Senior Citizens Gardening - Planting Plan

To make the Planting Plan take a sheet of white paper and a ruler and mark off a space the shape of your garden--which should be rectangular if possible--using a scale of one-quarter or one-eighth inch to the foot. Rows fifty feet long will be found a convenient length for the average home garden. In a garden where many varieties of things are grown it will be best to run the rows the short way of the piece.

We will take a fifty-foot row for the purpose of illustration, though of course it can readily be changed in proportion where rows of that length cannot conveniently be made. In a very small garden it will be better to make the row, say, twenty-five feet long, the aim being always to keep the row a unit and have as few broken ones as possible, and still not to have to plant more of any one thing than will be needed.

In assigning space for the various vegetables things should be kept in mind in order to facilitate planting, replanting and cultivating the garden. Thesecan most quickly be realized by a glance at the plan. Crops that remain several years--rhubarb and asparagus--are kept at an end.
Next come those that will remain a whole season--parsnips, carrots, onions and the like. Finally, those that will be used for a succession of crops-- peas, lettuce, spinach; Tall-growing crops, like pole beans, are kept to the north of lower ones. In the plan the space given to each variety is allotted according to the proportion in which they are ordinarily used. If you have a special weakness for peas, or your mother-in-law an aversion to peppers, keep these tastes and similar ones in mind when laying out.

Do not leave the planning of your garden until you are ready to put the seeds in. Do it in January, as soon as you have received the New Year's catalogs and when you have time to study over them and look up your record of the previous year. Every hour spent on the plan will mean several hours saved in the garden.

The Planting Table is the next important system in the business of gardening, especially for the beginner. In it one can see at a glance all the details of the particular treatment each vegetable requires-- when to sow, how deep, how far apart the rows should be, etc.

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