Today I’m sharing a few snippets from the first chapter of my Crop Planning ebook. This ebook is super helpful in making sure you have a successful gardening season. From deciding what to grow, how to grow it, when to harvest, to crop storage, how to afford your garden, and seed saving. You may want to check it out for your spring garden planning!
So you are ready to plan your 2024 garden.
Before adding a gazillion seed packets to your cart, and going way overboard with purchasing (no? just me?) we want to consider a few things first:
First things first, before even adding a single thing to your cart, you will want to sit down and make a quick list of WHAT your family actually LIKES to eat, and will eat. As I’ve mentioned in recent past homesteading events, if your family doesn’t consider Brussel sprouts as a big winner on the dinner plate, probably best not to plant much of it. But alternatively, if your family gobbles up green beans and cherry tomatoes, definitely add a couple varieties of each to your list.
Figure out what the main crops are that your family will eat and enjoy. Both fresh - AND - preserved. Which leads me to my next tip…
Add to your list the top foods that you can preserve for winter. For us, that looks like tomatoes (sauce, salsa, crushed), green beans, zucchini, squash, beets, potatoes, onion, garlic, corn, and more. Those are the veggies we love to have stored up in the pantry to cellar for winter eating. If you are not big into canning and freezing, maybe just make a small list of 1-3 items that you’d like to learn how to can this fall. Or freeze. Anything you can do to keep your garden working for you all year long!
Next tip:
Figure out what foods you often buy from the grocery store that you can grow yourself. What’s in your cart weekly? This will help you have a guideline for what should be in your garden.
Also, consider what veggies taste better out of our summer garden as opposed to the January Kroger shelf. These are definitely the foods we grow to preserve, because we for sure love the taste of sweet corn and pasta sauce that came from our sun-ripened summer garden and not the canned food aisle at the grocery. This will help you create your list.
Lastly, which crops will provide you the highest value?
What I mean by that is, what crops can you yield the most from that are still easy to grow.
For example: tomatoes. Tomatoes are not only great for fresh eating, both slicing and cherry, but they are great on salads, sandwiches, in soups and pastas, etc. And they can amazingly well! Tomatoes are one of the easiest crops to preserve. So because you can eat them fresh and turn them into soooo many other things, they are a huge bang for your buck!
A few others would be carrots, squash, beets, sweet corn, onions, cucumbers, and green beans.
So now that you have your list and it’s time to shop, you have a better understanding of what you should purchase and how you can plan out how much of each crop you’ll need (preserving vs just fresh eating…you won’t need nearly as much lettuce seed as you would tomatoes).
And don’t forget, it’s ok to also purchase a few crops that you love, simply because you love them! Gardening is such an art. It can be beautiful but also so so beneficial for us.
If you have any questions on garden planning, reach out or check out my ebook that goes into more detail!
I’m rooting for you! :)
