Spaces, Schemes, and Sowing

I spend the dark days of January and February planning my kitchen garden. This doesn't involve meticulous calculations or calendars (tried that and failed...) but just considering the space I have available and what will grow well — and what will get eaten. I certainly enjoy 'little fingers' eggplant but two thriving plants is too much for our household, that is unless I start making regular batches of baba ganoush! 

Though I've kept track of what I plant each year (rotation, rotation!), my planning tends to express through digital files, spreadsheets, etc. That's my work brain creeping into my garden brain. A different approach is needed. This year — with the exception of this blog and occasional Instagram posts — I'm offline. By hand, I drafted a configuration of my available planting space and photocopied for each month (adapted from Huw Richard's version on YouTube). Problem is, I acquire seed as if I've got ample room to expand the kitchen garden — which I do, in terms of available land, but the local deer population agrees with me too much. Last year, two weeks after Winston (our dog) passed away (and stopped watering the garden edges), they used it as an all-you-care-to-eat buffet. Until the deer situation is dealt with, I've got approximately 350 square feet of growing space. 

Plans were made and then our local library's Seed Library opened on March 16. Of course, I came away with new packets of seeds — some I had planned on buying anyway (carrots, more tomatoes, borage) and some that were impulsive selections (pansies and butterfly weed). And last night, dear reader, with seed sowing anxiety in full swing, I ordered even more: delicata squash because I just roasted some and fell head over heels for it; wild thyme because it is quickly become my favorite ground cover; rutabagas (swedes) because, well, why not?; and bunching onions, only because I'm running low on my seed stock from 2020, and maybe there will be room for more... somewhere...