Garden Planning

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When your goal is self-sufficiency, you must have food and a way to grow your food. Vegetables and fruits are the biggest, need in the food department. Growing a garden is the best way to solve this problem. Starting an orchard is a good way to get your fruits. Turning the orchard or garden into a polyculture benefits you and the wildlife and plants you are growing. 

Gardening is fairly straight forward. There an many different methods now, Back to Eden, Square Foot Gardening, traditional row garden, or a mix of them. I used to think that the pretty flowers were not something I should invest in, but as I have learned more about polycultures, I have found they actually have benefits beyond looking good. Many pretty flowers are also pollinator attractors. They smell and look attractive to the bees and butterflies that will also help your garden vegetable plants pollinate better. 

Orchards take time to develop. But have the advantage of many years of produce. Turning a small space into a polyculture orchard, with trees, berry bushes, and flowers is an effective way to maximize use of a limited space. Orchards especially benefit from the polyculture planting. By planting perennial companion plants around the trees and bushes, you can deter pests you don’t want, but attract the pollinators you do want. 

When growing your garden or orchard it will not benefit you to grow a bunch of food your family will not eat. I like to buy a little of something I’m considering growing before I commit the space and energy into growing it. This allows me to determine if my family will even like or learn to like the food. So grow primarily what you will consume, but give a little space to experiment if you want. 

In either an annual garden or orchard, map out where you plan to grow the plants. This helps you organize how to arrange the garden, plant quicker, and keep track of where things are planted when little helpers pull up the tags (not that I would have any experience with that…). The Homesteading Organizer is a perfect place to organize your garden or orchard in a book, you won’t loose the maps either. You can get a peak inside the organizer before you buy it here. 

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links, with NO additional cost to you. 

We are in the heart of gardening season in Nebraska. Plants are up, cool seasons done, most of the weeding is done, and the fruit of the labor is starting to show. It is honestly the best time. Water the garden and pick the produce and enjoy! The early hard work of establishing plants is done and the bulk of harvest is yet to come. 

I’m often asked when people see or hear about my gardens: “How do you get it all done?” The short answer, ‘Little by little.” I started small with my garden, a few simple easy to grow plants and have expanded from there. Every year my garden has grown a bit, with more plants, more variety, and more space. Along the way I learned a few things that help cut down on the amount of work over the summer.

#1 Mulch. Not just the 1-2 inches of mulch or dusting like you do when planting grass, but deep mulch. Like 4-6 inches of mulch. Why that deep? Not only does it help the moisture stay in the soil better, it blocks much of the weed growth. Will you still have to weed? Yes, but much less. Who has time to spend all day weeding anyway?

#2 Tackle small parts at a time. This one hit hard this year. I would look at everything that needed done, planted, weeded, prepped, watered, and simply become overwhelmed. Once I reminded myself to tackle small chunks at a time, it made the job more do-able and less stressful. I divide the garden into sections for planting, weeding and watering and stick with the smaller parts. I am more likely to finish one section before it gets too hot or the kids need me that way. 

#3 Try one new thing at a time. This is huge for beginners. I started with a sweet corn patch my hubby planted, some pumpkins and cucumbers that took over, and maybe a tomato plant and pepper. I cannot even count how many plants I have now without walking around the gardens. Each year I added one or two varieties to try. Became good with those and added more. I also started with small patches to experiment with so space isn't wasted.  

#4 Companion plant. This took me a few years to catch on to. It actually started by accident, when I couldn’t fit all my tomatoes in one spot in the garden. The results were worth repeating year after year! There was less bug damage to the overall crop when plants were mixed together. This year I took a spin on it and planted my tomatoes all in beds together, but planted basil around them. Basil tends to repel the bugs attracted to the tomatoes and I wanted more basil. It was a win-win. Check out the list of friend/foe plants I made earlier for more details. 

What are some lessons you’ve learned from your hobbies that others would benefit from? 

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This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links, with no additional cost to you.

Wanting a community to lean into? Join the FREE Courageous + Purposeful Mommas group! This community is for the Mommas, mommas to be, in the midst of raising, and kids grown, looking for tips on building your family up and providing for them through natural methods. Tips include: gardening, bulk buying, caning,/preserving, livestock, homesteading, and home remedies. Your family is precious, and this group is to help you gain the knowledge and tools to keep your family well and not reliant on outside professionals. Remedies and tips are easy and simple for the busy momma, time is precious after all, including pregnancy, birth, young kids, and illness. Trust your Momma gut again! This community offers the resources + community you need to help get started on your journey and prepare for whatever future you envision.

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This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links, with no additional cost to you.

If you like to have as many plants as possible it is important to plan out where you will plant everything in your garden. I have found that if I space the bigger plants, like the tomatoes, out amongst the other plants the bugs are not as bad. If I don’t map the garden out before, I found that I run out of space or forget something. 

Some plants give off a strong fragrance that bugs don’t like. Use this to your advantage to keep the bugs in the garden away. I plant marigolds all around the boarder of my garden and have seen reduction in the bug issues I had on my plants. Onions and garlic are also pest repellents. 

If you’re going to have both green sweet peppers and hot peppers, make sure they are not next to each other. They will cross pollinate and your hot peppers will not be hot.  In general, the dryer, the hotter the peppers will be. For this reason, I tend to plant my hot peppers on the edge of the garden. They catch water, but not as much as the center of the garden. I also plant the sweet peppers and hot peppers at least halfway across the garden from each other. 

Keep in mind that some plants do well together, while others work against each other. Below is a nice graph I found that has friend and foe plants. You can pair cool season with warm season as well. For example, broccoli will be done early, pair it something that likes the hot like peppers or cabbage and you have doubled your space without adding area! Another tip is to make plants that can climb, like cucumber, climb. Add a fence or old panel for heavy plants like cucumbers, squash, or pumpkins or you can purchase a trellis. I actually take the pumpkins and squash to the irrigation engines or centers and plant them there for weed control!

Wanting a community to lean into? Join the FREE Courageous + Purposeful Mommas group! This community is for the Mommas, mommas to be, in the midst of raising, and kids grown, looking for tips on building your family up and providing for them through natural methods. Tips include: gardening, bulk buying, caning,/preserving, livestock, homesteading, and home remedies. Your family is precious, and this group is to help you gain the knowledge and tools to keep your family well and not reliant on outside professionals. Remedies and tips are easy and simple for the busy momma, time is precious after all, including pregnancy, birth, young kids, and illness. Trust your Momma gut again! This community offers the resources + community you need to help get started on your journey and prepare for whatever future you envision.

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