Garden plan Step 2

Winter here in central Saskatchewan is long and for the most part quite cold. And by quite cold we mean really cold! Usually it's around this time that the winter blues can really start to dig in. The rush and excitement of the holiday season is over and now spring seems too far away. We won't lie it sometimes hits us hard, but we always make it through.

 Our 2019 focus word is Organization. ( This was before we heard of Marie Kondo or the organization craze going on.....Always a day late and a dollar short seems to be our family motto) Last years focus word was "No Regrets" somehow organization is a little more daunting and difficult!

 So to try and be Organized we are planning early. It's roughly 17 weeks till the garden will go in so if anything we are falling behind..lol  In the 13 years we have been out here our garden plan has taken many shapes some fancy, others stupid and in the most recent few quite successful. The most important advice we can give is to not throw out last years plan. No matter how much you think you wont forget, you will.  Having to replan the garden in the heat all whilst trying to hurry to get everhthing is not fun nor a great family bonding exercise.

In the past we got fancy and did everything on the computer but in the end good ole paper and pen works the best.

These are our weathered plans from last two year with the start of this years plan. As you can see we already made a typo or two.

It always seems like an easy task and then when the time comes we tend to over think the whole process. This year we are planning on trying out a few new things in the way of seeds, plants and pest control. Therefore, we have to try and get all our lofty ideas from brainstorming on to the paper. It doesn't always work. We try and keep in mind that this is a draft and usually come planting time it ends up being both our lifeline and something we ignore. Go Figure! 

We generally try to follow a 4 year planting cycle between the 4 major groups. 

Group One is Leaf

Group 2 is Fruit

Group 3  Root

Group 4 Legume

The trick is to not plant anything from the same group in the same spot as the year before. With 2 gardens we can stick to this pretty good. This is also a great reason to not through out your plans from previous years. As you can see the main garden in divided into 4 sections. The back garden follows a looser version on the 4 groups mainly acting as an addition to one or 2 of the groups in the main garden. We also try to make our plan one that is easy to seed and weed. Which is why we measure out each section and make sure every row between the 4 sections runs East to West to meet the next section. Much easier to get a tiller through when things are even!  

Come back next week when we will be revealing our 2019 planting list!

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Hayley and Marc