Grow Your Garden with My Free Printable Planner -

I love gardening, and I know many people are gardening for the first time this year. I believe having a good garden planner is important. Especially for first time gardeners. However, I think most planners can be overwhelming, with too many pages and things to track. Therefore, with the first time gardener in mind, I created a free garden planner. My hope is that you will Grow Your Garden with My Free Printable Planner. If you are not new to gardening, don’t worry I think you will love it too.

There are many things to consider when growing your garden. My free printable planner includes a first time garden tips page.

Let’s Take a closer look at some of the tips I’ve included.

Grow Only What Your Family Will Eat

The first step to planning your garden is deciding what you will plant. In my planner I have included a Garden Dreams and Wishlist. A place to think about all the wonderful crops you can grow. The best advice I can give a new gardener is to only grow what your family will eat. If your family doesn’t like eggplant, then don’t grow eggplant. No matter how beautiful it looks. Your garden space and time is precious. Grow what your family can use.

For more inspiration on what to grow, check out my blog post Top 10 Crops for New Gardeners.

Start With A Manageable Size

Do you want to know a secret? You don’t have to grow everything. Especially if this is your first year gardening, don’t over do it. Take your time and learn to grow a few new things each year.

The same holds true for seasoned gardeners. You don’t have to grow everything each year. Look at what you have, and what you need. For example, this year I am not growing much basil or hot peppers because we have a lot in our pantry.

Get Creative With Your Space

No matter where you live, you can find room to plant at least something. I have included a garden layout page in my planner, but don’t forget to be creative in your spaces. Being creative allows you to grow so much more. Looking for some creative spaces, check out my post on Finding The Space to Garden.

On a side note, the space does not need to be yours. Live in an apartment? Ask your parents, grandparents, siblings, or friends if you can plant a garden at their home. Make an agreement to split what you grow. What is the worst that can happen? They say no. Then ask someone else.

Know Your Frost Dates

I have included a When to Plant page in my planner to help you plan out and track your seed starting. This is one of the most important steps in planning a garden, and honestly I could write a whole blog post on this subject. Maybe I will in the coming weeks.

The main thing to know is when your last and first frost dates are. For example, my last frost date is around May 8th and my first frost date is around October 14th. Then looking at my seed packets I check to see if seeds can be planted before or after the last frost. I also check to see any recommendations for starting seeds indoors.

To accompany the when to plant page, I’ve also included a succession planting page. Succession planting is where you plant crops multiple times through a season and is key to gardening in a small space. Some crops that are beneficial to succession plant are zucchini, lettuce, greens, carrots, beans, and most root veggies.

The way you determine succession planting is first knowing how long your growing season is and secondly how long it takes for this crop to reach maturity. Then you do a little math to figure out how many times you can plant a crop in a given season. Any other homeschool moms see a homeschool lesson opportunity here?

Good Soil Is Important

When starting your garden, don’t neglect the soil. Think of the soil as the seasoning in your cooking. Everything is so much better with good seasoning, right? Same goes for soil. Things might grow but they will grow much better in good soil. Take the time to build up your soil as you go along. Add compost, grow cover crops, and add healthy fertilizers like fish emulsion or comfrey tea.

Attract the Pollinators with Flowers

Your garden needs pollinators like bees and butterflies. The best way I have found to do this is by planting flowers that attract the pollinators. Some of my favorites are borage, yarrow, calendula, nasturtiums, and sunflowers because you actually get something in return.

Borage is a beautiful flowering herb that you can use in salads. Yarrow and calendula are great additions to the garden because you can use them to make amazing tinctures and salves.

Obviously, sunflowers have edible seeds. Plant the mammoth variety as those are the best eating sunflower seeds. Lastly, did you know that nasturtiums are edible? Add them to your salad.

No Garden is Perfect – Failure is Okay

Finally, I have included a harvest log in my planner so that you can track what you harvested. It includes a notes column to write down things that will help you plan for next year. For example, maybe you planted a tomato variety that you just didn’t like. Perhaps you had a crop fail – it’s important to note these things so that you can look into why.

Please know that no garden is perfect. Even the most seasoned gardener has things fail from year to year. Most of the time it is nothing we did or didn’t do. Just know that it is okay to fail. I used to be one of those people who looked down upon myself when I failed. Now I look at failure as a way to grow and learn.

Where to Find My Free Printable Planner

I can’t tell you how excited I am for this planner. It is something I have been wanting to do for a very long time. I am so inspired by the process of creating it that I plan to create more printable items in future. In fact, I am already working on something else. I pray that you will grow your garden with my free printable planner. The link to the PDF is below.

Download Free Printable Here

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