Plan, Plant, Prosper: Why You Need a Planting Plan for Your Organic Vegetable Garden

You know the old saying “Fail to plan, plan to fail.” I’m not sure who said that, but it can’t be truer when it comes to gardening.

If you're planning to grow organic produce in a raised bed garden, the smartest investment you can make is a well-thought-out planting plan.

What is a Planting Plan?

A planting plan is a blueprint for your raised bed garden that helps you narrow down what you’re planting, when you should plant it, and where to place your plants in your raised beds.

A planting plan will also break down which plants should be directly sown, and which should be transplanted. Transplants can come from what you may start yourself from seed, or what you buy from your local nursery.

At Sown in Thyme, we use the intensive companion planting method for our planting plans which means that we give each plant the exact amount of space they need and plant them next to other plants that will benefit them in some way. This is imperative for an organic garden because it helps manage pests and diseases naturally without needing synthetic pesticides or herbicides while decreasing the need for fertilizer.

Intensive planting is not the same as chaos gardening which encourages plants to grow freely without planning or organization often leading to an unruly garden where plants naturally self-seed and spread.

A vegetable garden following the Intensive Companion Planting method

What are the Benefits of a Planting Plan?

Saves You Money

One of the biggest ways a planting plan saves you money is by showing you don’t need as much space as you might think resulting in less cost on raised beds. With an intensive planting approach, you can fit far more plants into each bed, maximizing your garden’s potential.

For that reason, when I help design and install gardens for my Delaware clients, we start with identifying what they want to grow before we determine the right garden design.

A planting plan will also help you save money on seeds and transplants. Going to a nursery blind is a sure-fire way to waste your money. The transplants you’re purchasing are small so you think you need more than you do. You’ll either plant too much in your beds or have extra plants that will eventually end up in the trash. A planting plan will show you the exact number of plants you need so you don’t overspend.

Another way a planting plan saves money is by eliminating the need for mulch. Because we’re planting intensively, it creates a natural ground cover that keeps the soil cool and helps retain more moisture.

Saves You Time

On average, it takes a new gardener 3 years to learn how to garden. That is a long time! In my experience, the steepest part of the learning curve comes from not knowing what to plant, when, and how.

Without a planting plan, you go through the slow process of trial & error before catching on to what you should be doing. You could watch a ton of YouTube videos, read all the blog posts, and watch countless Instagram reels but the information out there is never consistent and still takes a lot of time to absorb.

You Get Higher Yields

When you have a planting plan using the intensive companion planting method, you create a balanced ecosystem that thrives. You’re intentionally putting plants together that help each other in some way which will lead to higher yields.

For instance, tomatoes are heavy nitrogen feeders and tend to not produce as much fruit after the first harvest (we’re talking about indeterminate varieties). By planting beans next to your tomatoes, you’re providing a more consistent source of nitrogen that the tomatoes will continue to feed off of.

Planting plans also help deter pests that eat your plants and attract predatory insects that eat these pests that may sneak by. Your plants will be healthier throughout the season providing you more harvests until the season ends.

Warm Season Planting Plan with fruiting plants, ground cover, root crops, herbs, and flowers. Comes with a key and planting instructions.

How Do I Get a Planting Plan?

You can work with a Kitchen Garden Consultant directly. At Sown in Thyme, we offer packages for one or multiple seasons. We start with a 30-min Zoom Call to make sure we understand your goals and any pain points you’ve experienced in the past. We also include a Seasonal Planting Calendar that breaks down what you can plant within each season based on your location. Eventually, you’ll be able to take what you’ve learned and start planning your garden yourself!

There's also different software available that can help you plan your garden and even break down when you should plant everything. This is how I started out. The problem I ran into was that I didn’t find the spacing to be accurate for my garden goals. Turns out, these programs tend to follow spacing rules that farmers use v. what’s more realistic for backyard gardeners.

An example of monocropping. Plants have more space but need more additives to thrive.

Farmers tend to mono-crop in fields that require more space between plants along with pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers to keep the plants thriving (yes, organic farms do this too using organic products). Our goal as backyard gardeners is to plant as much as we can with the limited space we have while trying to use as little additives as possible.

Now is a great time to start planning out your garden. Book a Consultation Now for your Spring and Summer planting plans, or Book a Free Discovery Call to learn more about it. We offer planting plans for anyone in the US!