Plan Your Garden; why, how, what, where

I often get asked; “Émely, why do you spend so much attention to planning a garden?”

Besides the fact that a plan makes your garden and especially a small garden way more productive, it makes gardening so much easier and way more fun.

The majority of new or just beginning gardeners gives up, because they get overwhelmed after loosing sight, not having a structure in their garden, no longer knowing what to grow when or where and then they get disappointed that their garden does not give them what they expected.

I believe all these problems are preventable with a good plan. Let me break it down for you per challenge.

Overwhelm by loosing sight: When you do not plan your garden, you will very likely end up with too big a garden to maintain. Also an unplanned garden will for sure become quite wild during the season. It won’t be clear anymore what is growing where, which plants are your vegetables and which are weeds. I am sure you can imagine all this creating overwhelm. And worst of all, it results in the fact that many ready to harvest vegetables are overseen or not recognised as such. Which means you will get lower yields.

No structure in your garden: Without a structure it is just waiting for the moment at which you no longer see the difference between vegetables and weeds. It also hinders a good routine of sowing, growing and harvesting and repeating that multiple times per season in your garden. A garden like this will for sure give less variety and lower yields than possible.

No longer knowing what to grow: With a plan it is so much easier to keep an overview on which vegetables are best grown in which location, at what time and also when they should be harvested so you create space at the rigth time and in the right location to sow a new vegetable.

Disappointed about the yields: TAs you know by now all the above problems lead to lower than possible yields. But it is those small yields that isthe №1 reason, new or beginning gardeners quite. And I totally understand that. You have put all that time and effort in your garden, coping with all it threw at you during the season and then it only produces some petty yield….I would give up too.

Luckily there is a solution and it is a lot easier then you might think. Although you have to pay attention to many things when starting a garden, like location, size, shape, materials, seeds and techniques, it still can be easy and fun. That’s why I designed the Easy Urban Gardening System.

So let me share the basics of these elements with you to inspire you to start your very real easy and fun garden, even on the smallest balcony or terrace in town.

First up is location. Too many people position their garden in some far away corner of the yard, like behind the garage or shed. Or in the case of urban gardening on the balcony of the guest room….. Well I can tell you that a garden out of sight is a garden easy forgotten and of course that results in multiple of the above mentioned challenges.

So first of all choose a location where you see your garden from the kitchen, living room, dining room and/or any other room of the house you spend time daily. This makes it way easier to keep weeds in check, to quickly react when your plants need anything and you immediately see which veggies are ready for harvesting never again running out of inspiration for tonights dinner.

Oh and make sure your garden gets enough sunlight. A minimum of 6 hours is absolutely necessary, although ideally you have at least 8 hours of sun on your garden. So watch out for large trees or buildings that could put your garden in the shade for multiple hours a day.

The size of your garden is very much depending on your personal situation and the goal you envision for your garden. But it can probably be a lot smaller than you might think. With a good plan and system in place you can grow a lot in small spaces. A plan also prevents you from ending up with too big a garden which gives you an overload of one vegetable within a short period of time. You should absolutely avoid that as the worst thing you can do as a gardener is throw away perfectly good produce, just because you grew too much of it.

Let me give you an indication of what is possible during an average growing season in a garden like I have of 120x60cm (4x2sq. feet): 1 kg French beans, 1 kg snow peas, 18 tomatoes (or cherry tomato vines), 12–16 zucchini, 32 carrots, 32 radishes, 1 kg spinach, 18 beetroots, 1 kg chard, 13 pak choi, 1–2 kg lettuce, 1 kg kale and 16 spring onions.

Good shape and materials for your garden is very much depending on your personal situation and taste. For a very productive garden, which you can work with a good system, I advise you to stick to a size in which you can create 30x30cm squares. But the ultimate shape of course can be square, rectangular, U-shaped, L-shaped, vertically stacked on a rack or on stair steps or even pyramid shaped is possible. As for the materials you can choose all shorts of building materials out of wood, stone or even plastic. I personally prefer wood, but that of course is totally up to you and your preferred style. Just keep in mind that the more breathable the material, the stronger your plants grow.

Choosing seeds can make you feel like a kid in a candy shop, I know. But when gardening, it is important to plan ahead which vegetables you actually like and want to eat instead of going all overboard because the packages look so appealing.

Then make sure the seeds you do buy are organic and GMO free seeds, preferably heirloom. You also might want to consider looking for compact varieties or climbing varieties as Easy Urban Gardening is done on minimal ground space, using the vertical space to the max.

The most important techniques when Easy Urban Gardening are sowing in grids, thinning religiously and watering precisely.

You sow in square grids. Let me explain that a little bit more. A garden of 120x60cm is divided into 8 squares of 30x30cm, which means you can grow up to 8 different veggies at all times. To know exactly how many of a vegetable you can grow within that square we divide our veggies in 4 categories: Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large of which we can fit in 16, 9, 4 or 1 per square.

Now envision one of the squares in your garden and it’s easy to see that you can sow your vegetables in there in a grid of either 4x4 small, 3x3 medium, 2x2 large or 1 XL vegetable.

Consequently to sowing the precise amount of vegetables that can be grown in a square, thinning is the next super important technique you have to apply. Because when you sow 2–3 seeds per little hole, you might also end up with 2–3 seedings and we only have space for 1 per grid hole. So once your seedlings are about 4–5 cm high you have to get a pair of little scissors and cut all but 1 seedling away. I know it’s hard, but it is the only way to realise a good yield.

The third and last important growing technique I want to mention here is watering. Best is to water with a little cup at the exact location, instead of with a powerful garden hose and only water when your plants really need it. 

This means that you of course won’t water after it heavily rained overnight. But it also means that you sometimes water part of your garden plants while skipping others. Believe me, when you took all the above steps and have your garden in sight you will recognise thirsty plants over non thirsty ones within a matter of a few days.

And if you now feel like you could really start gardening, but could do with a bit more guidance, you might want to check out my FREE course: “Plan your Garden: How to grow vegetables in small spaces in town”.

It’s a 4-weeks online course in which you get step by step instructions to plan and set up your first vegetable garden on a balcony or terrace in town. You’ll learn which seeds to choose best and how to sow your first vegetables. You’ll learn how to find the best location and determine the ideal size for your garden. Plus you’ll learn how to apply this to your personal situation, how to deal with your local circumstances and which materials are best to build a small, but super productive vegetable garden.

This course is ideal for the city dweller, who wants to create a balcony paradise, have a real vegetable garden and see the first seedlings popping up in 4 weeks.

This equally applies to gardening newbies and just started gardeners that want 100% fresh organic, super tasty home-grown vegetables!

Apply now for this brand new completely FREE course: https://forms.gle/BaQ9DejatW6KW6az9

 I wish you happy gardening.

Green regards,

🌱 Émely

Europe’s Leading Urban Gardening Expert on how to grow vegetables on a balcony or terrace.

Do you make a plan for your garden?