Whether you want to start a vegetable garden or are already a seasoned pro, you’ll learn something from Dan Fillius in our Grown at Home series. As a Commercial Vegetable & Specialty crop specialist at ISU Agricultural Extension (and a home gardener), he knows how to maximize the harvest from any size garden space!
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[Music] let’s talk a little bit about how your garden year starts it’s it starts about I mean you’re planning it’s it’s h February right now and you are starting to work on the plans for this Summer’s yeah honestly Kristen I’m feeling a little behind right now I’m thinking about
Thinking about when I need to start my um my plants and that is uh in March usually and I like to it takes a little bit of time to to do the planning but you know I’ve been dreaming about it
Since the catalog in November and so um and yeah this is just one that I use Johnny’s but uh I’m also usually ordering from you know any number of them but what I really the way sometimes I
Get ahead of myself when I’m planning and I get right into you know how how many row feet of this how but I I I need I I then need to step back and I always start with a map and I do it all
On Excel and so I don’t know I’ve I find that when I get to um um calculating how many seeds I need or how many bed feed equals you know this that and the other thing that Excel really helps
Me uh figure those things out so I just make a map on Excel because I’m so I have it all in the same uh file and so yeah this this is uh the map each row is is uh you know I’ve got it all in rows and
I just block it off so and this doesn’t have to be an Excel a person could just draw the map and and sketch it out but that helps me figure out okay I’ve got this much space it’s concrete the the
Actual space rather than some abstract thing right of a spreadsheet and that’s and so that’s so it’s a visual picture I mean it’s a it’s a footprint of the garden yeah and then you also take it to
A spreadsheet to after after that okay so then I’ve got each planting on here is a row in my spreadsheet and and I leave space because this is I print it out afterwards I leave blank ones for
Or the actual date planted things like that and um so I’ve got a field plan okay so this is so this is your field PL so so you have um every crop arugula cilantro you know sassy mix salad um and
Then um so you’ve got you’ve got the crop and then you talk about which bed it’s in yep everyone’s got a bed it’s days to maturity so that I can calculate you know when I’m going to get that
Crop uh whether it’s a direct seed or transplant um the spacing the rows per bed because when you know this all makes sense to me when I’m planning but then when I get out to the field and I’m like
Or the field the garden um and I and I am planting it I often forget in the moment I’m like how many rows so these is just a cheat sheet for me to go out there and plant with so I’m like oh yeah 12
Rows and um and then I’ve got this calculation which is you know how many rows and spacing for how many plants per bed fooot and that is what I generate like how many seeds to order from
The catalog okay gotcha so it does the calculation and then this is how many plants you need yep and then the number of bed feed ultimately okay and then any notes cuz there’s you know it’s not all
Numbers so uh something here you know I’ve got oh planted the end next to the following salad succession or you know thin at at this point you know thin it to 10 in so that I can if there’s
Anything special that because you have so many different things going on that you kind of yeah this is a 15-page document and there’s you know 20 30 lines on each page and it’s just it’s too
Much to just keep up here but for someone who was doing a smaller Garden this same the same process would prove useful I I me whether or not you I mean you have a lot more to keep track of
But I have you know my Garden’s really small but this would still prove useful to me too I just think take do yourself a favor right and help you know give yourself a a plan for the season that
You can just follow and execute when you’ve got a down time you know down moment in feu February or January I know some Growers are the commercial Growers some do this process in December right because that’s when the the biggest selection of seeds are available from the seed companies
Anyway yeah that makes sense but sometime in the offseason so this is your this is your ordering and kind of planning guide yes and then you go to your propagation guide exactly that with so
All the numbers in here then for if if the column that says transplant is has trans plant in there then it all that information goes into this propagation spreadsheet which tells me sorry a question for you about transplant so does this mean that um if DS means that it’s direct sewn in
The garden correct and so you don’t move those to this sheet I don’t these are just the things that you start indoors ahead of time right I filter it so it’s just the transplants exactly yep and
So then you have your list of things that you’re going to transplant yep and then I’ve got it all coordinated so that things that are being planted in the garden are tray buddies is what I call
Them so I’ve got you know all the things that are planted um in the garden in say mid to late April are all in the uh tray number one all the things that are planted in miday are in tray number two
So that I can take that tray out and I don’t have like you know one Singleton row that’s left behind to to tend in out of one tray and taking up space on your seed starting so the planting of it ends
Up which will get into but that the when I put them out in the tray that is you know staggered so I might have start out with half a tray but then when it’s done and they’re mature they’re all
Out there at the same time okay that’s a really that makes sense that’s a good tip um but yeah so I’ve got a lot of early flowers I’ve got uh the tomatoes and peppers all these things that I’m
Starting in the in the house um and then through the year I do um a total of 10 trays but I only do I only have four at a time so I just sort of have it all staggered so that as soon as one tray comes
Out the next one’s getting seated and filling in its space but um okay yeah so you said you have room for 10 but you only ever do four oh you do 10 total trays I only have room for four but
I need to generate the transplants that I want I have to have a total of 10 you rotate them in and out which is why you do the tray buddies yeah that makes sense okay so um what are these dates here
Do you decide um based on the information here in the field plan and the days to germination and days to mature you you set your schedule ahead of time correct for your trays right yeah so I start
With the date that well I start with the date that the crop can handle right and then I make a plan for you know when it’s going to be in the field I know how many weeks it takes to you know
To be um to to mature from a transplant and back calculate and then that’s my seating date gotcha and I’ve got an equation in here because I had it a couple years back where it was like dates
All over the calendar where it was like a Tuesday a Thursday all these things and we’d be like oh I missed this thing so I just have it there’s a rounding equation in Excel and I round to the
Saturday before we’re always doing the work on the weekends because we have fulltime jobs yes so then you have your weekly to-do list right and that is what this is correct and I’ve got everything sorted by like I said the Saturday and all the things the all the seed starting that’s
Down the basement propagation my my direct seeds out in the garden my transplants need to go out there and my other tasks the miscellaneous from the notes those things so that I can just this
Is my script for the uh for the season basically okay that makes sense so this is one from a couple of years ago I see and uh so this this is where we can see some of your notes that you wrote to
Yourself and kind of how things went into the garden exactly um every every week so yeah I’m moving some tunnels and and end of February starting my first my first planting is 12th of March that well we’ll um look forward to um doing some of those things next month sounds great