Garden Plans You Should Be Making Right Now

The winter months may not seem like they’re prime gardening time, but for any serious gardener, the winter months are filled with work and planning. If you’re planning to have a vegetable garden next summer, there are plenty of garden plans you should be making right now. It may seem silly, but doing so will help ensure you have a plentiful garden that will feed your family for months.

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In This Guide

Plan for Warmer Weather

Every great garden requires careful planning and the winter months are perfect for that. You’ll want to take a look at things such as the layout of your next garden, how you’re planting, whether you’re starting from seed or seedlings and more. If you have a smaller space, you’ll also want to be sure that you can fit everything you want to plant in the space you have available.

To help keep your planning organized, using a garden planner can be a huge help.

Learn a New Skill or Technique

Successfully growing food is one of those skills that you should always be learning how to improve on. From ways to improve your soil to new composting methods and new watering techniques, you can always learn something new. Use the months when you’re not actively growing to teach yourself those new skills.

The more you can learn, the better garden you will ultimately have.

Order Seeds or Plants

After you know what you’re planning, it’s time to order any seeds, bulbs or plant starters you need! This is the fun part of winter gardening!

The cooler months are also a great time to buy any other supplies you’ll need as well. Since prices tend to be cheaper during the off-seasons. You might even be able to find a few great deals if you look hard enough. Use these deals to pick up other supplies you may need such as fertilizer or potting soil.

Replace or Fix Broken Gardening Tools

Like it or not, the gardening tools that we use do get worn down and sometimes break. Winter is the perfect time to replace or repair them. Make sure they’re oiled up if needed and that mechanical tools such as tillers are in good mechanical working order so they’re ready to go.

If you absolutely can not repair it, use the off-season sales to replace them cheaper than you would pay during the warmer months. You can also use a cash back service such as Ibotta or Rakuten to help yourself save even more money on replacements.

Repair Broken Gardening Beds

Garden beds can easily get broken down and weathered over the course of the growing season as well. Spring rains, summer sun, thunderstorms and more can all damage your garden beds making them unusable for another growing season. Using the cooler months when they’re not typically in use is the perfect time to repair or replace them.

This is also the perfect time to repair or replace broken or ripped grow bags or planters. Since they’re not in heavy demand, you can likely replace them for far cheaper than if you wait until the sun comes out to replace them.

Another area that may be damaged and should be checked is any weed barriers you have laid down. These can easily become ripped and should be replaced if so.

Looking to make the most of gardening this season? Check out these helpful guides:

Tend to Cold Weather Plants

If you planted in the summer or fall for winter plants, be sure you don’t forget to tend to them. It can be easy to forget them or to just ignore them when the weather turns cold and snowy but doing so will only lead to dead plants that are ultimately turned into compost.

You planted them for a reason so be sure you take good care of them. In the end, you’ll be glad you did.

The Final Steps to Planning Your Garden

There are a few more things you can do to start getting ready for your spring garden. This garden planner is a great tool to get you started.

If you need gardening soil, be sure to get it on hand before you plant your seeds.

You may also want to invest in a pair of gardening knee pads.

Last but not least, don't forget to get the whole family involved in gardening! Let each family member pick their favorite fruit or vegetable.