1. Planning Vegetable Gardens
Chrissa Carlson
Include the title of your presentation and the presenter name. Providing a contact is optional.

2. ORGANIZATIONAL FLOW CHART
This flow chart represents how the UME Master Gardener program fits into the larger University of Maryland system.
The University of Maryland is the state’s flagship land-grant institution. It has 13 different Colleges and Schools. One college is the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (AGNR) has three parts: Academics, Research, and Extension. Campus faculty in the College of AGNR spend their time teaching college students (Academics) and conducting Research. University of Maryland Extension field faculty (and some campus faculty) serve Maryland through outreach and education programs (Extension).
University of Maryland Extension has over thirty different outreach and educational programs spanning across Maryland.
In order to reach more people in their communities, faculty often teach volunteers, who can then share their new knowledge locally. One volunteer education program where this happens is the UME Master Gardener program. This program is supported by University of Maryland Extension and its mission is to educate Maryland residents about safe, effective, and sustainable horticultural practices.

3. UME Master Gardener volunteers are typically involved in projects focusing on one of six main topic areas. Additional focus areas (e.g., Therapeutic Horticulture) do exist.
Ask a Master Gardener Plant Clinic: Outreach education about plant and pest problems. Residents get their questions answered at plant clinics typically held at libraries and farmers markets.
Grow It Eat It: Teaching and promoting backyard and community food production. This also includes demonstration gardens, Grow It Eat It Preserve It, and produce donations to food banks.
Bay-Wise: Better water and soil quality through smarter gardening.
Pollinators: Education around integrated pest management (IPM), pollinators, and natural enemies.
Composting: Also known as "Urban Nutrient Management" which includes education about backyard/community composting, soil testing and improvement, and fertilizer use.
Native Plants: Education and project work around native plants and invasive plants.

4. A vegetable garden is the highest maintenance type of garden there is!
Almost all annuals
Focus on productivity
We want to eat early and often

5. What we need here is a plan…
A garden plan includes:
Knowing your goals!
Locating and designing garden beds
Deciding what you want to grow
Creating a timeline
Laying out plantings in beds
Locating and designing garden: covered in landscape design class
Deciding what you want to grow: exercise in gastronomy (if you have a basic understanding of what can/can’t be grown here)

6. Outline Planning to meet your goals Timing Spatial layout Space x Time
Goals of community/schoolyard gardens versus home production
Relationship building
Timing
Planting calendar
Succession and Relay planting
Spatial layout
Plant layout (structural needs, height considerations, spacing (rows versus wide beds)
Companions/interplanting
Space x Time
Rotation
A word about organic gardening
FSNE gardens
This presentation will be framed in the perspective of you assisting a schoolyard/church/community gardener in planning for the season.

7. Planning to meet your goals
Yield/Production
Biointensive: timing, space efficiency
Education
Crop choice, timing
Positive experience
Attractive space, starting small, keeping it manageable
Crop choice: what can be easily grown and harvested during your programming time? What grows easiest to provide a positive experience? What can be easily prepared/used by your students?

8. Planning to meet your goals
When working with a school or community to plan a vegetable garden… Relationships are everything!
Not just growing a garden, you are growing relationships
Learning from mistakes
Providing expertise

9. Now for the plan…

10. 1. Timing
Planting calendar! (see handout)

11. 1. Timing Planting calendar! Direct seed versus transplants
Plants with a long time to maturity (cabbage, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers)
Optional for earlier harvest (melons, squash, lettuce)
Direct seed:
Root crops
Tall skinny crops: beans, peas, corn, okra
Plants with a short season (lettuce, spinach, arugula)
Tall skinny=low yield per plant, plant close together, transplanting is inefficient

12. 1. Timing Planting calendar! Direct seed versus transplants
Identify short season versus long season
Quick!: radishes, lettuce, peas
Shortish: other leafy green things, carrots, turnips, cucumbers, beans
Long: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes

13. 1. Timing Planting calendar! Direct seed versus transplants
Identify short season versus long season
Consider planting in 2 weeks successions for continuous harvest
Cucumbers and squash: direct seed a few when you plant your transplants

14. 2. Spatial Layout: Plant characteristics
Learn about your chosen crops
Growth form: trellis tomatoes, pole beans, peas…cucumbers? Small melons?
Height: tall stuff in the north of the garden
Family: group ‘em! (more on this later)
Handout: plant characteristics like for RICA

15. 2. Spatial Layout: Designate areas for different crops
Place long season summer crops first
Place shortish/ cool season crops next –plant twice!
Place shortish/summer season crops next
Where can I tuck in quick crops?

16. 2. Spatial Layout
Place long season summer crops first (tall stuff in the north of the garden)
Place shortish/ cool season crops next –plant twice!
Place shortish/summer season crops next
Where can I tuck in quick/cool season crops?
Radishes
Toms and Peppers
Peas
Beans
Kale and Lettuce
Beets and Spinach
Carrots and Chard
Turnips
Pumpkins
Lettuce
Sweet Potatoes N

17. 2. Spatial Layout: Placement of individual plants
Row planting: Refer to seed packets for seed depth, spacing between rows, and between plants
Raised beds (also referred to as wide beds)
Ditch the space between rows!—no need for footpaths

18. 2. Spatial Layout: Typical row garden
24 plants 6”
12”

19. 2. Spatial Layout: Equidistant planting in wide bed
56 plants! 133% more food—plus soil shading 6” 6”
56 Plants in a 4 ft. by 8 ft. bed
133% more food

20. 2. Spatial Layout: Placement of individual plants
Raised beds
Transplants: plant equidistantly
Direct seed: scatter seeds or make closely spaced furrows

21. 4. Space x Time=Rotation Crops in the same family:
Need the same growing conditions
Are planted at the same time
Need the same soil nutrients
Are bothered by the same pests
Growing families repeated in the same space:
Depletes soil of specific nutrients
Allows pests and diseases to become persistent

22. 4. Space x Time=Rotation
Rotation avoids soil nutrient depletion and helps keep overwintered pest populations in check
Group plants by families!
Three rules:
Light feeders follow heavy feeders
Deep-rooted follow shallow rooted
3 years between planting the same family in the same bed

23. 4. Space x Time=Rotation If space is limited N
Two separate rotations (one for tall, one for short) to keep from moving tall plants to the south side of the garden
Rotate in time rather than space
Tomatoes
Corn
Squash
Pole beans
Shorter nightshades
Brassicas
Beets
Carrots N

24. Organic gardening… Twin cornerstones:
build soil health (feeding the soil
food web and recycling nutrients)
increase biological diversity above and below ground- plants, insects, microbial life
Organic doesn’t mean simply substituting purchased organic pesticides and fertilizers for synthetic products

25. Sustainable gardening…
Sustains itself through reliance on inherent resources; mimics natural eco-system.
Needs a minimum of purchased “inputs” and relies on locally-available materials.
Does not pollute; strengthens the community eco- system.
Requires knowledge, planning, and timing.

26. Sustainable soil building
Sources of organic matter:
Composted farmyard manure
Compost
Shredded leaves and grass clippings
Organic mulches
Plant roots
Cover crops
Diverse sources=diverse nutrients
Consider how to generate fertility from local sources…
Large amounts of organic matter may be needed for several years.
Thereafter, 1 inch of compost will help maintain high yields.
Food scraps can be buried in trenches in your garden and allowed to decompose. Nutrients are then available in the rootzone. Plant roots are very important for improving soil structure. Cut plants off at ground level with pruners or loppers. Compost the tops and leave the root system to decompose in situ.
University of Conn. Research shows that continuous applications of compost builds up a reservoir of slowly available N that is sufficient to produce veg. crops w/out supplemental fertilizers (each 1% of OM = 10 lbs. of available N per acre

27. Resources
extension.umd.edu/hgic extension.umd.edu/learn/ask-gardening marylandgrows.umd.edu
extension.umd.edu/mg
Take a food gardening class
Find local community gardens
Learn about youth/school gardens
RESOURCES
The Home & Garden Information Center develops and delivers science-based, sustainable gardening and integrated pest management education for better human and environmental health.
Use their free Ask an Expert service to submit a plant or pest question to their Certified Professional Horticulturalists. Follow their blog at marylandgrows.umd.edu.
UME Master Gardener volunteers reach thousands of Maryland residents each year with their classes and events. To learn about the classes and events in your area, go to the Master Gardener website and click on Local Programs. You may also be interested in ordering the Maryland Master Gardener Handbook. It has over 600 pages of information covering a wide variety of horticultural topics.
Grow It Eat It is one of the six main topic areas in the UME Master Gardener program. A number of Master Gardener volunteers teach and promote the local, sustainable production of fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
extension.umd.edu/growit

28. This program was brought to you by
University of Maryland Extension Master Gardener Program
Howard County
Remember to put in the name of your county.
Created by Jon Traunfeld, Extension Specialist, UME; 2014; revised 2/15/15; revised 12/19/16; revised by Beth Bukowski 01/18/2018; revised by Alicia Bembenek 01/25/18