Every garden needs a plan, even if it is only temporary. Ultimately we'd like proper landscaping, grade adjustment and a shed/studio but just getting the professional plan is too costly at the moment. I drew out a map of the back yard and decided to farm it.
The blue areas are the house itself and the grey squared areas are concrete. Everything white, with or without grid lines, is soil. Stepping bricks are represented with red squares, although there are a few hunks of concrete above Fava field 1 which I neglected to create faithfully.
Those rounded pill-shapes are horse-trough containers. They and Bed 1, a raised bed, are the only parts of the garden that are gopher-proof. Everything else rests directly in the soil at the moment, which may need to be corrected.
At some point I need to add a sun/shade map but that comes later, after I've figured out how to represent everything.
The map is the precursor to planting seeds. It helps keep track of where everything is and reminds us why they are in those spots.
For Example: The Apple tree did poorly last year due to overwatering. I designated part of the area around it as "Meadow" and put in a water-wise wildflower mix.
My garden map was created in Omnigraffle. I tried several of the free and low-cost garden planning apps or websites and didn't find any of them flexible or accurate enough. They were also not as easy to use on an iPad.
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