Gardening With Confidence™

Make a wish list

The building of Le Petit Potager continues with first understanding what we want to grow.

No need to grow what we don’t eat.    On the left is my handwritten list of what we hope to have.  You will note, specific varieties are not listed; just general plant types, tomato, pepper, lettuce.  There is plenty of time to decided on each variety.

It took three four drafts to get a working design.  The first two took into account how to space from a plant dimension and aesthetic approach.  And then, of course, like most of us, I forgot the obvious.   One of the beauties to designing on paper; it’s only paper.  I started again and the third time was a charm.

What did I forget?  Access.  I had a 15′ x 15′ space with no way to access.  The “final” design has path access into the garden.  The “final” design also had 4 patterened trellis for tomatoes.  I had planned to make trellis out of bamboo, but one day, on my way back home from a talk, I checked out the local Lowes. As it happend, I found 3 broken (but something handy Helen could fix) trellis.

I like these trellis and have used them in client’s gardens in the past.  They were not in my budget, until the price was so cheap, I didn’t have a choice but to buy them.

As such, my final-final design has three trellis for tomatoes.  In reality, I may only use 2, but think I’m confident enough now not needing to re-draw the design.

Designs 1 - 4

Now considering access, spring, summer, and fall success, I have the final plan.  The next phase is to decide on the variety of plants.  This will take more time to consider.  It’s not like I’m married to my decision, but they will need to perform well for a whole season.

The Building of a Potager. First in the series

Helen Yoest is a garden writer and coach through her business Gardening with Confidence™

Follow Helen on Twitter @HelenYoest and her facebook friend’s page, Helen Yoest or Gardening With Confidence™ Face Book Fan Page.

Helen also serves on the board of advisors for the JC Raulston Arboretum

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Tags: gardening, Gardening With Confidence\\\'99, Helen's Haven™, potater, vegetable gardening

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 8:29 am and is filed under Garden Coaching, Le Petit Potager. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.