Garden Plans

     

Every year, in January, I draw a garden plan. I work out crop rotations, so that the potatoes are in new beds. I consider arch placement for the cucumbers and squash vines. I clump my crops so that the bed will all empty out at the same time, not leaving three kale plants to lurk in a corner until April, in the way of the chicken tractor. I even plan for watering, so that I can reduce consumption by thoughtful plantings. It is a tidy, orderly, thought out plan and I love creating it. I even hang it on the fridge so that I can admire it at breakfast.

Then, Spring arrives. Beds dry out at different, unexpected rates. The chicken tractor is a couple of weeks behind schedule in its rotation. The potatoes I ordered are on Maine planting schedules, not Pacific Northwest and still have not arrived. And there The Plan goes….every year. The potato bed becomes the bed for carrots and leeks, as well as the first two rows of potatoes that I held over from last year’s harvest.  Or the peas go into the tomato bed, because there are ready to be planted and that is the sunniest spot in the yard. Or….every year, the planting plan is broken by early April.

A few months later, the second type of disruption to The Plan happens. I have extra cabbage plants, because I was over enthusiastic and unable to convince friends that they, too, needed at least three types of cabbage. Or there is one tomato that does not fit in the tomato bed. Or something did not germinate, so there is a gap, ten feet long and a foot wide, along the edge of the bed. Nature abhors a vacuum, I think, and sow something not on The Plan in the space. Some years, I think I need an extra bed to hold all of the experiments—but then I just tuck them in anywhere.

By late July, the garden is a jungle, overflowing with planned plantings, random starts, and volunteers.  In a good year, I have tracked most of the changes on the garden map, which still hangs on the fridge, notes in various colors of ink all over it. After all, we need a record of where everything was this year, so that I can create—and follow—the amazing, tidy plan next year.