2024 Garden Plan : Part One! Cut Flower Farm : Sunshine and Flora

Here is part ONE of my 2024 Garden Plan!

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Sunshine & Flora, Locally Grown Fresh Cut Flowers
Zone 5A, Northwest Iowa
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Hey again it’s Christina from sunshine and Flora so I am really excited to share with you guys that I finally have all of my garden plans done for the year and so that is what I want to start sharing with you guys in this video uh I

Do everything on the computer if you have seen videos in the past and so what I will be doing as I talk about all of my planting beds is I’ll put pictures of the actual area up on the screen but then I will also put my diagrams up on

The screen and tell you the size and measurements of each each bed so that you guys can see that as well and if I know plant spacing off the top of my head I will tell you that in the videos too uh but part one I’m going to split

This into two different videos because otherwise I think it would just get way too long so this video part one I’m going to share all of my inground plantings and in part two which you will probably see in a couple days I’m going to go over what I’m planting in my hoop

House um that I want to go over in a separate video because I’m going to do multiple plantings in there and also that is a totally different growing environment because it’s undercover so that will be part two okay so we’re just going to jump right into this and I’m

Going to go through this somewhat quickly so this video doesn’t get forever long uh but enough in detail so that you guys can definitely get something out of it and if you have questions comment below I always try to answer as many questions as I can all

Right so the first area that I’m going to go over is my very first planting area this is the space that I opened up first uh 4 years ago already and this is the growing space that is in between my building and the neighboring building

Which is now also my building uh this is roughly a 30X 60 area um I have it formatted as a rectangle and there is a rectangle kind of loop path that goes through it so there is a uh there’s two side planting beds and then one long one

In the middle so now that you’ve seen a few pictures piur of the area here is the diagram for this year’s planting so as you can see I like to color code things because I can tell the difference in the different varieties of plants so let’s just start in the middle this

Planting area is roughly 13 to 14 in wide by about 36 in Long and you can see I have numerous rows in this area up at the top we start with dalas uh then we move down to zenas and then a patch of snapdragons and a narrow patch of

Lanthus uh now these beds are all three foot beds with 2 feet of walking space in between dalas I’m estimating I can fit about 24 dalas in the space based on how I planted them last year and how I space my dalas is 18 in this way and 12

In this way so that would give me 12 dalas time 2 in a patch so 24 zenyas are a 9in spacing uh snapdragons I like to plant at about a 4 to 5 in spacing those I have found can be planted much closer together and then at the very end you’ll

See that little narrow strip of lanthus um that is just based on the number of lanthus that I have and I also plant lanthus very close at about 4 in for spacing so this area if you remember from the photos this is where the greenhouse was so we moved the

Greenhouse out it’s now mounted to concrete and this area is going to be utilized as a full planting area this year which I am really excited about much more growing space now let’s go to the bed that is on the south side of my studio building so the north side of

This lot uh it’s right next to the metal building it gets lots of heat during the summer and if you remember this fall this is the spot where I planted all of those piis uh the one part of it I have 22 two panies planted they are in the

Middle and the back of the bed so there is about a I would say 12 in um area of bare dirt at the very front of the bed and my plan is to plant uh a line of rubia plants at the front I can plant them a little closer to the front

They’ll still be fa spaced fine from the peanes um but they’re a perennial in my area and so those will get established um I’m probably going to do a shorter variety like Sahar so they don’t completely take over the area but I’ll have a nice line of the Sahara Rebeca

That will come back every year and then I also will be able to utilize that little patch I like to pack as much into a small space as possible I like to utilize every square inch of the area so a little line of Rebeca that will come

Back year after year will be perfect in that spot now in the top corner of this diagram you will see HH that is an existing Hol Hawk that I leave I really like the height in that corner next to the fence moving down from the penies

And the Rebeca you will see status this is where I have planted the status for the last couple years although that bed um shared the status and some fever feew I cleaned that Feverfew out um in the fall because I wanted to just uh kind of

Clean it up a bit and start over and have all of my status uh or most of my status in the same area so that whole area is going to be status now the big black square is my air conditioner and then uh there’s a little patch of Yaro

Planted in front of that air conditioner it has question marks in front of it because I may or may not leave that I’m not quite sure and then just below the air conditioner or to the right of the air conditioner I am going to reestablish that area for Rudbeckia and

Feverfew both come back in my area which is a zone five and so I’m hoping I can establish that as a perennial area as well uh get some more rubia than I need uh more Feverfew that I need and uh there also is a post of my pergula in

That spot and then that way I’ll just have kind of an established perennial patch in that area that is uh a little harder to harvest so across the pathway from that is my saloia patch last year part of this patch I did direct seed some Crest uh it didn’t really grow

There very well it just got away from me so I’m just going to make make this whole patch sosia and keep it simple this year moving around the garden you will see the two purple squares with the question marks um that whole area is where my raspberries were I have since

Then removed that fence line because we are doing work on the building next door uh the construction crew who will be tuck pointing that building will need to get through there to do that in the spring that also is where we carry the greenhouse out of so uh those Ras

Raspberries are getting moved to a whole another space which I will share with you later in this video so with leaving a walkway there there may be some space where I can plant something so those are question marks for now um and then the other bed where you can see the four

Blue dots that is next to the building that we are renovating the four blue dots are existing hydrangea bushes which I probably will cut back more than usual this year the building is getting tuck pointed first thing in the spring which is awesome but because all that planting

Space is right next to the building uh it’s kind of up in the air what I’m going to be able to do with that nothing right away in the spring because it’s going to get trampled and there’s going to be concrete falling on it and all the good stuff um I’m hoping

That your hydranges are okay so I will probably have to prune those back more than normal um we move to the area of Yaro which says Yaro question mark that is an established yarao patch I don’t know how well that’s going to do through the tuck pointing so I may be replanting

It uh the green square at the top you’ll see Ami kadara that is an area that is currently landscape fabric with holes plant holes burned in it that I grew bu pluram in the last couple years I’m thinking if I put Amy and dar in that spot this year

That’s something I can easily midseason direct SE and still get some to harvest in the fall so that particular spot is up in the air just because of the construction but I still think it’ll be a usable space this year now The Cottage Garden area as I call it that is on the

Outside of the fence I’m going to also be redoing that a little bit this year uh there’s some established Russian sage some established an um eonia and reia and Yaro all of that will probably be staining but um there is some shorter Yaro that’s going to be getting ripped

Out uh they’re also o has been areas where I’ve planted annuals in the past years I would really like to fill that as much as possible with perennials that come back for cutting so that I don’t have to plant annuals in there every year it is landscape fabric and mulched

So I would kind of just like to keep it a perennial bed um so the things that I’m going to be adding in there are uh more Rebeca the varieties that I like such as um Cherokee sunset um not Goldy box but one of the other gold ones I’ll put it on the

Screen I can’t think of it right now and of course Sahara which is my favorite uh did I say Yaro I’m going to be planting more Yaro in there but the correct height of Yaro I may sew some Feverfew in there towards the front because Feverfew doesn’t get quite as tall um

But comes back in my area the one thing that is an annual that I know I’m going to plant in there is a type of sosia that I use as a filler uh iuse used to buy it at Garden Centers every year but last fall I

Noticed Johnny’s had it as one of their new varieties it gets little pink flowers but for me if at all it’s very much at the end of the season and I can clip them off to keep it branching the foliage is dark and this is the foliage

That I use in my jelly jars for my big end of the year market so uh and this sosia grows pretty much like a shrub for me so I will be putting at the back of that bed along the fence a line of this saloia filler as I call it um I also

Have a few spots at home where I plan to put some more Rebeca and some of that sosia filler all right so that is the fenced in Garden as I call it not completely fenced in anymore but uh I still will call it that so moving on to

Another diagram we’re going to hop out to the hoop house Garden this is along the west side of the hoop house this was a brand new planting area last year and oh my gosh did it give me so much more planting space overall this is about a

18x 28 space so lots of growing space I grew a variety of things in it last year but this year I’m simplifying so first off you’ll notice a big patch of zenyas that is the same place that I had zenas last year uh I don’t even know how many plants that I

Fit in that space 28 ft long and I know I had at least seven or eight rows of zenas so lots that’s going to be zenas this year moving over towards the left you’ll see a big orange patch that is a space that is not landscape fabric it’s

All open bare dirt last year I had some sunflowers in there I had gladiolas I had miscellaneous direct SE things I had some of the saloia filler and I had craspedia this year it’s going going to be all sunflowers and I figure in that space I can get five succession

Plantings of 200 sunflowers each so that is the plan for that spot then there’s one more planting row to the left of that much smaller 28 long only three rows wide at 9in spacing this is going to be uh all of the Coline that I just started and Coline will grow on

Throughout the season this year it will not flower this year but it will be an early flowering plant next year so I’m planning ahead so I have about 80 plants that I can fit in that area and then at the bottom you’ll see a Feverfew patch that is an existing Feverfew patch from

Last year um there is green coming up in that whole area so I know that they are alive so I’m keeping that spot so uh this area will be largely utilized this year simplified but so many plants Okay so then next to that directly to the

West of that I have eight 4×4 beds um that I put in I think two seasons ago but I really only grew in them last year because these beds are um separate from inground plantings and a little bit smaller these are kind of areas where I like to do trial plants so it’s

Something if it’s something that I’ve never grown before or I’m trying for the first time I like to plant just just a little 4×4 patch of it in these beds to see if I like it and if I don’t like it I haven’t wasted a bunch of space in the

Garden and so I have eight plants listed that I’m going to be filling these beds with this year um now most of these are ones that I haven’t grown before or I just sampled and I still want to kind of try them um a couple are ones that I

Have grown before but I just know that I don’t need very much of um so the first one is Clary Sage that’s going to be a new one for me this year saponaria a new one for me this year um Chinese Forget Me Not and then yellow chamomile all

Four of those are going to be new for me this year uh I’m going to use craspedia in one of those areas because I love that I grew it last year but I don’t think I need a ton of it Mountain mint was one that I had maybe four plants of

Last year and I really liked it so I’d like a little bit more this year um honey wart let me tell you honey wart can get completely out of control I grew it on the west side of my Greenhouse last year it completely took over that area so

Much that I didn’t have Pathways it was really crazy so I need a contained area for honey wart that I can easily stake and support and I don’t need a ton of it so I’m going to try honey wart in one of those 4×4 beds and the last thing I’m

Going to put in those 4×4 beds is amaranth and some of you are probably thinking oh that’s kind of a weird choice I don’t use a ton of amaranth um I like to grow amaranth very close together as single stocks so I figure I

Can get quite a bit in a 4×4 bed at single stocks and that will probably um be what I need to harvest for the season all right we have a couple of spaces left one is that bed on the East End of the hoop house where I grew sunflowers

Last year I also grew some status and some mahogany Splender hibiscus I’m going to kind of be doing the same thing in that spot this year except um I’m Nixon the status that’s going to go um all in another spot uh which I had mentioned previous I am going to be

Growing the mahogany Splendor hibiscus in that bed this year uh I think I grew nine plants last year this year I’m going to up that to 15 I’d like a little bit more and then the whole rest of that open bed is going to be for sunflowers

For my biggest year end market last year I grew sunflowers for that year-end Market in that bed I grew maybe 400 and they all bloomed early um I was able to save some of them but I had to utilize uh some others that I thought would be

Later they bloomed so early so this year I just need to plan a little different I need to start planting mid July and I think do weekly plantings and fill up that bed and then I should have sunflowers right when I need them for that big market so that bed is going to

Be pretty simple the other inground areas that I’m going to be planting are in the new areas on the new property so last year you saw me create a huge Square bed I don’t even know the measurements of it uh 40×40 or something like that uh and I started to plant

Peonies in there and other perennials um I had have Yaro panies I have a viburnum some daisies eonia just some random things like that um some Hol hawks just for looks I would like to continue developing that with some extra perennials or extra seedlings maybe just kind of putting them in there

To fill up the area uh but last fall I had another truckload of top soil in brought in and that was all spread and placed on the north side of that bed so I have an area that is 12x 43 ft long so it’s a long one and this

Is all brand new nice black top soil and it’s ready to be planted so here is the layout that I am planning for that area the top of the screen is east and the little white strip I think is going to be kind of along the alley just leave it

As gravel but then I would like to plant an area of shrubs that get somewhat tall um to kind of act as a natural fence then from there we have 4ot planting beds um well two of them are 3ot the top and the bottom are three foot because of

How it was spaced and then twft walkways and so these are the plants that I’m going to be planting in that area Gina orium ageratum f scabiosa um both the blue and the white straw flow the Amazon dianthus and then bread seed poppies I purchased those um the pods from another flower farmer

Friend last year and I loved them I need them in my garden so I will have my own patch of those this year and I’m really excited to have all that planting space so all of those varieties are getting either 3 or 4ot beds that are 12 ft long

That will give me so many more flowers just in that spot than what I had last year so if you add up all my planting space gosh I am going to have a really good harvest this year I think I’m just I’m really excited I’m thrilled uh this

Year my goal is to be very diligent with uh landscape fabric planting in the holes um keeping on control of weed pressure staking everything I need to try a different method of staking um just so that everything is very easy maintenance I also plan to run more drip

Lines and soaker hoses and just kind of make things easier on the maintenance that is key so um if I get things started in the spring correctly you know I think I’ll be able to take care of it even with the building Renovations last year I was a little disappointed because

Some of the areas got away from me uh you know we added so much more gar Garden space and I had such a late start planting it because we did not get it started earlier in the season like I liked uh the hoop house that I wanted to

Get in and plant in March or April didn’t get planted till May and then I was just kind of uh like a chain reaction behind on everything so this year I have very strict planting schedules that I would like to follow I will share all of those in videos with

You guys and hopefully uh I can really take advantage of all of the space possible that I have so anyway um that is the plan for all of my inground Gardens I hope this was helpful and I hope you guys enjoyed it and again if you guys have any questions comment down

Below I’ll try to answer them and the next video that you guys will see will be my hoop house plan so uh I hope you guys are having a great week a good winter and we’re all probably getting ready for spring so stay tuned for a lot more we’ll see you soon