Today I wanted to share some of my personal favorite tools for planning and organizing your garden. One of my favorite things to do on a snowy January night is look through seed catalogs and dream about warm summer days and gardening. Whether you are planning a small patio garden, a couple plots at your community garden or a large backyard vegetable garden I think you’ll find these tools useful. I’ve also included links to my favorite seed catalogs as well as a free printable Garden Planner to help you get organized for the coming gardening season. It’s definitely not too early to start thinking about how your garden will grow!
Start planning your garden by grabbing the following:
- pencils
- any seeds from previous years
- seed catalogs (I included links to my favorite companies at the bottom of this post)
- Garden Plan Printable (Free! Just enter your email address below to have instant access!)
1. Using your Seed Inventory printable, go through all your seed packets from previous years. Toss anything older than a year (germination rate will have decreased greatly!) and make note of what you keep on your Seed Inventory sheet.
2. Curl up with a cup of coffee or tea and your seed catalogs, Seed Order printable, and get to dreaming. Write down seeds that look interesting to you, remember to order your favorites and don’t forget to try something new!
3. Before actually ordering your seeds it is a good idea to plan out the vegetables you want to grow using your Garden Bed Plans printable. Even if it is just a rough draft you will at least get a good idea as to if you are ordering too many seed varieties for the room you have, or if you need to order more! If you are planting a Square Foot Garden check out this reference (here) I use so I know how many plants can go into each square foot.
4. Once you have a good idea of what you want to plant and where it will all actually be planted, cross reference your Seed Orders with your Seed Inventory. You can order online but I always love the customer service I have received when I’ve given the seed companies a call.
My favorite Seed Companies:
- Baker Creek
- Gardens Alive
- Botanical Interests
- Jung (especially for Zinnia seeds!)
- Johnny’s Selected Seeds
With Love, Jennifer
How cool! I wish I could grow stuff. I have a black thumb, unfortunately.
This makes me want to go outside right now and get my hands in the dirt. Gardening is so satisfying – it’s always so cool to watch your work pay off, and there’s nothing as good as truly fresh food.
This makes me want to go out right now and get my hands in the dirt! Gardening is so satisfying – it’s so cool watching your hard work pay off, and nothing tastes quite as good as truly fresh food.
My daughter and I have been wanting to start veggie garden! Seems easy enough!
I badly needed this planner. I can’t grow up a plant that easy and maybe this Garden Planner could be a big help. I want my own garden, and I wanted a fresh veggie and fruit of my own.
Love this! Been trying my best to grow veggies in my garden just because! It’s nice to have a list to keep track of everything that needs to be done! Thanks for the printables.
those are awesome. we have a small garden. i’ll have to se these
i don’t have a garden but I do want one some day! this is a great idea!
A green thumb, I am not. I have been wanting to grow some vegetables however.
– Kristin
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