Taking the time to plan the important details of your garden at the start of each growing season is an essential seed for success. This goes far beyond choosing what you want to grow. You need to choose the ideal location, how you’re going to prepare the soil, and the irrigation system, and how and when you’re going to fertilize each thing you grow.
There are a lot of factors to keep in mind. It helps to break it all down into easy-to-manage steps that you can account for in your gardening plan for 2024.
Step One: Choose the Ideal Location
Most garden vegetables need at least 8 hours of direct sunlight per day to provide you with a bountiful harvest. With some herbs, it might help to plant them in a location with 4 to 6 hours of direct sun and dappled shade or partial sun the rest of the day.
The face or exposure of the planting bed can also be a factor. Most vegetables and herbs prefer east or southeastern exposure in the northern hemisphere, and light shade in the late afternoon. This is especially helpful for fruiting plants like peppers that can be vulnerable to sunscald.
If you have trees or mixed lighting conditions in different parts of your garden, you will need to account for this in your location planning.
Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplantsdo best with 8+ hours of direct sunlight.
Root vegetables like beets, potatoes, and carrots can still be productive with 4 to 6 hours of sunlight.
Leafy herbs like basil, parsley, and mintneed 4 to 6 hours of sunlight and prefer morning light to afternoon.
Vining or sprawling plants like pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash can be trellised to maximize their light exposure or planted at the edges of the garden.
Pro Tip
When planning the location for a new garden bed you need to take into account the surrounding trees. This matters not just for the presence of shade, but also because some trees and fruiting vines can be harmful to garden plants.
The roots of nearby walnut trees give off a substance called Juglone which is toxic to many garden plants. Raspberries and similar canes can also harbor fungal diseases like early blight that can pass to popular vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers.
Step Two: Test Your Soil
Soil content and chemistry play a key role in deciding not just where you’re going to plant specific herbs and vegetables, but also in the style of planting bed you use.
You can get a basic idea of how much clay and/or sand you have in your existing soil by modestly watering it. Then form it into an oblong ball in your hand. If the wad of wet soil sticks together and feels a little slimy, you likely have a high amount of clay. If it fall apart easily and feels grainy, you likely have very sandy soil.
Balanced soil with a modest amount of organic matter, formed into an oblong wad, might crack into one or two chunks and look fibrous.
Consider Raised Beds
If your soil has a high amount of clay, or it’s in a low area that’s prone to pooling with water, raised beds might be a better idea. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. A simple frame made from 2X6 treated lumber will hold enough balanced soil to keep roots from being overly water-logged.
Test Soil Chemistry
The pH of your soil, and the presence of key nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (Soluble Potash) will factor heavily in how your plants grow. If you have time and money on your hands, you can reach out to your local county agricultural extension office. They can perform a comprehensive analysis.
Yet you can get a basic idea of your soil chemistry with a basic soil test kit. This is usually the faster, easier, and more cost-effective route for a home garden.
Step Three: Amend Your Soil
If your soil test comes back with a significant disparity in the pH or one of the key soil nutrients you can amend it 2 to 4 weeks before planting.
Alkaline soil can be amended by tilling in garden sulfur or a mixture of composted wood and peat moss.
Acidic soil can be neutralized by adding a small amount of dolomitic lime. However, this should only be done in small amounts, as it’s easier to raise soil pH than it is to lower it.
Low nitrogen levels in the soil can be amended by tilling in some finely mulched grass clippings or adding strong compost tea.
Low phosphorus levels can be amended by tilling in some composted chicken manure, fish emulsion or bone meal.
Low potassium levels in the soil you can add mulched seaweed, sprinkle wood ash or add potassium sulfate.
Step Four: Plan Your Paths
Before you even decide what you’re going to grow in different garden plots and raised beds you need to know how you, and things like wheelbarrows, and hoses are going to navigate through the garden.
It often helps to have a single wide path through the middle of the garden. This lets you move potting trays, harvesting baskets, or a wide wheelbarrow through the garden. Then you can stop to work the narrower rows individually.
If you’re going to pull hoses or run irrigation lines, you should include them in your garden path plan. This might include placing stakes or anchors so that if you do need to pull on a hose, it won’t accidentally drag over a planting bed.
Step Five: Plan Your Irrigation System
Watering a garden calls for more than just hosing all the plants down from time to time. Especially if you live in an arid region where natural rainfall is scarce.
Sprinklers
A lot of fruiting plants and herbs become prone to blight and fungal diseases if the leaves get overly wet. This makes sprinklers a less-than-ideal option for watering things like tomatoes, cabbage, and raspberries.
Hand Watering
The ideal method is to hand-water plants from strategically placed buckets ensuring that the water goes directly onto the root base. You can position five-gallon buckets every 3 5 rows andfill them directly from a hose. However, this is very labor-intensive for anything more than small gardens.
Drip Irrigation Systems
A drip irrigation system with lines running directly past the roots of the plants is the ideal method for ensuring proper water saturation.
Drip irrigation systems require detailed planning to ensure all the lines are getting where they need to without any kinks. It also tends to have a higher up-front cost, so you’ll need to plan for it in your budget.
Step Six: Consider Companion Planting and Succession Planting
Having a plan for which herbs and vegetables you’ll companion plant or succession plant goes a long way toward optimizing the square foot production of your garden.
A prime example of succession planting would be to plant spinach in a bed, to maximize it’s early spring production. It will be completely harvested by the time the heat of early summer comes around, making the ideal space for eggplants or tropical peppers.
A prime example of companion planting is planting tomatoes and basil together. The odor of the basil repels harmful insects like hornworms, while simultaneously attracting good pollinators that help maximize the tomato plant’s yield.
Pro Tip
When planning your companion and succession plantings, also take the time to research plants that compete with each other. Such as cabbage and tomatoes where the cabbage stunts the growth of tomato plants, while both species compete for key soil nutrients.
Step Seven: Consider Trellises for Vining Plants
Trellises are a great way to maximize the growing space in your garden. Especially if you love to grow vining plants like bush cucumbers, and pole beans.
Just double-check to make sure that the plants you choose for trellises have a true “Vining” characteristic. You also want to check to make sure bean and cucumber varieties are considered “Shade Tolerant” to keep their own leaves from shading each other.
Pro Tip
If you live in a northern-tier state, it helps to adjust the angle of your trellises to the same degree of latitude. This simple trick maximizes the angle of the summer sun while minimizing shading from your vines.
However, this does require a much taller trellis than using a simple pole or tunnel trellis technique. You’ll need to account for this and the structure to support it. Often a trellis attached to a garden shed with a south face is ideal.
Step Eight: Account for Pollination
A lot of vegetables are self-pollinating or only require the minimal presence of pollinating insects to bear fruit. If the beneficial pollinator population in your area is low, you might need to also plant aromatic flowers near your garden to attract bees.
There are also some vegetables, like corn, that are wind-pollinated. If you don’t plan for the proper planting density, the ears of corn will have a lot of undeveloped kernels. If you don’t plan to plant the necessary number of rows for effective pollination, you might need to tediously hand pollinate with tassels.
Pro Tip
If you’re planning to grow open-pollinated/heirloom vegetables for seed saving, you should also consider planting them in isolation from other varieties. Many heirloom plants need at least 200 feet between them and a differing variety to reduce the risk of accidental cross-pollination.
Step Nine: Plan Your Borders
The borders of your garden are the ideal place to place sprawling plants and aromatic flowers that help repel harmful insects. This is a great place for zucchini, cucumbers, and even bush beans that don’t have a natural vining trait to help them climb.
Best Sprawling Vegetables for a Garden Border
Pumpkins and winter squash often have sharp spines on the vines, which racoons cannot tolerate touching. Plating them in a complete border around your garden is a great way to protect your vegetables from would-be animal pests. It also gives the sprawling vines a place to grow without shading out other plants.
Flowers &Herbs That Repel Harmful Insects
French Marigolds and nasturtium flowers emit a fragrance that many insects and their larvae are repulsed by. Herbs like lemongrass and rosemary also help repel insects and some animal pests like deer.
Flowers Herbs That Attract Harmful Insects
Moonflowers, dill, and other flowers that attract harmful insects can also be used strategically. Planning to plant them between your garden and the nearest natural water source will draw moths and other potentially harmful insects away from your garden. You also need to avoid planting these flowers and herbs in your garden, as they can counter the efforts of marigolds, nasturtiums, and rosemary.
Step Ten: Plan Your Harvest Times
When planning your garden for the coming year, you also want to think about the harvest time. Understanding when vegetables are ready to be picked helps you stay ahead of pickling, canning, and drying them for storage.
It also gives you the opportunity for late summer and fall succession planning. Depending on what you grow and when it’s harvested, you can get a bumper crop in the fall from thoughtful spring planting. Snow peas that fade away in late June can have a second season replanted in July for a fall harvest. Eggplants that are done producing by the end of August can make way for fall radishes and mesclun greens.
So grab your garden planner, dream up your crops, and start building your roadmap for the year ahead—the best harvests come from gardens that are thoughtfully planned from the very beginning.
Written By
Amber Noyes
Amber Noyes was born and raised in a suburban California town, San Mateo. She holds a master’s degree in horticulture from the University of California as well as a BS in Biology from the University of San Francisco. With experience working on an organic farm, water conservation research, farmers’ markets, and plant nursery, she understands what makes plants thrive and how we can better understand the connection between microclimate and plant health. When she’s not on the land, Amber loves informing people of new ideas/things related to gardening, especially organic gardening, houseplants, and growing plants in a small space.