Planning, Documenting and Learning during our first season in Eastern Ontario
When we started our new garden, we were wondering about how many seeds we'd need for the amount of veggies we'd like to grow. How much space would be necessary, how many beds of what size and how to plan this whole thing in general. Does that sound familiar to you?
We're kind of naturally scientists by heart, so we love to think stuff through, to plan, to analyze and to have an overview of what's going on.
This spring we decided to be not too perfect, and sew too many seeds and therefor had too much to plant. We were not familiar with the weather conditions and soil in our new lot and so we thought we might need substitute plants, if late frosts would kill some of the plants. Well, this is one reason why we ended up with a little overproduction here and there, but most of the time it worked out pretty nicely this year. And we actually had no losses due to frost. The other reason why we decided to 'just do it' and not to overthink it was, that we just didn't have enough time to calculate and plan and think stuff through this time. we had to start the seedlings and the garden and then we'd see what happens. That's one thing we really don't like to do, but it was one necessity we had to learn being parents to two little boys (now 1 1/2 and 3 1/2 years of age). Just trust your feeling, go ahead and let it develop. It definitely worked out this year.

We would like to give you an idea of how we planned the garden, what we did to document it's development and harvests along the way and what we hope to learn from this first year. Based on this personal experience we developed the steps to lead our clients through the process of starting and maintaining a kitchen garden.
1. Winter-work
During the winter we made a list of what veggies and herbs we definitely wanted to grow. Being new to Eastern Canada, we looked for local seed companies and options to order a seed catalog. This way we came across Vesey's Seeds. After comparing prices and the availability of organic and heirloom seeds between different companies, we decided to go with Vesey's for now. First of all, we wanted a local company that offered seeds adapted to the Eastern Canadian climate and second, we wanted as many seeds as possible to be organic and/or heirloom. So we took out our wish list of crops and made hard decisions like 'how many varieties of tomatoes are really necessary?'.
We felt really happy sending off our order of seeds by the end of January and even happier when we received the order three weeks later. We got lucky to be ahead of the Covid-lockdown, when seeds were suddenly sold out everywhere.
Spring was definitely coming even tough there was still a big layer of snow and ice all around. But the bay window of our living room turned into our little DIY-nursery and very soon little happy seedlings of spinach, tomatoes, cabbages, broccoli and many more appeared and made our green thumbs very itchy.
2. Layout and beds
Now that we knew what we wanted to grow and how many seedlings we started, we could start calculating how many beds we'd need. This surely is the reverse way around on how you should approach planning your garden. We got lucky that the space for our vegetable garden was big and Eric just enjoys building whatever was needed.
The polytunnel (dimensions: 12x10x6,5f) was dedicated to tomatoes and some herbs right away. We had read that tomatoes planted together with celery are supposed to be very tasty, so we planned to put some celeries in there, too.
For the beets, kale and chard we wanted a cold frame, so we could start the seeds outside very early. The same we needed for all the cucumbers started indoors. We discussed what we needed and Eric created a really beautiful and sturdy (almost greenhouse looking) cold frame with windows on top. He started building them as soon as the weather was warm enough (dimensions: 10x5ft, hight with tops: 4ft). When he was done Ines was like... 'Wow! Thank you! That's awesome! But you know, there are all these broccoli's and cabbages. I don't know where to put them. Could you build me more beds please?!' :-)
We just wanted very simple raised beds with hoops so we could cover them with row covers to keep the white cabbage butterfly away from the plants and shelter them during expected heat waves. A couple of days later they were installed as well and ready to be filled with soil and plants.
3. The No-Dig approach
When we did our research on setting up a new garden from scratch we came across CHARLES DOWDING and his No-Dig approach. We loved that it would save us lots of time and effort, if we wouldn't need to dig all of these beds - not to mention saving our poor backs from pain. But more than anything else it was the way CHARLES DOWDING explains the reasons why an undisturbed soil is a better soil for an even greater harvest. From a biological point of view it made so much sense to us, we had to give it a shot. Another great thing was, that we had so much cardboard boxed lying around from moving, that the question of what to use as mulch (mostly as a barrier for weeds to grow) was solved very easily. As soon as the polytunnel was up, we layered the ground with cardboard right on top of the grass. The next step was getting compost, putting it on top of the cardboard and everything was ready to be planted. We love this way of setting up a garden!
4. Planting and documenting the setting
As soon as the danger of frost passed, we could plant all our little seedlings. We put them outside for at least 2 weeks (step by step longer each day) to harden them off and then we started filling the beds. That's such an uplifting fun part of gardening! We just love to dirty our hands when planting. After every planting session we made a sketch of the bed to document the progress. This way we could tell later this year what worked well, which plants grew really well and which ones didn't. It's a simple but very important step when starting a garden, because one just never remembers everything. At the very least you're going to try to remember next spring what you did last year. Then you'll be very happy about these little notes
5. Notes and photos
The same counts for the development of the garden. During the season there are so many changes in the garden. The plants grow so quickly and we want to remember how the development looked like during this past year. That will be important when planting next season, especially when we space out the plants in the beds (we tend to plant them a little too close). Other things we like to document are pests, pest control, diseases, temperature and precipitation. It will help to understand e.g. why one crop didn't grow as well as the others or one bed did better than the other. You see, notes and pictures of the garden are really essential. We use a very beautiful nature calendar exceptionally for our garden notes. It's designed and actually drawn by MARJOLEIN BASTIN and we get it every year from my Ines' mom.
6. Documenting the harvests
Another thing we like to document is the amount of harvest. It is such a fun thing to do! Our oldest boy loves helping with the scale and learns reading it as we go.
The reason for this effort is, that we want to be able to know: when we had the first harvest of a certain crop, how often we could harvest it and how big the yield was at a certain day. We make notes about these facts in the calendar mentioned above, because we usually need to make quick notes just before cooking. Afterwards we fill out a chart in Exel that we created just for this matter. This way we have an overview at the end of the season where we can see, which crop gave us really good yields and which ones didn't do so good. Now we can try to find out the reasons why and apply changes to the garden next season.
Now you know what I did and it is certainly not perfect, but it was a fun approach to documentation the development of our new garden. These experiences made it possible to develop a step by step procedure for you, our local clients, to guide you on your way to your own dream kitchen garden. We're looking forward to get to know you!
Happy Gardening!
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