Nutrition

The Athlete’s Garden: Planning

One of my raised bed gardens from 2008.

I’m going to be up front right at the beginning.

I don’t know shit about gardening.

I’m a less-than-average green thumb who has more plant kills notched on my garden trowel than any self-respecting backyard farmer would ever admit.

What all of this means, however, is that if I can grow some good healthy fruits and veggies by the end of the season, you should be able to be twice as successful.

Step 1: Get the Book
The first thing you should do is buy a copy of Mel Barthlomew’s book, All New Square Foot Gardening. Consider this the Holy Bible when it comes to making it easy to grow your own food, particularly if you live in today’s typically cramped suburbs or urban areas. If you live out in the country and have a few acres to play with, then what in the hell are you reading his for? You probably already know what to do.

I’m not going to summarize Mel’s book for you. There’s too much to cover and too many geographies to consider when deciding where your garden should be located, when to plant, what to plant, etc. Just get the book and the rest of this series will make more sense.

Based on Mel’s method of square foot gardening, the Athlete’s Garden is designed to be simple, low-maintenance, and most important, provide plenty of healthy veggies and fruits in a small amount of space.

Step 2: Plan
In a nutshell, I’m working with container gardens of various sizes. The basic square foot garden is four feet wide by four feet long. This is then divided into plots of 12 square inches, giving you 16 plots per bed.

This is my third season of using this method and I’ve added a bed or two each time. I now have six raised beds of various sizes, giving me nearly 100 individual plots with which to play.

What you need to do is figure out how many plots you’re going to have. In the past, I’ve sketched these out on paper, but decided to do it this year on a spreadsheet just so I could be even dorkier about it.

A snapshot of the spring garden plan. I like spreadsheets because it’s easier to swap out plants
as I change my mind, or more likely, I kill plants during the season. Plus, any farmer worth his hoe
has to take notes on what works and doesn’t work for future seasons.

What do you grow? While seed catalogs are a lot of fun to peruse, my advice is to contact your cooperative extension to find out what grows best in your area and when you can plant it. Nurseries can be hit and miss as they’ll sometimes sell plants that aren’t well adapted to the local environment. I see that a lot in Las Vegas, although it’s getting better.

I’ll go over my specific plant choices in a later article. For now, find out what grows in your area and then narrow that list down to what you’d actually like to eat.

If you use the guidelines in Mel’s book, you’ll know how many of each plant will fit in a square foot and then use that info to decide how much you need to plant.

Next week: Let’s build a garden!

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