helped determine when seeds should be started.  I also use the good ol’ Farmer’s Almanac to determine plant specific planting ranges.  My calendar is highlighted with the ranges for each plant and then I keep notes as to when I actually planted the seeds.

For example: my range for the first sowing of lettuce was supposed to be March 1-March 10.  I planted 2 squares of Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce (it was left from last year) on March 3rd.  Assuming my seeds arrive this week I will be planting carrots (March 11-25) and beets (March 15-25) this weekend.

My suggestion is if you use this type of planning method find one system that works for you, and one set of dates.  Otherwise you’ll get a million resources saying when you should be planting.  In addition, take notes.  When did you put your seeds in?  When did they sprout?  What has the weather been like?  Each year you will get better at anticipating germination and have less plant loss.

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In bloom this week: Tete a Tete Daffodils, last of the crocus, heath, primroses, pansies, fading Witch Hazel, Helleborus (new addition to the garden)