Does it feel hard to imagine your garden while we’re buried in snow? Well I have some exciting news for you. Spring is right around the corner, which means now is the time to dream up everything you want from your 2025 garden.

Step 1: Make a list of what to plant

A lot of people start with a seed catalogue or a long list of vegetables, herbs, and flowers that can be grown in the kitchen garden and try to whittle it down. I’m guilty of it too. The problem is everything looks exciting, the FOMO starts to kick in, and it’s hard to narrow down your list.

A long list isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can feel overwhelming and stop you in your tracks.

Let’s work backwards and make this list first and foremost about you by answering a few questions.

Answer these questions to help you decide what to plant in your kitchen garden.

What are your family’s go-to meals?
What ingredients do you always reach for?
What herbs and veggies regularly show up on your grocery list?
And lastly, what would make you really happy to grow?

I like doing it this way because it ensures you’re investing your time, money, and space into growing things that work for you and your kitchen. Things you will actually harvest and use! And then, the last question layers in a little joy, because your garden should be fun after all.

Step 2: Add some practical notes

Now that we have a list of the vegetables, herbs, and flowers you’d love to grow in your garden and know you will actually use, it’s time to get practical.

Answer these questions to help you prioritize your plant wish list.

Consider sunlight: How much sunlight does each plant on your list require? Does your garden get the right amount of sunlight?
Consider time to maturity: Is there still time to start from seed? Do you want to? Keep in mind that it can be difficult to find cool season veggie starts before our local last frost date.
Consider size: How big are the plants you want to grow? How big is your garden layout? What is worth the real estate?

You may have to cross a few things off your list if the sunlight, timing, or size needs of the plant don’t match your garden reality. The kindest thing you can do for yourself is focus on growing plants that have a good chance of success in your garden. The other things can be bought at the farmer’s market!

Step 3: Categorize your plants by season and size

Now it’s time to take that refined plant wish list and categorize everything by season and size. Next to each plant on your list, jot down it’s growing season and size.

Here are a few resources to help you get this done.

Know Your Growing Seasons: If you love diving into the details, this is an entire blog post on the growing seasons and knowing which plants grow when.
Growing Seasons Guide for the DMV: If you want to fast forward, download my local growing seasons guide. I’ve already done the work of charting our growing seasons and list out plants for our seasons so you can quickly look up which growing season(s) your wish list plants belong to.
Plant Size Guidelines for Intensive Planting: This blog post goes over the three plant sizes, has examples to help you categorize you plants by size, and discusses the grey area—for when you’re second guessing a plant’s size categorization or wondering why a plant (like lettuce) is sometimes listed as small and sometimes listed as medium.

Knowing when your plants grow best and how much space they’ll need will make the fifth step of planning your garden—drawing a planting plan—much easier.

Step 4: Create a garden timeline

Gardening—as we all know—is a seasonal endeavor. It’s hard to know exactly when to do things in the garden because it’s part art, part science, and part “what the heck is nature going to send our way this week.”

One of the biggest favors you can do for yourself is getting to know your local growing seasons. It’s what will allow you to take general garden advice and make it a personalized roadmap to garden success.

Here’s how to use your growing seasons to create a timeline:

Start cool season seeds indoors three months before your last frost date.
Transplant cool season seedlings out in the garden and direct sow cool season seeds into the garden two months before your last frost date. This is also the time to start warm season seedlings indoors.
Focus on tending your garden and harvesting herbs and leafy greens one month before your last frost date.
Harvest as much as you can from the cool season garden in the weeks before your last frost date.
Start interplanting warm season plants after your last frost date. Continue harvesting and pulling cool season plants as they finish.
Interplant hot season plants one month before your hot season begins.
Start your second round of cool season plants from seed a month or two before your first frost. Transplant out into the garden after a month.
Harvest as much as you can from the warm season garden, and any hot season plants still going, in the weeks before your first frost date. Pull out plants as they finish.
Have all your cool season plants in the garden by your first frost date.

For example, in the DMV area, we can start spring seeds indoors in January, plant those seedlings out in February and will be harvesting most by April or May. We can interplant crops for our warm season garden in April as the cool season garden is finishing up, and interplant our second cool season garden in September and October as the warm season garden dwindles down.

Step 5: Draw cool season planting plans for spring

You’ve done all the research and thought through what makes the most sense (and joy!) to grow in your garden. Now it’s time to allocate space.

You can draw up planting plans for your garden by:

Outlining your garden bed on a piece of grid paper. Define how many squares on the grid paper equal one square foot and make sure your bed is drawn to scale.
Make a key. In the key draw a circles to represent a large plant (1 circle in 1 square foot), medium plants (4 circles in 1 square foot), and small plants (16 circles in 1 square foot).
Start placing circles in your garden bed using a pencil. Play around until you create a layout you like, and then assign plants from your plant wish list to the proper sizes.

It helps to color code your plant wish list. I use black markers to finalize my pencil lines and water colors or colored pencils for shading in circles. You should end up with something like this for each of your garden beds:

Kickstart your 2025 garden with a planning + coaching package!

Is it your goal to grow an abundant garden, eat great food, get outside, or focus on your health this year? A solid garden plan can help you accomplish ALL of these things. And I can help you make one!

For a limited time, I’m offering a planning and coaching package—including a virtual planning session (where we walk through all of those steps above in just 90 minutes!), a follow up resource list, and an in-person coaching visit—that will get you and your garden off on the right foot this year.

Plan your garden with me

Plan Your 2025 Garden in 5 Simple Steps