Planning the Community Patch - Plans and Journals

Excited as I am to get working in a garden, it is too cold and the soil is not anywhere near warm enough. Besides the Park District will not officially let us in before April 1, so I have another day before I can legally get in, but truthfully I will be surprised if we can get in before Easter (April 20, 2014).  There have just not been enough warm sunny days followed by warm nights to break up the ice in the soil so it can be prepared and staked and marked.  At least the snow is off the ground now!

So for now I content myself with planning.  However, having a good plan and way to record your information is vital to overall success in any garden space, but especially a small space like this one.  For that reason I recommend drawing out a plan and keeping records in a journal.

Draw a Plan

Now I don’t want to choose the plants just yet, but it is always a good idea to draw a plan of your garden even if only to get a feel for how it will look and force you to think about placement and plants needs and spacing.

At this point I do not need a fancy diagram, just a general outline of the space and how I want it look.  I can work and rework placement of tomatoes, sage, basil, etc. with this diagram and a couple of books that tell me plant specifics.  Then I can rework the design if I mistakenly planted the taller Lovage in front of the low growing thyme.

The books I suggest are as follows:  For herbs I generally use Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Herbs edited by Claire Kowalchik and William Hylton (Rodale Press: Emmaus, PA, 1987) and Park’s Success with Herbs by Gertrude Foster and Rosemary Louden (Geo. W. Park Seed Co: Greenwood South Carolina, 1980.) 

For  vegetables, I checked out my local library and found two great resources.  The Beginners Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables by Marie Iannotti (Timber Press: Portland, OR, 2011) and Seed Starter by Maureen Heffernan (Macmillan Publishing: New York, NY, 1997.) 

Keep a Garden Journal

Keep a journal of your activities in the garden. Record a list of the varieties of vegetables grown. Record seeding and planting dates, insect and disease problems, weather and harvest dates and yields. This information will be valuable as you plan future gardens. 

 I have kept journals for my herb garden for years, noting the plants, the yield and the diseases, if any, my plants experienced.  For this garden I decided to use both a journal and a file box.  For those who want to craft a journal, I found this great template that you can download and print.  It even has instructions for how many copies of each page you should make. 

For the file box I wanted a card for each plant or seed that I am planting.  The seed packet or plant information will be stapled to the back and the details of growth I will write on front.  I can then carry the box to the Patch with me and write as I work. I will keep pencils and blank cards in the plastic file box and carry it along with my tools at the garden when I work.