The author, John Marek, is a writer and executive director of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
Late last week, I made my final visit to New Beginnings Moravian Garden for 2020. Fittingly, it was an overcast day with a raw breeze and a hint of rain in the air. The last two beds I needed to harvest were sown back in September. The collards were right on schedule for the traditional New Years’ meal, and the carrots, which I had (overly) optimistically hoped might be ready for Thanksgiving, were just now coming into their own. After picking those, I splashed some water on the maturing lasagne beds I set up in October and November, retrieved my dog, Laika, who had faithfully accompanied me on virtually all my garden visits during the year, closed the latch on the gate, and drove home.
There was an undeniable sense of closure to that, as well as a sense of, well, new beginnings. I’ll take a few days to reflect on what was undoubtedly an unusual year in the garden and in the world, but as Boston and Philippians 3:13 say, “Don’t look back,” and planning for the coming growing season will soon become my focus.
My garden planning process involves two primary tools, a calendar and a map. The calendar, by tradition, must be a “gimme” from a suitable source. The past couple of years, it came from the 100-year-old local hardware store, H.W. Little, around the corner from my office, but this year my wife’s father gifted me one from the farmers’ co-op he belongs to. The map is a (somewhat) true-to-scale diagram of the garden, drawn on grid paper, or more recently printed off my MacBook.
My garden planning process’ first step is to note two critical dates on the calendar: Plant-Out Day and Dirt Day. As the name suggests, Plant-Out Day is the day the warm season crops are transplanted to or planted in the garden. The timing is based roughly on the “frost safe” date for my area, which depends on one’s willingness to take risks and ability to cover tender crops in the event of frost. For my home “kitchen garden,” I typically chose an aggressive date in early April, knowing that if worse came to worst, I could always go out and throw an old blanket over my handful of tomato and pepper plants. Now that I am responsible for a much larger, somewhat more distant church garden, that calculation has changed, and I take a more cautious approach to selecting Plant-Out Day. The chance of the temperature dropping below 36 degrees here after April 30 is less than 10 percent. The benefits of the additional two weeks in the ground simply don’t compensate for the risk of losing the crop or having it stunted by a late-season frost.
Similarly, Dirt Day is the day I plant cool season crops. These crops – lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, radishes, turnips – can withstand a frost or light freeze. The limiting factor in planting them is the soil must be warm enough for germination. To determine this date, I use the midpoint between the first day the average high exceeds 60 degrees (March 9) and the first night the average low is above freezing (March 19).
Cool season crops are direct-sown, but most warm season crops need to be started indoors, so the next step is to count backward from Plant-Out Day to determine when each of the various seedlings need to be started and record it on the calendar. Pepper seeds are the first to go into the pots. I like to give them a full 12 weeks – two to three weeks to germinate, then two months to grow to size. Next up are tomatoes and other tall-stemmed plants like eggplant, at 10 weeks. I generally wait until four weeks out to start my squash. I have found that if the plants stay in the pots much longer than that, they don’t transplant well. In fact, I only start half the number of squash plants I need indoors, direct-sowing the rest. This spreads the season out a bit and makes the total crop slightly less vulnerable to borers.
My next step is to lay the garden out spatially on a map. This helps me determine the number of each type of seedling I need to start and the amount and variety of seed I need to buy. For 2021, New Beginnings Moravian Garden will have eight 8’x4′ Square Foot Gardening (SFG) beds, two 12’x30″ lasagne beds, one 8’x30″ lasagne bed, and one 20’x30″ lasagne bed.
Four of the SFG beds will be planted in tomatoes and lettuce, with eight tomatoes and 64 lettuce in each bed. This is a form of succession gardening where the lettuce is sown and will likely see one cutting before the tomatoes are planted out and a second cutting before the tomatoes grow to a size that will inhibit the lettuce growth. Four different types of determinate tomato, each with a different time to maturity, will be grown. Again, this is done to spread out the season, ensuring tomatoes of one variety or another will be maturing from mid-June through mid-September.
The other four SFG beds will be planted in carrots, turnips, beans, cauliflower and broccoli. One of the 12L beds will be planted in corn, something entirely new for us this year, while the other, along with the 8L, will get peppers. The 20L will get squash.
Although I like to try a couple of new types every year, most of the seeds I plant are tried-and-true varieties I have been growing for years and I know will produce. Based on this historical knowledge, I calculate forward to determine a potential harvest date and note that on the calendar, as well. While that date is only a rough guide, and the actual harvest can be a week or two later (or, more rarely, earlier), it helps me plan for picking, washing and packing and guides the succession planting process.
Mike Tyson famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” and that’s as true in gardening as it is in boxing. A week of rain at the wrong time. A hot, dry spell. A June hailstorm. A bad batch of seeds. Nothing ever goes quite as planned. Still, there is something reassuring, even empowering, about putting it all down on paper here in the early days of January, thinking about those little green shoots popping their heads above the soil and the twisting vines becoming pregnant with red tomatoes.