How many of you are planting a vegetable garden this year? We are gearing up and getting ready. Bon Bon took on the project to plan where we’ll plant everything in our raised beds. She researched companion planting, and even scheduled when we should start seeds indoors, transplant or sow directly outside. Here’s our garden plan color coded for outdoor transplanting or sowing.

This is not quite the layout of our garden but most everything is represented. For instance the melon and squash rows are on a different scale than the rest of the plan and are located in a different area. We have herbs and a few flowers interspersed here and there amongst the vegetables for visual variety but also because they are mutually beneficial to one another.

One very important area is not shown – our pledged row for the hungry. Our community garden has joined the Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) Campaign. Essentially PAR is a way for gardeners to help the hungry in their communities by donating all produce grown in their pledged row to the local food bank.

“Since 1995, over 14 million pounds of produce providing over 50 million meals have been donated by American gardeners. All this has been achieved without government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape — just people helping people.” GWA Website

Isn’t that fantastic? The kids are very excited to participate! Our row will contain tomatoes, green beans, carrots and melons. Fruit from our orchard will also be donated weekly. As you go about planning your garden I encourage you to see if there is a PAR program in your area. Even if there’s not, will it hurt to donate a basketful of garden produce once a week to your local soup kitchen or food bank this summer?

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