My garden is going to be a bit bigger this year, so it will take a little bit more planning. Even if you only have one container of veggies you can do a little bit of planning.  There are some vegetables that work well together, and some that just don’t. There are some vegetables that will help keep certain bugs away and some that will attract them.

I am planning to get a garden diary this year so I can keep track of my vegetable garden plan for this year as well as know what I planted where for next year. I love the idea of being able to keep track of my gardens from year to year, take notes so I know what worked and what didn’t. You think you will remember, but so much goes on and I have found I can barely remember where I had things planted from one year to the next, with an even bigger garden this year and a toddler to chase after I bet it gets even harder.

Planning where you want to put your plants, how many you’re going to need based on the amount of space you have, where you planted things last year these are all important parts of a vegetable garden plan.

I have found some great books that help me with my plan the two I use every year for my garden are Square Foot Gardening and Lasagna Gardening.

Square Foot Gardening is an amazing book. It is easy to understand and this method uses raised beds, just like I like. He does use a very specific mix for his “dirt” which was a little more than I wanted to mess with. Which brings me to Lasagna Gardening~ this is where you basically build a compost bin within your raised bed and then just plant.

Square foot gardening will show you how you can plant a huge garden in a very small amount of space. It will show you exactly how much space each plant will need, how many plants you can put in a square foot, how long each will take until harvest, and which plants you can plant before and after. You will end up having produce the whole season through using this method, and you will have next to NO weeds to deal with.

It’s a very good plan, and the book is well worth the small amount it costs.

That being said, I still didn’t want to mess around with all the ingredients I had to buy to make his “dirt” when I had tons and tons of compostable materials all around here. Lasagna Gardening shows you how to use your compostable materials and build a raise vegetable garden in no time flat that you can plant in right away. So I ended up mixing the two for a hybrid garden, a lasagna square foot garden.

It’s been working for me quite well for the last couple years and I look forward to planning more beds this years, and expanding the vegetables I’ve been growing as well.

Make sure when you’re making your vegetable garden plan to add in a row or a square foot for your local food bank.

When you use raised vegetable beds you can put them wherever you want them, wherever you have room (as long as there’s sun).

You can also make the soil just the way you want it. You don’t have to worry if your soil has too much clay or too much sand.

It’s raised which means you can actually have it at any height you want it. If you have bad knees or a bad back you can put your raised bed as high as you want it, even on a table.

I personally put my raised beds on the ground and eventually the plants work their way into the real ground ~ at least that’s what I imagine happens at the bottom.

You can easily rotate crops.  This year I am added a couple extra raised beds to my garden. I have been using one raised bed about 16 foot by 4 foot for the last couple of years. I am adding a couple extra beds this year because I want more produce to can and give away. I have been making sure I switch up where I plant the tomatoes and squash, so each year  I switch which end they are planted on.

I also use containers for some fruits and veggies. I had great luck last year with sweet potatoes in a half barrel ~ it used to have oil in it. My husband just cut it in half. The big hole in the bottom where the oil used to pour out was perfect for drainage.

I’m digressing I see.  As you can see there are quite a few benefits of to the raised vegetable garden. Oh I forgot the biggest one ~ WEEDS.

In a raised vegetable garden, especially if you put something like cardboard or newspaper on the bottom of the bed, the weeds are almost non existent. I love that. So if you are thinking an in ground garden seems overwhelming ~ you don’t have access to a tiller or something to turn the soil a raised vegetable garden might be the perfect option for you!

A raised bed is also a very easy way to begin an organic vegetable garden. With the ability to easily decrease the amount of weeds, and add compost to the bed instead of fertilizer it is a great way for beginners to test the organic waters.