Year-Round Vegetables

at Home
How you can start a backyard garden, grow your own
food, and have year-round abundance of nutrient-dense
vegetables from your garden.

A step-by-step guide
to help you get started on your
food growing journey.

BY MORENO DE MEIJERE

[Link]
Introduction
If this is our first time meeting, Hi! and
welcome to our farm. My name is Moreno,
but you might know me better as The
Dutch Farmer.

After working for 5 years on a diversity of

farms and 5 years running our organic
market garden on rented land in France,
we decided to move to another country to
put down our roots.

Together with partner and our kids, we grow our own food, enjoy
spending time in the garden, and live a simple, modern homestead
lifestyle in the countryside of Portugal.

This guide is the result of our passion for living this lifestyle,
reconnected to things that matter to us, and enjoy living a happier
and healthier life on the land.

Along the way we share our experiences and hope you'll find
inspiration, motivation, and practical know-how on your own food-
growing journey.
Who is this guide for?

This guide has specifically been made to give you an overview of the
steps required to help you go from beginner gardener to enjoying a
year-round abundance of home-grown food.

This step-by-step overview is the exact method we personally use to

enjoy year-round vegetables and is the same process that allowed
us to create a profitable organic market garden and make a living
growing vegetables for the community.

Over the years we've made lots of mistakes, and also have seen
great successes. In this guide I go over the most important steps,
strategies, and insights to help you shorten the learning curve.

So, if you want to start a garden, grow your own food, and become
more self-sufficient, this guide will give you the steps and strategies
to make this a reality. Let's get started.
Step 1: Garden Design

An often-overlooked step by beginner gardeners, but a very important

one if you want to create a beautiful, optimized, and productive garden
space is to create a basic garden design.

And the keyword here is BASIC.

You don’t have to spend days on end trying to create the most
comprehensive garden design that exists.

You only need to make sure to include the most important things in
your design so that YOU know where certain elements (like a tool shed,
garden beds, etc.) will be placed, and place them in such a way that is
beneficial to you, the gardener, and the food that you’re growing.
The way you position, and place
elements can either have negative
consequences on your garden or
have a positive effect.

It’s clear that our goal is to make

sure that everything is designed
properly, and that our gardens are
optimized, efficient, and given the
best chance for year-round
abundance.

What if we can shave a couple of

hours per week on garden work
and enjoy our gardens more often
instead of sometimes wasting
hours on things that could’ve been
avoided with a basic garden
design?

We are all busy people that can use a little bit of extra enjoyment in
our lives. A simple garden design can help you with this.

So, where do we start?

The garden design process consists of 3 steps.

1. Create a base map & sector analysis.

What is a base map and sector analysis?

A base map is essentially a base template on which you’ll create

your garden design. We’ve made these maps for our farm in
France, as well as for the farm in Portugal and they've helped us
considerably during the design stages of our farm.

The base map contains all the existing elements already

present on your land: buildings, trees, fences, and more.
Essentially it is a map on scale providing a satellite view of your
property.

A sector analysis is the

analysis of outdoor
forces your land deals
with. Think of wind
directions, orientation,
slope, wildlife corridors,
potential frost pockets,
sun angles, etc.
All these elements will have to be considered
during this stage. Knowing what your land is
dealing with will allow you to come up with
ideas on how to either include or exclude
these elements.

For example, after evaluating your land and

creating the design, you might realize that
there’s a huge wind tunnel effect on one part
of your property that will cause potential
problems with the growth of the vegetables.
Knowing this, you now can decide to include
windbreaks at this part of your property to
reduce the negative effect of the wind on
your plants.

Or after evaluating your property you might

realize that the lower part of your property is
prone to flooding. Knowing this you can
decide to install a drainage system, or you
could maybe create an irrigation pond on this
location.

These are small observations at the

beginning of creating your garden, but doing
this beforehand will have a large impact on
the success of your garden.
 Tip Measure out your garden to know how
much space you have and draw it to scale
on a piece of graph paper.

2. What design elements do you want to

include?
Garden beds, tools shed, trees, perennial vegetables, seating
area, washing area, and more… These are all examples of
design elements.

At this stage we want to come up with a list of all the things

we want to include in our garden.

Of course, we want to grow our food, so garden beds are

essential. But maybe we also want to enjoy our garden every
now and then and simply sit down amongst the abundance
of food.
We also need a place where we can store
some of the basic tools and equipment we’re
using in the garden.

Maybe you’d like a little bit more privacy in

your garden… A privacy hedge could be the
solution.

Attracting more bees and butterflies? Plant

flowering shrubs and trees.

Think of as many things you want to include

in your garden design.

Tip
Take a stroll through your garden and
observe what’s around. Where is the sun
coming from? Where does the wind come
from? Any wildlife that can come onto
your property? A view you’d like to keep or
block? Observing your garden is essential
and will allow you to come up with ideas
and solutions to creating a productive and
beautiful garden.
 Place chosen design elements onto your
3. base map.
When you’ve decided on the things you want to have in your
garden, it’s time to place these onto your base map.

For this purpose, we use relative placement design.

Essentially, we want to come up with a design that minimizes

foot traffic, increases efficiency, and practicality.

How often do you use the tool shed when you garden? Pretty
much every time.

Knowing this, we want to make sure it’s as centrally located as

possible.
Same for your garden beds.

You want to have your garden beds as close to your home as

possible, so it won’t easily get neglected and it’s easy to
harvest something quickly to prepare a meal at home.

As you are placing your elements onto your map always take
into consideration the different sun angles in summer and
winter, and what effect the placement of these design
elements will have on your garden.

Do you want extra shade? Consider growing trees on

those locations.
Do you want to exclude wildlife? Make sure to put up
fencing.
Do you want to block the wind from a direction? Either
build or plant a windbreak.

Doing these things will allow

you to create a simple, yet
important design of your
garden. And this in turn will
give you a lot of clarity,
confidence, and an overall
better gardening experience.
Step 2: Growing Bed Creation

There is no right or wrong way to gardening. There’s only using the right
or wrong approaches and strategies to your specific situation.

What do I mean with that?

See it like this…

Every garden soil is different: some
are heavy clay; others are light sand.
Every climate is different: some
garden in cold areas with no frost-
free months, whilst others can easily
grow food year-round outdoors.
Some receive lots of rain, whilst
others only receive rain for 3 months
of the year.
Every region has different pests:
some have lots of caterpillars, others
must deal with kangaroos.

It’s pretty clear that not every garden is the same, nor can use a one-
size-fit-all "recipe" to garden success.

Same goes for your garden beds. Where in some locations raised beds
would be perfect, in other regions you might be better off with sunken
beds.

So, what should you do?

To help you answer this question I’d like to go over a couple of basic
gardening fundamentals that will help you figure out what will be best
for your situation.

Let’s start with climate and soil, and then go into the type of garden
beds that will be best for your situation.

If you live in a temperate cold climate with regular frosts in winter or

receive regular precipitation, your soil will benefit from extra drainage
and heat.

Why?
In climates that receive frost and lots of precipitation, soils will freeze
and tend to have a high water table. This means that you won’t be able
to work (prepare beds, plant crops, etc.) the soil until it thaws and
warms up – generally in early to late spring.

Your goal in this climate is to create garden beds that warm up faster in
spring and create better drainage so that you can start planting earlier,
resulting in sooner harvests.

On the contrary, in a warm and arid Mediterranean climate, occasional

frosts may occur, but they are infrequent and mild. Rainfall primarily
takes place during the winter months, while scorching hot summers
demand attention. Nonetheless, the conditions offer the potential for
year-round food cultivation.

Your goal in this climate is, unlike in a cold climate, to avoid your garden
beds to overheat and retain as much as possible moisture.

So, should you use raised garden beds or in-

ground beds?

To answer this question, let’s look at

the pros and cons of both of these bed
types.

Let’s start with raised garden beds.

Raised garden beds are beds that are

generally raised with a structure made of
wood, metal, stone, or other materials.

Alternatively, they can serve as raised beds by the straightforward

process of tilling the soil and transferring the pathways onto these beds.
Incorporating extra compost further elevates the beds beyond the
original soil level.

These beds could be considered a variation of 'in-ground beds,' as they

are essentially elevated just slightly above the natural soil grade.
These are the type of beds we personally used on our organic market
garden in eastern France. With lots of rain and frost in winter, these
beds allowed us to have free-draining growing beds and increased our
growing season with several weeks.

Pros of raised garden beds:

Raised garden beds allow you to add a significant layer of

1. compost and growing medium that will be laid on top of existing
vegetation. This means that your garden beds will pretty much
be weed-free (although weeds do fly in and are transported by
birds; which will require a tiny bit of maintenance). Although
some people feel good when weeding, it’s not on my most-
favorite-tasks-top-list. We are all busy and can benefit from
less time spent on weeding.

Raised garden beds tend to warm up faster during spring,

2. allowing you to start planting much sooner. In some places so
much so that the growing season is increased by several weeks.
That’s a lot for plants! When you can get growing earlier after
winter, this inevitably will result in you having fresh vegetables
sooner. And I can tell you from experience, there’s nothing more
satisfying than eating fresh veggies from the garden after eating
months of preserved food from the pantry. Although having
those is a must for year-round vegetables and food resilience,
nothing beats going in the garden and harvesting your own fresh
meal.
 Raised garden beds are also great
3. for you if you are physically not
like a 20-year-old anymore and
you start to feel things in places
you didn’t know exist. By raising
your garden beds to knee-, or
waist-height you don’t have to
bend over so much. This is a
great benefit if you have back
problems or issues with bending
over too much.

Raised garden beds will reduce a

4. significant amount of pest
pressure in your garden. Slugs,
snails, moles, grubs, and more
will all become less of an issue as
you raise the garden bed above
their habitat or reach.

Raised garden beds are also known for their improved drainage.
5. You can decide what type of garden soil you start with. And if
you don’t fill the bed up with heavy clay soil, but use well-
rotted manures, composts, and/or well-draining soil, you won’t
get waterlogging problems and will reduce diseases in plants.
Cons of raised garden beds:

Raised garden beds will heat up quicker. This can be both a pro
1. and a con. Of course, in hot climates you’d like to avoid excess
heating. In colder climates it can be a big benefit.

Raised gardens beds are known to require more irrigation as

2. they tend to dry out faster. In a climate with frequent
precipitation this is not so much of a problem. On the other
hand, in dry climates we want to conserve as much as possible
moisture in our soils all the time.

Raised garden beds require a lot of inputs and can become

3. quite expensive. Whether you’re going to use wood, rock, metal,
or any other type of material, costs will add up quite quickly.
Also, filling up a raised bed requires a lot of soil!

Raised garden beds require a certain level of building skills and

4. take time to construct.
Most of the labour-saving tools we use, like seeders, gridder,
5. rakes, shovels, etc. are not easily used on raised garden beds.
In-ground garden beds.

What are in-ground garden beds?

In-ground beds are basically the opposite of raised beds. These are
beds that are not raised, or only slightly, and are directly made on the
surface of your garden.

Pros of in-ground beds:

Since you don’t need to use any materials to build your
1. beds, they’re very quick and easy to install. Simply
convert your piece of ground into growing beds and you
can potentially start straight away.

This also makes it that you need a lot less resources,

2. making them a much cheaper option compared to raised
beds.

Due to the nature of these beds, you have a lot of

3. flexibility in shapes, sizes, and orientation. This can allow
you to optimize your growing space considerably.

Most gardening tools we use, like manual seeders, hoes,

4. shovels, etc are easily used on these beds, allowing you to
benefit from a wide arrange of labor-saving tools.
 Unlike with raised garden beds where you’ll create new
5. soil, in-ground beds have the benefit of ‘tapping’ directly
into the existing soil food web. This makes it easier for you
to have an abundance of thriving plants.

Cons of in-ground beds:

Depending on your soil, in-ground beds could have more

1. issues with drainage. Soils naturally compact overtime (if
they’re void of trees/vegetation) which in turn could lead
to compaction and waterlogged conditions.

In-ground beds are made directly in the soil without

2. raising them. Usually this means that you need to remove
grass, weeds, and lots of unwanted plants. It can be very
difficult with in-ground beds to manage them, and with a
bit of tilling, you’ll create a gardeners nightmare.

In-ground beds require a lot more bending over or

3. working on your knees. Not ideal if you have backpain.
 When creating your initial beds, there will be a lot of
4. organisms living already in the soil, feeding on the existing
vegetation. Once you remove this vegetation and plant
your vegetables, these organisms have no other choice
than to eat your plants.

In-ground beds also tend to stay colder for longer,

5. potentially reducing your growing season.

So, what type of bed should you choose?

Only you can answer this question.

Personally, we use the semi-raised beds that are simply raised by

putting the soil from the pathways on the growing beds and topping
them off with composts (and in some cases mulch).
 So, what type of bed should you choose?

We have used these beds in France (wet, temperate climate), as well

as now in Portugal (dry, Mediterranean climate).

Why?

They’re cheap, easy, and quick to make.

They improve drainage without drying out fast.
They allow us to use most of the labour-saving gardening tools.
It’s easy to standardize them (allows for much easier crop
planning).
They’re easy to work with and move around.
They benefit of an existing soil food web (key for healthy plants).

The type of beds you decide to use will have a great impact on the
efficiency, practicality, and ultimately your production.
Step 3: Watering Systems & Methods

When it comes to water, pretty much every living organism on this

planet needs it.

This includes the annual vegetables you’re growing.

Did you know that most vegetables we consume are roughly 80 to

90 percent of water by weight?

Basically, this means that by growing annual vegetables we’re

‘growing’ water.

As you can imagine, since most of the crops consist mainly out of
water, water itself is one of the most important considerations when
it comes to growing food.

Therefore, irrigation is an
absolute necessity when it
comes to growing vegetables.

You simply can’t rely on

unpredictable rainfall.
With vegetables being planted through direct seeding and
transplanting, and the constant crop successions, an abundant water
source is essential for a successful garden.

The main purpose of irrigation is to ensure good germination of

direct-seeded crops and to provide enough moisture during the
plant's growing cycle.

There are three main types of irrigation you can use:

hand watering
overhead sprinkler irrigation
drip irrigation.

The type of irrigation you’re going to use depends on a couple of

factors including the location in the garden, the types of vegetables
you’re growing, the climate you’re in, the soils you’re working with,
and the overall practicality.

We use all three methods.

Sometimes we water by hand for specific spots in the garden,

overhead irrigation when we direct seed a crop (like carrots or
radishes) or need to cool plants down, and drip irrigation for
everything that’s transplanted or doesn’t like their leaves to be wet
(like tomatoes and cucumbers).

Depending on the time of the year and the weather conditions, you’ll
have to adjust the quantity and frequency of watering.
 Tip
To ensure enough moisture for plants, you
can use the ‘finger test’. Simply stick your
finger in the soil and check for moisture. If
it’s dry, water. If it’s wet, don’t water. It’s
that simple.

I have always installed irrigation systems in our gardens as it’s a fool-

proof way for us to make sure the vegetables receive the right amount
of watering, without me having to worry to get out in the garden and
do it manually.

We can do this by installing a simple timer on the system.

This allows us to choose how often and for how long we water each
session. This is a great feature that allows us to basically ‘set it and
forget it’.

More time to enjoy and no stress when you forget to water your
garden. That’s a big win!

Decide on how you will irrigate your plants, install a system (if
necessary) and move on to the next step.
Step 4: Crop Planning

Creating a planting plan is the single most important thing to do that

will allow you to go from having inconsistent harvests to being able to
have food growing for as long as possible, allowing you to increase
the amount of food you’re getting from the garden.

In fact, in my first season gardening, we planted a bunch of different

vegetables and were able to grow quite a bit of food.

There was only one problem.

As the season progressed, after we started harvesting our vegetables,

we started noticing empty spots in the garden that were not planted.

So, when the empty spots appeared, we were not ready with new
transplants that would allow us to continue growing, increasing our
food abundance.
Not only that, but we also had no idea when to start new seedlings,
where to put them in the garden, and how we could optimize our
growing space.

That’s a stark contrast to what happened when we started utilizing a

planting plan.

We went from empty garden beds and no idea what to do, to having
full clarity and consistent year-round yields.

A planting plan will help you do this.

So, what is a planting plan exactly?

A planting plan is simply a plan that will tell you exactly what to grow,
how much to grow, where to plant things, clarity on when to harvest
vegetables, and in combination with a planting calendar will give you
a complete overview of your growing season on a single piece of
paper.
Basically, with a planting plan you’ll never have to guess what to do as
you can simply look at your plan and know exactly what to do and by
when you must do it, throughout the growing season.

We all have lives and are all

busy, so having this clarity right
in front of your nose as a
guiding hand through your
season is one of the most
important things you can do
when growing your own food.

For us personally, it allowed us

to go from inconsistent
harvests, to being able to make
a living growing vegetables.

And the process and principles I’m going to explain with you here, is
the same process we used on our commercial market garden. The
steps are the same, it’s just the scope that’s different.

How do we go about creating a planting plan?

It comes down to the following eight steps:

1. Identify your growing season.

First you need to know what growing season you are in. This in turn
will tell you how many growing weeks you roughly have in a single
growing season in your area.

This will allow you to understand when to when you can have
vegetables available in your gardens.

This map is called ‘The plant hardiness zone map’.

You can find out what plant hardiness zone you live in here:
In the US: [Link]
Anywhere: [Link]

Once you’ve figured out your plant hardiness zone, you need to find
out the planting schedule for that specific zone.

Go to Google, and type in ‘Planting schedule zone (insert your zone

number/letter)'.

This will give you a good idea from when to when you will be able to
grow food outdoors, and when to start your seeds.
2. Asses your growing space.
How much growing space do you have? To
ensure that we can grow the food we love
to eat, we need to make sure there’s
enough space to plant them.

You might like eating 20+ different

vegetables at home, but if you only have 1
small growing bed, you might not be able to
grow everything you want, or at the amount
you want.

Write down the number of growing beds

you have, and assign a number (or letter) to
them.

This information will be required for creating a planting plan in step

six.

Tip
Grow only the things you love to eat and prioritize vegetables
that are not easily available locally for a cheap price. It might be
easier to buy organic potatoes from a local farmer, than using
your valuable garden space to grow this yourself.
 What do you like to eat, and how much of it
3. do you want?
Make a list with the type of vegetables you like to eat, and how much
you eat of them every week.

For example, we love tomatoes and we eat roughly 2 kilos of them

per week.

We also love to eat lettuce and eat about a lettuce head every other
day.

This will give us about 4 lettuces per week.

Once you develop a list like this, you’ll immediately see how much
you have to grow per week to reach that total.

When can you have each crop available in

4. your planting zone?
Not all vegetables can be grown year-round, and many can only be
grown a couple of months per year.

This means that you must figure out roughly from when to when you
can have certain vegetables available.

This is what I call the Plant availability list.

It looks something like this:

These are the dates when we were able to have vegetables in the
garden in eastern France.

To create this for yourself in your plant zone, it requires you to make
an educated guess.

Since you’re not sure when you can have certain plants available,
you’ll have to find people (farmers/market gardeners) in your area
that do know this and model your garden after their planting
schedules.

You can either (A) talk to them in person, or (B) try to find a website
where they tell you when they have certain plants available (See step
1).

Finding a website from someone in your area is not always easy and
generally it's best to speak to avid gardeners in your area.
Tip Find a local seed supplier (or one that has a similar
climate as yours) and use the planting dates they
recommend on their seed packages.

This will give you a good indication of when you can start to grow your
plants.

This availability list will constantly be updated as you gain more

experience, know-how, and skills to identify your exact growing
season.

Not every year is the same, and this will reflect into your availability
list.

5. Write down sowing dates.

Once you have a good idea of the duration of your growing season
and when you can have certain vegetables in the garden, it’s time to
start writing down the dates on when to start your seedlings and
when to direct seed your beds.

I personally like to do it one vegetable at a time and work my way

down the list of vegetables I want to grow.
Let’s do one together.

Let’s take a head of lettuce as an example.

On my crop availability chart, I can see that I can have lettuce heads
from the 1st of May till the 31st of October which equals to 26 weeks.

My family and I eat up to 4 lettuces per week.

But, since not all plants will always make it due to pests, disease, or
any other factor we don’t have control over, we want to make sure to
plant a little bit extra.

In our garden we always aim to plant 30% more than required, just to
be sure to reach the amount of food that we actually need.

Any surplus after that is just a bonus which will end up in our pantry.
So, if we take the 4 lettuces and add 30% to it, we need to grow 5.2
lettuces which we will round upwards to 6.

Now we know how many lettuces we need to grow per week.

The next step is to figure out when we should start seedlings and
when we have to transplant those seedlings in the garden to have
these plants ready at the right time.

To do this we work our way backward from the moment we can have
the lettuces available.

In our case the 1st of May.

What we have to do is subtract the days to maturity from the date we

can have them ready.

We subtract 60 days, which is the average DTM of lettuce heads, and

subtract this from the 1st of May which in this case gives us the 2nd of
March.

Tip In Google, type the DTM of a crop (e.g. 60 days)

minus the expected harvest date (e.g. May 1) and
they’ll immediately give you the answer.
The date shown will be the day on which you’ll have to start your
seedlings in order for you to reach the expected harvest date.

This we will write down including the number of plants we need to

start at that specific date, which in this example is 6 lettuce plants on
the 2nd of March.

At this point, we also want to include when we have to transplant our

seedlings into the garden beds. To know this, we need to know how
long lettuces on average stay in their seedling trays, which is about 30
days.

So, if we add 30 days to the sowing date of March 2, we know that on

the 1st of April, we’ll transplant our lettuces in the garden beds.
Now we have two dates:
The sowing date (March 2)
Seedling transplant date (April 1)

We want to know one more date and that is when the lettuces are
likely to be harvested and the bed is empty again. This tells us when
we can transplant our next succession of vegetables.

This is called succession planting and is a must for year-round

abundance.

So, what we do is we take the sowing date (March 2) and add the DTM
of that specific plant (60 days) to it so that we can get a good guess
on when it’ll be ready to be harvested.

In this case May 1.

At this point, we know that around May 1 we can harvest our first
lettuces and the beds will soon be empty again, ready for the next
succession.
But, we’re working with numbers and averages here.

These numbers often reflect the ‘perfect’ growing conditions.

Early and late in the season days to maturities of plants can be much
longer due to the colder weather.

So, we want to create a buffer zone of several weeks to make sure

that our plants have sufficient time to mature before we’re ready to
plant the next succession.

In our case, our expected harvest date is May 1, but at this time of the
year it can take a lettuce 2 to 4 weeks longer to mature and we want
to account for that time.

In our case, since we use season extension fleeces and can create a bit
more protection and warmth, we know that we can gain some time,
but due to low light levels it can take the lettuces roughly two weeks
extra to mature.

So, we take the expected harvest

date (May 1) and add 14 days to it,
which will give us May 15.

This is the day on which we can be

sure to harvest the lettuces and
the beds are empty and ready for
the next succession of plants.
And this process we do for every single vegetable and simply work our
way down the list until we’re done.

Tip You won’t be able to grow every vegetable year-

round in the garden, but you still want to consume
some of them during the winter months. Make sure
to plant enough that you can process and preserve
for the months they’re not available in the garden.
This simple exercise can be taken down all the way
to helping you plan to become entirely self-
sufficient in every vegetable you like to consume,
given you have enough garden space.

6. Create your planting plan

With the information we’ve gathered, we can now create a plan that
will tell us where we have to plant vegetables throughout the entire
growing season, and what other vegetables they will be succeeded by.

When doing this, we always take basic crop rotation and plant
requirement principles into consideration.

We take the dates from the previous step and start filling this out onto
the planting plan.
I personally like to do this in an Excel file as it will allow me to adjust
when needed and will give me a clear overview of the entire plan.

In this file I create three to five ‘blocks’ each representing a plant

cycle/succession. The shorter your growing season the fewer ‘blocks’
you’ll have. The longer the growing season, the more you’ll have.

See example below:

Each block contains 7 columns.

From left to right: garden bed, crop, direct seeded/transplanted,

variety, DS/T date, seeding date nursery (for transplanted crops), and
the end date which is the estimated harvest date including a buffer.

What we have to do is take the dates from the previous step and
insert them into this sheet, including the crop name and optionally
the variety.
Let’s take the lettuce from the previous step as an example.

In the first column we have the bed number.

In the second column we add the type of vegetable: lettuce.

In the third column we write either a DS (Direct Seeded) or T

(Transplanted), which in this case is ‘T’.

In the fourth column we can write down the variety name, but this is
optional. Just keep in mind that even within varieties, DTM's change.

In the fifth column we write down the date on which a plant is either
direct seeded or transplanted into a bed.

In this case we expect to transplant the lettuce on April 1.

In the sixth column we insert the date of when we need to sow seeds
in the nursery, which in this case is March 2.
In the seventh and final column we insert the date on which we
expect the plant to be ready including a buffer zone of a couple of
weeks to ensure the plants have enough time to mature.

In this case this will be May 15.

And like this we’ve finished the first rotation and planting of lettuce in
our garden.

After that it’s just a matter of going through your list in the previous
step and doing them one by one whilst keeping crop rotation and
plant requirements into consideration.

At this point, you’ll also directly see whether you have enough space
to grow everything you’d like to eat.

If you’ve highly overestimated what you can grow compared to the

space you have available, you’ll have to adjust the amount or diversity
of plants so it will fit in your available garden space.

Tip Interplanting vegetables is a strategy that will allow you to

increase your garden output without sacrificing garden
space. For example: trellised tomatoes have a lot of space at
the ground level as they’re growing upwards. This space can
easily be used to grow many different vegetables like
lettuce, carrots, radish, beets, onions, herbs and a lot more.
 Calculate how many seeds/plants you’ll need
7. for the season
After finalizing your planting plan and ensuring there’s enough space
for all the vegetables you’ve decided to grow, I personally always
want to calculate and know exactly how many seeds or plants I’m
required to grow/buy for the entire growing season so that I can place
my orders at the local seed company.

In some seasons growing vegetables for market, we ran out of seeds

of a specific vegetable variety.

We wanted to order some, but the season was already well on its way
and the seeds were out of order and backlogged for several months.

You can avoid this by buying directly all the seeds you’ll need for the
entire season in winter when seed companies are still fully stocked.
8. Create a crop calendar
As last, with all the information in hand we need to make a crop
calendar. We do this to create a very enjoyable gardening experience.

This will allow you to take a quick look at the calendar and instantly
see what you have to do each day of the growing season.

You can also combine most tasks (like planting, sowing, weeding, etc.)
together and do them on one specific day in the week.

The planting plan is already a must-have to ensure continuous yields

in the garden. A crop calendar is a must to ensure you stay on track
with keeping your garden productive and efficient (and your mind
sane).

We do this as follows.

We open our planting plan and write all the dates (seeding &
transplanting dates, and expected harvest dates) on our calendar.
I like to do this step in a different Excel file that I’ll print out and hang
up in a convenient place where I can always see it.

Another option is to buy a physical calendar and note down the tasks
in it.

There’s no right or wrong way, and it really comes down to personal

preference.

And that’s all there is to it.

These are the eight steps to creating a highly efficient planting plan
and calendar which will help you increase the amount of food you can
produce in your garden considerably.

Not to mention help with the

organization and create a pleasant
gardening experience.

This single step will literally allow

you to go from 'doing alright' in the
garden, to being able to
confidently know how you can
actually become self-sufficient in
vegetables.

Not too bad right?

Step 5 : Growing – From Seed to Harvest

This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

After doing all the legwork, you’ve created a design, your growing
beds, installed irrigation, and made your planting plan, it’s time to
grow your vegetables.

I still remember to this day the first seeds we sowed and the first
seedlings we transplanted and the beautiful bounty of healthy crops
at the end of their cycle.

Honestly, there’s nearly nothing more rewarding than experiencing

growing your plants from seeds into nutrient-dense food.

This is what gardening is all about.

Being able to provide you and your family with the food that you’ve
grown really gives a great feeling of accomplishment, security, and
purpose.

If you’ve grown food before, you know what I mean.

But although growing and harvesting your own food is one of the
most rewarding things in gardening, it does come with a set of
challenges.

Every plant is grown differently, and many require different growing

conditions.

What works for me in my garden, doesn’t necessarily have to work for

you in your garden.

With just a slight variation in climatic conditions everything can

change.

Having said that, annual vegetable crops are surprisingly tough plants
and basically grow themselves.

Your only task is to give them the best possible growing conditions.

And most of that starts with the soil.

Initially it might make you a bit nervous (and excited!), but there’s
nothing to be afraid of.

Growing those first plants is an important first step that is going to

give you the knowledge and confidence you’ll need to have year-
round abundance for you and your family.

And to grow your plants, there are two main methods:

You can start seedlings in the nursery to grow transplants (or buy
them).
And you can directly sow seeds in the ground.

Both methods require a different approach, and each vegetable has

their preference.

For example, carrots and radishes are both plants that will require to
be sown directly in the ground. Whereas plants like tomatoes and
cucumbers will benefit of being started in seedling trays or pots.
The transplanted vegetables in our garden all get started in a
dedicated nursery (a windowsill works fine too).

Here we can ensure that the needs of the small seedlings are met and
they're able to grow into strong and healthy transplants.

For this process we use simple nursery trays.

These trays come in many different sizes and dimensions to suit the
needs of the specific plants that are grown in them.

To grow in trays, you’ll need to use a high-quality potting mix.

These come in every imaginable mix, but most contain a combination

of peat, compost, vermicompost, perlite, and some fertilizers.

This is usually available at nearly every garden center.

Filling up the trays is pretty straightforward but will require a couple of
steps you need to know to grow healthy transplants.

Before you start filling up your tray, you want to make sure to moisten
the medium a bit.

You can’t make it too wet, but it can’t be too dry either.

The best is to perform a squeeze test to make sure that the mix
contains just the right amount of moisture.

To do this we grab a handful of potting mix and squeeze it.

When squeezing, the mix should only release a couple of drops of

water.

If you squeeze and there’s no water coming out, it’s too dry. If it’s
leaking a lot of water, it’s too wet.

That’s all there is to the squeeze test and making sure the soil contains
just the right amount of water.
After that, simply fill up your trays all the way, compact it slightly, sow
your seeds, and cover them with a thin layer of potting soil.

Give it one last good watering and

your seeds are of to the races.

As your seeds are germinating and

growing into beautiful little baby plants,
water them regularly until they are
strong enough to be planted outside.

To ensure you don’t overwater them, we

let the soil dry out between each
watering, before applying water again.

Too much water at this stage will

cause something that’s called
‘damping off’.

Damping off is caused by wet and cold

conditions and will allow fungi to
proliferate and kill your tender
seedlings.

Once the seedlings have grown into a

good size, it’s time to transplant them outside into your growing beds.
At this time, we make sure to harden off the transplants (letting them
get used to outdoor conditions; cold, wind, rain, etc.) to prevent a
transplanting shock.

Just before we transplant them into their final location, we make sure
the beds are prepared and are ready to receive the seedlings.

Depending on the time of the year, this means that we either

broadfork the beds, apply compost, and mark out the ideal spacing
needed for the crops.

Once we’ve transplanted the crop, we ensure that they’re irrigated

and kept moist until they’ve settled in and are taking off.

From there on out it’s simply ensuring regular watering until it’s time
to harvest the mature abundance.

Direct seeding vegetables is a much easier process that takes up a lot

less time.

Personally, since we ran an organic vegetable farm, we use a precision

seeder for this purpose.
But at home, this can easily be done by hand.

The steps we take to direct seed a bed are pretty straightforward.

We make sure the bed is prepared and amended, and we simply seed
the bed.

When direct seeding vegetables it’s important to not plant the seeds
too deep.

Tip
A general rule of thumb is to sow the seeds twice as deep as
the size of the seed itself.

After that, simply cover the seeds with a bit of soil, slightly compress
it so that the seeds have good soil-to-seed contact, and water them
in.

Every plant is different and they all require to be planted at different

spacings.

As you’re sowing your seeds, you want to make sure that there is
enough space between each seed that will allow them to grow into
mature plants without overcrowding each other.

From there on out, simply water them regularly and keep an eye out
for weeds until it’s time to harvest them.
And that’s the whole process in a nutshell.

If you follow the right approach and strategies, you’ll notice that
growing your food doesn’t have to be too difficult.

As I always like to say, vegetables are pretty much growing

themselves.

With a seed, some soil, water, and sunlight, you have all the
ingredients to let the magic happen and grow an abundance of food
at home.

And once you’ve grown your plants to a mature size, it’s time to enjoy
your harvest and process them so you can too enjoy a year-round
abundance of homegrown food.
Step 6: Enjoy Your Harvest
The goal of this guide is to give you a birds-eye view of what it takes
to enjoy year-round homegrown food.

But the reality is, in many climates we can’t have vegetables growing
the entire year outdoors.

That’s why, if we want to have food available from the garden in the
colder months, we need to process and preserve our harvests during
the abundant growing months.

Although our growing season in France used to be from April to

November, by processing the food during the summer months we
were able to have nutrient-dense stored food for the colder months
of the year.
That’s how we can enjoy homegrown food year-round.

There are many ways how you can process and preserve food from
the garden. And some of the easiest ways to do this are canning,
fermenting, or drying.

When it comes to preserving food, for us it’s important to try and

preserve as much of the nutrient content in the vegetables as
possible.

Even better, what if we could increase the nutrients and benefits of

stored foods?

By far the best way to do this is lacto-fermenting your harvests.

We’ve used this method with great success for a variety of vegetables
including carrots, radishes, beetroots, cabbages, kohlrabi, turnips,
cucumbers, and many other crops.

Lacto-fermenting your vegetables is one of the best ways to preserve

and store your food. It not only preserves your harvests in great
condition, but it also actually increases their nutritional value.

During fermentation, microorganisms generate probiotics and

prebiotics, which seem to be pretty healthy for you.

On top of that, all you need is salt and water.

No need to spend hours in the kitchen with fancy equipment, cooking

meals, canning, and sterilizing them.

That’s important considering that most of the harvests always tend to

come at the same time, leaving you scrambling for time.
And because you don’t need to use any gas or electricity for
fermenting your vegetables, you will also save a lot on energy costs.

But of course, we also want to enjoy some pizza in winter with

homemade pizza sauce. And for this, we use the canning method.

No matter what method is used, preserving your harvests during the

abundant growing months and storing them for winter use, is a must
if you want to enjoy food from the garden every week of the year.
Conclusion & Next Steps
These are the six steps that will allow you to go from beginner
gardener to having year-round vegetables at home.

If you’re just starting out, it might

be a little overwhelming at times
and that’s totally normal.

When we started growing food, we

didn’t immediately reach a certain
level of success or confidence.

It’s all about baby steps. Taking

one small step after the other and
learn from your failures and
successes.

Start with a couple of growing

beds and grow some of the food
that you like to consume the most.

From that point onward, as your skills, confidence, and expertise

expand, you can progressively challenge limitations and cultivate a
wider variety of crops. You can endeavor to increase your self-
sufficiency in food production, gradually working towards a state
where you enjoy a consistent year-round abundance of nutrient-rich
vegetables right in your own home.
And I can tell you, once you start to eat those fresh garden-grown
vegetables, you’ll never want to go to the supermarket again to buy
those fade-tasting, ‘perfect’ looking things, because you know that
you can grow them better (and cheaper) yourself.

I hope that by sharing this guide and giving you a birds-eye view of
what it takes to have year-round vegetables at home, you get the
confidence and motivation to get out there and start growing your
food.

As the world and society seem to get more out of control every single
day, now more than ever is a great time to start growing and learning
how you can become more self-reliant.

Year-round abundance starts with

planting that first seed. After that,
your relationship with food will never
be the same again.

Thank you!

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