That's what you say when you don't have any concrete or explicit advice to offer. Whatever you do, do it well! I would offer the following slightly more specific things.

You plant things that are appropriate for your climate, and at an appropriate time of year.

You plant things that are appropriate for your lighting conditions and moisture availability.

You plant things in a pattern that allows for accessibility and won't interfere with other plants.

You plant things that don't require more attention to them than you can afford.

You prepare the soil in a way that is most advantageous to your plants.

You plan for adequate irrigation and fertilization.

You try to anticipate pests and disease.

Of course, all of these things can be based on lessons from previous seasons. In sum, you value experience, and should seek it out.

You plant vegetables you will use…either eat or gift.

Great list dan.

thank dan I had the same thought to:

[quote]That's what you say when you don't have any concrete or explicit advice to offer.

[/quote]

My dad would just ask Jim Crockett (Crockett's Victory Garden) how to plan his garden. He had all the answers.

The problem is that there are many variables, and most books and articles overall tend to be very vague. Different regions, different types of plants. I find most of the pretty books in bookstores to be almost useless. There are some decent videos on Youtube now, at least giving examples of what and when they grow, providing an example.

I plan for what will be growing each month, and even really parts of months. Early April is different from late April. Early May different from late May. By the end of June most of the April veggies are done, while the Summer veggies are growing very fast. Then the heat of Summer. Then planning what will be growing in latter August and September. What will be still growing in October into Novemeber.

Very true that books and articles about garden planning are often useless, because they are aimed at some generalized (mid-latitude?) climate. Down here in Texas, much of what I see printed up is entirely laughable. My advice to new gardeners is to seek out advice aimed at their location, ideally from their extension service.

I should note that James Underwood Crockett gardened in Massachusetts. He may have had all the answers, but not for me. I recall the episode where we were told that mulch was important because it keeps the soil from freezing. Hahahahah.

" My advice to new gardeners is to seek out advice aimed at their location, ideally from their extension service. "

And that sums up "good planning" in a nutshell!! Vegetable/edible gardening is hugely reliant on location - what to plant and when to plant will differ widely from place to place, even in the same general area. What grows well in Massachusetts, Texas or even in the eastern half of my own state of WA, is very different from what can be grown (and when) in my location. And that's where local resources - like the county extension service - are invaluable.

It's interesting how things have changed. In the olden days, you'd get a gardening book at your library, and hope it had something vaguely to do with where you lived. Or maybe you could fleece some mimeographed handouts off of your extension service by mail, and take a few weeks to get it. Now? Boom. You download reams of information from your local extension that is PERFECT for you. They'll often welcome specific questions as well. Certainly at least for hard info on vegetable garden planning, books and magazines are the last place I'd look. Even for info on plant varieties, which extension services will offer little wisdom about, online seed catalogs are the way to go. With regard to seeking out experience, if not from neighbors or local garden clubs, this forum is pretty useful.

In my olden days, I had, local to me, Sunset and Ortho publications.

Ortho was a chemical company, Sunset was an outdoors magazine who became upset with Ortho, Mr Lane started his own gardening publications.

my ideas on planning can broken down into several issues:

timing, spacing,, shading;, height , soil depth, day length,

Day to maturity, time intervals between, plantings; etc.

Where I used to live, it was pretty clear cut! The garden was on the North side of the house with great sun year round.

Where we are now, we have 3 4x8 beds, that get some summertime sun, so we get some good summer veges. One gets very little sun during the winter. 2 of the beds do OK with the winter stuff. Being in an area where you can grow pretty much year round, it can be difficult to have something growing and starting something else!

My cauliflower is in the bed where we usually grow our tomatoes, but gets very little sun, so probably won't do anything til the sun hits it next month! I have a couple of months to see if the cauliflower does anything!

The trick to growing year round for me is to increase row spacing. I grow winter onions, carrots, and beets in rows 2 feet apart. They won't get harvested until late spring. But my summer veggies have to get planted out in March. They all go in between. So while the winter veggies are getting big, the summer veggies (mostly vining) are small, and they don't compete. When the summer veggies get big, and expand to fill the available space, the winter veggies have been harvested. Call that garden planning.

Good planning in a vegetable garden? Top of the list for me > I have a 3 season veggie garden here so all planting times are critical of which I have created my own planting calendar for each season adapted to my specific location (central Va). As mentioned above an overlapping of seasonal veggies (expansional space saving) helps with maintaining the growing areas as the early crops are harvested and the later crops spread out over the vacated space (example : as early bolting spinach is pulled, a summer vining crop moves in).

Of course a lot depends on what you like to grow (I like to grow everything possible), having an open full sunny area, adequate fertile soil, a dependable water source, the time and effort to weed, deter pests, fight diseases, and the patience to see it though to the end (here that would be from March thru Nov).