You are about to witness artistic genius! Be excited! 
I love my cell phone and the fact that it has a pen attached to it! I use it all the time, which means I HAD to use it to map out my garden. With my phone I was able to create the most incredible piece of artwork you’ll ever witness!
So let me tell you about my BEAUTIFUL map! First things first, the image if for my 2021 garden. The dark lines that outline the 4×3 areas are raised beds. Each of the raised beds I purchased are 4 feet by 3 feet. That was a good size for me, and I was still able to reach all the way across without bracing. Notice that some raised beds are green and some are black. This is because I am extra! I did this because, in fact, some of my raised beds are green and some are black. It had to match in my drawing! So then, of course, I also had to do different colors when writing the plants to differentiate between the different colored raised beds! Again, I’m extra!
Since each raised bed is 4×3, I broke each bed into what would be square feet markers. I did this in a lighter tone to help me tell each bed apart. For raised beds, you can plant things a little closer together, meaning that most plants need about 1 square foot of space (some need more/less as I’ll explain shortly). For each section, I wrote what I will plant there and how many of each item will be planted.
Based on new knowledge and research, I mapped out everything based on a few things. For my garden, the opening of the backwards C faces west and the long edge faces east. The patio is on the south side of the garden. Eventually I’ll plant some things in-ground on the north edge. Based on this, I first needed to account for the movement of the Sun. I needed the tallest plants on the west side of the garden so they wouldn’t shade the smaller plants as the Sun moves from east to west over the garden. The next thing was I had to determine how much Sun each plant needed. Plants that only need a few hours of Sun, I placed on the eastern side of the garden so they would only get morning and midday Sun, but be more shaded by the taller plants in the afternoon.
For spacing, based on research and experience from this year, I was really able to determine how large each plant gets and give them really enough room. This is why you’ll notice that most plants have 1 square foot. However, zucchini, squash, and cucumbers need more than 1 square foot of space, and parsley, potatoes, basil, and carrots need less space apart.
Finally, I use the patio for most of my herbs. I plant basil and parsley in the garden because basil is a good companion plant for tomatoes and parsley does SO much better in the ground than in a pot. For the rest, I put each plant in its own pot. They are quite large pots (about 20ish inches in diameter).
Moral of the story: Please, please do your research!!
– Watch how the Sun travels across your yard or balcony
– Talk to the people at the garden store and ask them questions
– Draw out what it will look like
– I guarantee your drawing will look better than mine!
– Spray paint your garden to visualize it in real time
My Urban Homestead by Sarah 