Planning a garden

The most fun part of gardening is right now. It's when you plan the garden beds and order the plants and seeds. Ahhhh. So pleasant! No mosquitoes, no sweating, no cleaning up the kitchen twice a day. Just daydreaming and shopping at home, two activities most people enjoy. I certainly am among those who revel in this part of the year.

Garden plans can be simple notes, as for this 4 x 6 raised bed starter garden:

Or you can get out the graph paper and get complicated. Here's the overview of my whole growing area right now.  I have a detailed plan for the part labeled "fenced 3-season garden" (AKA 'the big bed,' though it's no longer the biggest!) In fact, I have two plans for that: summer's, and spring/fall's (neither shown here).

Catalogs are fun to peruse on a cold January day. You pick a couple of sellers to buy from, write a couple of checks (I no longer use credit cards), and know that in February the cheap/common seeds will arrive at the Dollar Tree.

And then you make sure the seed starting gear is all ready to go for next week, which is when peppers (slow to germinate and grow) are started.

And so another veg season begins.