I’m excited to be beginning this garden diary. I’m hoping that in addition to being helpful to other beginners, that the responsibility of these postings will help to keep me both vigilant and organized.

The garden I am planning for this spring is my third gardening attempt. Last spring, gardening was something of an afterthought, begun after 1 June. Despite making some beginner’s mistakes, I had some success with tomatoes, zucchini, okra and particularly cantaloupe, and produced some great kale and broccoli in the fall. This spring I have dug up almost 800 square feet to work with, surrounded it with rabbit guard, and made a plan. My objectives for this Spring are as follows:

1. Produce more food than I did last year; ideally so much that I am forced to freeze, can or dehydrate food to preserve it.
2. Not make the same mistakes I made last year.

I am only planning to grow things that I have a reasonable assurance will do well, based on my past garden experiences, and the research that I have done over the winter.

Because over planting (along with failure to thin) was a big problem for me last year, I want to make sure that all of my plants have enough space. In order to do that, I am dividing my space into 3’x3’ squares, with the goal of having one strong, healthy and heavily-producing plant on a mound in the center of each square. The exception to this will be a few things like the Daikon, turnip and beets, which can be a little closer together. For those I think I’ll shoot for three good plants per square.

I am as yet undecided about what I will do with the soil if anything, but I am thinking of mulching with hay.

I have done some research on companion planting. This is the practice of planting things together that do well together, and not planting things together that don’t. My understanding is that this also has to do with what insects each type of plant attracts – that things that do well together do so partly (or sometimes) because they act as trap plants for one another to keep unwanted pests away. I found a number of charts listing good and bad companions by googling “companion planting charts”. It may be that I shouldn’t have some plants in the same garden at all, but we’ll see. I’m hoping that keeping them separated as far as possible will help. I will also be inter-planting marigolds with the vegetables, as marigolds are supposed to be good companions for a number of different vegetables.

I think that’s enough for today. I’ll talk about what I’m planting, and where, next time.