A rough draft of the raised bed and drip watering layout I made last winter.

Over the weekend, I took a financial planning course that emphasized setting goals for yourself as a way of getting where you want to be.  Interestingly, this morning as I was cleaning off my desk, I found a plan I had drawn up for what I wanted to do with the garden. I found it remarkable when I looked at it and saw that I had donw almost exactly what I had planned back in January. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden, which I had not planned what to do with, remained pretty much what it had been before.

This made me reflect: how much of gardening success is planning? The answer is a great deal. The idea I have always had, that you can just add plants as you go, is actually a very bad one, if you look at how it’s gone over the years. Think about the great gardens of the world or your neighborhood, and you’ll come to the conclusion that none of them just grew spontaneously on a whim. All of them were planned.

Cilantro, basil, and in the back tomatoes have grown a great deal from their seedling days back in February.

Part of the reason is that garden infrastructure — paths, fences, raised beds, trellises, and fountains — have to be in place before you grow the actual plants. But part of it is horticultural as well. The truth is, if you really think through what’s likely to work, and only put effort into that which you’ve carefully considered, you’re saving time. A lot of time. As one who only started doing this recently, I’m telling you from experience.

Although spring gardening is over, it is getting close to time now to plan the fall garden. If my experience this spring is worth anything (and it is) it’s more than time to think about fall. I looked around for suggestions on how to plan a fall garden, and after reading about a dozen, I chose these:

Fall Gardening article from Mississippi State University

Plan a Fall and Winter Garden from eHow

Planning for a Great Fall Garden from About.com

To see those large tomatoes in the image above when they were just beginning their growth, click here.