If you want to orchestrate a garden that satisfies a certain percentage of your family’s produce needs, you need to get used to the idea of garden planning. Gardening was my gateway drug into this homesteading lifestyle, and I will always count it as a necessary (and enjoyable) part of my backyard farming life.

Today, I’m going to go over my 2018 spring garden plan, and how it relates to my 2018 homestead goals and beyond. I would’ve posted this on Sunday, but I was busy with the chicken tractor! 

From my 2018 Homestead Plan:

Garden:

• Plan the garden beds
• Set up the garden beds with fencing to protect from the deer
• Heavily compost the soil and plant a cover crop for over the summer
• Plan the fall garden

We bought this house last year in June, so there wasn’t really time to set up a garden. We also had some immediate repairs to make (like when the HVAC unit died on the hottest day of the summer!). I wasn’t expecting to be with child, but despite that, I’m determined to get the three garden beds I originally planned for set up!

 

The Garden Plan

 

As you can see above, I’m planning for quite the garden. I want 12 garden beds altogether, and I plan on expanding by three beds each year. Deer roam all over (see how our deer destroyed my almost finished chicken tractor?), so we will have to fence in our garden beds as a deterrent.

 

I want enough space between the two rows of beds for my wheelbarrow, so I have factored that in. Not all of these beds will be annual rotating beds either. We will have a strawberry bed (maybe two) and an asparagus bed.

 

This month, I’m going to strategically place the new chicken tractor so the chickens can help out by clearing out the grass where I want the beds. I will heavily compost the areas I mark for the beds and plant a cover crop. If I feel up to it, after the baby is here, we will plan a fall garden!

 

There it is everyone. It isn’t glamorous, but this baby isn’t my first go round. I’m trying to be realistic about what I’m actually going to be able to do. I’m also planning on getting our two goat doelings in July or August, so it could be that we are all focused on them, and I just plant another cover crop to improve soil health.

 

Oh! My friend over at the Willow Creek Farm blog posted about how they turned plastic garbage cans into rainwater barrels. I totally plan on doing this!!! We already have some lying around! Just one more way to save water AND make it easier to care for the garden!

 

Have you created plans for your 2018 garden? I’d love to hear about your garden planning in the comments! Maybe you’ll give me some ideas!