Garden Planning

According to my fancy gardening book, it's time to start planning for next year's garden.  Don't have to ask me twice!  

First things first.  I was hoping to use as much space as I could for a garden.  Since we are renters, I can't just turn our lawn in the backyard into a giant garden.  Although, that's what I REALLY want to do.  The next best thing will be raised beds around the edges of the yard.  I pulled out hubby's measuring tape and started measuring.  He figured with my measurements (I ALWAYS leave the math to him) that we could have 7 raised beds in our yard.  That's more than I was expecting!  Three will be 3'x6', two will be 3'x8' and two will be 3'x5'.  This leaves room to walk around and in-between them.  GREAT! 

Next step was to pick what I am wanting to grow!  Oh, the decisions!  SOOO many options.  I stuck with things I KNOW we (chickens included) will eat and preserve.  Once I had my list, I went online and found what KINDS of the vegetable I wanted to grow and how much space they need.  For example:  Carrots - Rainbow - 2-4".  

So with my list ready, I pulled out some graphing paper.  Now to plan what goes where.  On our graph, each square would represent 4".  So I went ahead and put in everything I wanted to plant according to the space they need.  HOLY COW!  I didn't realize how much I am going to be able to plant!  That was SUPER exciting!  I mean, carrots alone, I should be able to plant just over 200 in less than half a bed!  And these are just the raised beds!  I still have the area next to the coop to plan and all the planters for the deck!  I am thinking I will plant a pumpkin in the bed next to the coop and do my herbs in the planters.  It gets so hot next to the coop against the house, I think the pumpkins will do well.  

So that's the plan this far!  It MIGHT change between now and when it's time to start but I think it's a great start. 

Now to start finding cheap ways to make seven raised beds!