Finally, the first production map for this new market garden! Usually, it’s a good idea to get a detailed map done early in the winter, before making up the main seed orders (or, if that’s where you’re at, before taking inventory of your vast store of saved seed!). Here, with our hasty start-up in late November, and piecemeal plowing of sections over the last month, it’s been hard to tell how much area would be ready when. This morning, Peter down the road disked the final large area, and as the sun set, I walked around staking out sections with fluorescent marking tape, then sketched out the first production map. Each square is 50′ x 50′ (15m x 15m). To be filled in…
field map
Field map and field…
Here’s the new garden map, companion to the two calendars, all part of the latest version of my planning set-up. The simplicity and spareness are deceptive, this is the result of FIVE YEARS of refining complicated planning and record-keeping paperwork, stripping away stuff I didn’t really use. Really! My old maps were way more detailed, with varieties and planting dates for each bed, hand-printed in really tiny letters (each of those squares represents a 50’x50′ section containing 10 beds). The grid now takes up only half the page, leaving lots of room for little notes, and the sections are just big enough for blocking in the crops (varieties, dates and bed locations go on a separate list). It’s not fully filled in yet, and everything’s in pencil for easy rearranging. I was working on it today along with the seed order list, and took it for a walk to take the pic. Pretty plain on paper, but when I look at it, I see the whole season unfolding… (Overnight last night, the snow suddenly came back!)