Cooler weather gives us time to plan for spring from inside our homes when we prefer not to be working in the weather outside. If we plan now to plant in the spring, we’re just that much further ahead. While many of us enjoy working outdoors in cooler weather, we may not enjoy working in our landscapes when it’s just plain cold.

That affords us with a great opportunity called ‘planning.’ The University of Florida (UF) has several publications to help you start your spring garden planning. My favorites include “The Florida-Friendly Landscaping Guide to Plant Selection and Landscape Design,” the Central Florida Gardening Calendar, the “Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide” and “Organic Vegetable Gardening in Florida.” These educational resources are available online. Just go to the UF website, followed by the title of the publication.

“The Florida-Friendly Landscaping Guide to Plant Selection and Landscape Design” provides photos of trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers, grasses, perennials, annuals and turfgrass. Plant information covers growth rate, height and spread, native status, soil pH range, soil texture, drought tolerance, light range and optimum light, salt tolerance and the wildlife attracted.

The Central Florida Gardening Calendar provides month-by-month information on what to plant (annuals, bulbs, vegetables), what to do (prune, manage pests, irrigation, propagation) and things you can do every month (adjust irrigation, monitor for insects and disease, review the “Plant Selection Guide”).

If you are interested in growing your own vegetables, please read the University of Florida publication “Florida Vegetable Gardening Guide.” This is an excellent resource that covers site selection, drawing a garden plan, preparing the soil and adding organic matter. Your vegetable garden should be near a water source, receive a minimum of six hours of direct sunlight each day and be in an area that is well drained. Planting dates for each of the vegetables, spacing and days to harvest are included.

The “Organic Vegetable Gardening in Florida” publication provides information on what is ‘organic,’ organic products, seeds and transplants, organic matter, compost, animal manures, cover crops and green manure, compost tea, fertilizer recommendations, nutrients from natural and organic fertilizers, water management, mulch, pest management and much more. If you would like even more information, watch the UF gardening and vegetable gardening videos, which are available online.

Enjoy your time inside preparing for spring! For more information about the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program or assistance with gardening-related questions, contact the UF/IFAS Extension Hillsborough County at 813-744-5519, go to http://hillsborough.ifas.ufl.edu, visit its location at 5339 County Rd. 579 in Seffner or view our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/hcffl/. If you are not a Hillsborough County resident, please contact your local Extension office.

Contact Lynn Barber at labarber@ufl.edu.

These tried-and-tested garden planning worksheets will help you conquer the complexities of food self-sufficiency to reduce your grocery budget and provide wholesome food.

The best gardening advice I can offer is to start out simple. Most of us would love to cut back on our grocery bill, and growing our own food certainly helps. When we’re plunking seedlings or seeds into our garden soil, it doesn’t look like all that much work. But when all those plants start to grow and require care, a beginning gardener can wonder what on earth they were thinking.

That’s why I recommend starting out by planting foods you and your family eat a lot and that will grow well in your region. Here in the Pacific Northwest, I can’t successfully grow okra, sweet potatoes, or peanuts, because the weather simply isn’t hot enough. Peppers and tomatoes don’t do well here except in a greenhouse, but they may thrive where you garden.

Most seed catalogs and seed packets specify an ideal region or growing Zone. Also, you can seek advice from neighbors who’ve gardened successfully. Many independent local nurseries will offer seedlings of vegetables known to do well in your specific Zone and region.

Another way to select what to plant in your plot is to consider how well the item can be preserved. While cucumbers are most people’s go-to for pickling, my husband really doesn’t care for cucumber pickles. But we’ve been known to eat an entire quart of pickled asparagus at one meal. My daughter has grown to love fermented garlic dill pickles, so we grow the ‘Chicago Pickling’ cucumber. It’s a prolific producer that’s enjoyable fresh on salads, and it makes great pickles.

We plant some lettuce because we love fresh salads, but we don’t want a lot left over. Frozen lettuce isn’t that appealing unless you’re using it in a green smoothie. We choose to grow more of kale and spinach, both of which can be frozen and used in various dishes.

Each family is unique, so you should tailor what you grow to what your family prefers to eat. Don’t worry if you start out small, thinking it won’t be enough, because being able to stay on top of a small garden will have you eager to plant more next year. Every year we bring in one new vegetable or cultivar to try – and that means we end up enlarging our garden.

Calculating Veggies

To help you determine how much and what you should be planting for your family, I’m including charts from my book The Family Garden Plan. The worksheets on these pages will help you calculate your family’s produce needs, how much you should plant, and how to plan your garden space accordingly. They’ll aid you in accomplishing one of the often overlooked but most critical steps to a successful growing season and harvest – planning.

First, use the worksheet below to calculate your food needs for a year by listing the produce your family eats during a typical month. After all, what’s the point of having a garden if it’s full of foods your household members won’t eat?

Next, research which of the foods that your family eats will actually grow in your climate. Search by your ZIP code on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Ask gardening friends and neighbors about vegetables they’ve grown successfully in your area.

Finally, use the information you’ve gathered to determine what and how much to plant. This will produce an easy-to-follow plan for your garden. Sketch how you want your plot to look on graph paper. No matter your climate, conditions, or space, you can grow crops to reduce your grocery budget and provide wholesome food. Ready to grow? Start here.

Record Your Food Needs for a Year

Start with this sample worksheet for an example of how to document your household’s actual eating habits for one month. Then, calculate the weekly average for each type of food and multiply the average by 52 (weeks in a year).

How Much to Plant – Fruits

After you’ve charted the foods your family eats, decide which of those crops you’ll plant in your garden this year. Consider what grows easily in your Zone. The following two charts (below) list average recommendations for how much to plant per person for a year’s worth of food, and how much each plant produces on average. These averages will likely differ year to year, as yields can be affected by soil nutrition, weather, and pests.

How Much to Plant – Vegetables

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Melissa K. Norris lives in the North Cascade Mountains of Washington with her husband and two children. This article is adapted from her book The Made-from-Scratch Life (Ten Peaks Press), available below.