1. How Do I Plan My Garden Layout
2. Plan My Garden Layout

An online vegetable garden planner for anyone who wants homegrown, healthy and tasty food to be part of their lifestyle...while having a busy life.

Personalized Vegetable Garden Planner

There are a lot of variables that go into planning a garden. Smart Gardener does all the hard work for you. We collect, calculate and create a smart personal profile of your garden just for you. Learn more about your profile.

1. Sep 17, 2020 If you’re new to gardening, planning your garden can be tricky. Depending on where you live, what you’re growing, and the space you’re working with, your garden can look very different. A new interactive vegetable garden planner takes a lot of the guesswork out of garden planning. Here’s how it works.
2. If you’re new to gardening, planning your garden can be tricky. Depending on where you live, what you’re growing, and the space you’re working with, your garden can look very different. A new interactive vegetable garden planner takes a lot of the guesswork out of garden planning. Here’s how it works.

Get your garden plan so you can get out in the garden. Smart Gardener combines your selected plants, vegetable garden layout, and household size with complex planting variables, to help create a Smart Garden Plan just for you. Learn more about Garden Plan. To Dos Just for Your Garden. We track all of your gardens’ tasks so you don’t have to.

The Right Plants for You

We make it easy to find the right plants, so you can’t go wrong. With over 3000 organic, GMO free, edible varieties to choose from (and buy from our partners), Smart Gardener offers you recommendations along with super simple ways to find plants suited to your growing conditions. Learn more about plants.

An Optimized Vegetable Garden Plan

Get your garden plan so you can get out in the garden. Smart Gardener combines your selected plants, vegetable garden layout, and household size with complex planting variables, to help create a Smart Garden Plan just for you. Learn more about Garden Plan.

To Dos Just for Your Garden

We track all of your gardens’ tasks so you don’t have to. Our smart vegetable garden planner schedules all your gardens’ “To Dos,” from prepping to picking. View To Dos at a glance and get weekly email reminders when it’s time to get in your garden. Learn more about To Dos.

A Garden Journal That Keeps Track of You

It’s a smart garden planner Journal that tracks, collects and shares. Our vegetable garden planner keeps your Journal up to date, so you don’t have to. But go ahead, enter notes, and photos too. It’s also finds and shares all other’s gardeners notes and photos about the same varieties you are growing. Learn more about your Journal.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Keep your garden thriving during these long, hot days with our advice on how to properly water your garden, and tips on the best types of mulch to use to keep your garden’s soil cool and moist. We’ve also have some guidance on saving your own seeds. Learn more about Tips and Tricks.

Seeds, plants and sustainable gardening products, all in one place. Smart Gardener partners with the highest quality companies to bring you over 3000 organic, GMO free, heirloom and exotic seeds and gardening products. Learn More

Drawing a map of your future garden is possibly the most fun part of garden planning! When the soil outside is cold and frozen, dreaming about how your garden will look in just a few months is incredibly satisfying. I love to get out some pencil crayons in the middle of winter and draw out a lovely garden layout map.

Mapping Out Your Garden Will Make Planting So Much Easier

Planning your garden is a wonderful way to beat the winter blues. Proper planning will also make your garden planting so much easier once it does warm up outside. Just follow the garden layout you’ve created for yourself and you’ll find that the process of planting your garden outdoors is easy and fun if you’ve got a proper plan.

Getting Ready To Draw Your Garden Layout

Before you start drawing out your garden layout, ensure that you’ve selected your crops, decided how many plants of each crop to grow, and calculated how much area each crop will need. You won’t be able to draw an effective map without first planning your plants out properly.

If you haven’t already, download your free garden planner. If you’d like even more guidance, I recommend the Square-Foot Gardening book. It’s available online, in bookstores, and likely at your local library.

When you have your crops selected and your area ready to grow your desired number of plants, you’re almost ready to start mapping!

Beware that the first step of mapping is to draw the perimeter of your garden. If you don’t know the exact perimeter measurements of your garden, now is a good time to measure them. Go find that measuring tape!

Go Outside And Measure Your Garden

Yes, this is required pre-work. Go outside and measure your available garden space. If you don’t yet have a garden, now is a great time to plan the sizing details out. You’ll already have estimated your total available area in the garden planner, so use that as a guide.

While you’re outside, take note of environmental factors such as common wind directions, shadows from other structures, the locations of large trees, and which areas get the most sun. These factors will affect where you place your plants. As you imagine your future garden in the space before you, you’ll naturally start to consider your preferred garden layout and where everything should go.

Most beginner gardeners start with in-ground gardens or container gardens. Most experienced gardeners tend to use raised bed gardens as they are both easier to use and more productive in terms of harvest.

Supplies: Gather These Items For Your Garden Map

• Pencil
• Thin Black Pen
• Pencil Crayons
• Ruler
• Tape Measure (if your garden size is unknown)

Steps: How To Map Out Your Garden Layout

Your garden planner includes a handy-dandy layout mapping page. Get your planner out, along with some stationary. I usually use a ruler, pencil, thin black sharpie, and pencil crayons for the garden mapping process.

Step 1. Set A Scale For Your Garden Layout Map

Mapping out your garden begins with setting a proper scale. I like to draw out my garden layout so that each box on my garden map represents one square foot of real garden soil. It doesn’t matter what scale you set, it just matters that you use it consistently as you make your map.

You’ll have to have the real outdoor dimensions of your garden to complete this step. If you’ve not already measured your garden (or planned out where it will go), now is a good time.

Step 2. Draw The Framework Onto Your Garden Layout Map

Once you’ve decided on a scale, it’s time to draw out the perimeters of your garden onto your map. Use a pen or dark colour to draw the outside of your garden onto the mapping page (or graph paper). Write the length of each real side beside each side you draw.

At this point, it’s also helpful to draw in environmental factors. This includes common wind directions, rainy or dry areas, the direction of water drainage (lowest area), the pattern of the sun, and any shadows from large structures or trees. These factors will be important as you decide which crops to place in different areas of your garden map.

Step 3. Draw Your Crops Onto Your Garden Layout Map

How Do I Plan My Garden Layout

Now that the framework is set, you can get to work penciling in your crops. When drawing in your crops, consider each crop’s specific needs. Consult the seed packets or catalog/website from which you ordered the seeds to get the specific details.

Some plants, such as salad greens, don’t need too much sun and actually prefer shade during hot afternoons. Other plants like all the sun they can get (as long as they have enough water)! Some plants like lots of water, while others are fairly drought-tolerant. Think about the unique features of your garden, and be sure to take the suggestions for each crop into account when choosing where to place things.

Use the required area you’ve calculated in your garden planner to draw in the area for each crop on the garden layout map. Use a different colour of pencil crayon for each crop to shade in the area of the garden used for that crop. Record your crop colours in the legend on the first mapping page. You can also draw a black dot for each plant if you like (especially for the plants that take up lots of room – maybe not for carrots – but hey, you do you).

For More Ideas: My Garden Planning Pinterest Board

Fill In The Rest Of Your Garden Planner

Once you’ve drawn in the perimeter of your garden, penciled in other factors like trees, paths, and buildings, and sketched in all your crops, you’ll have a very clear idea of what your garden will look like in the spring. Those are the basics to garden layout mapping – and you can add to your map as you go along.

Plan My Garden Layout

It will be easy to plant your crops outside now that you have a simple, easy-to-follow plan of where to plant things! If you’re just joining the garden planning process now, you can download your own garden planner using the form at the bottom of the page and get started.