Every year I do this. I have a designated area for gardening, and then various little beds around the farm, where I tuck in specific plants. I know this. Why then, do I order and plan for 3 times the number of plants than I can possibly fit? It isn’t that I don’t know exactly where each seed will sit.

I put them in by myself, as my family stares out the window with smirks on their faces. They think that if they don’t help me, I will give up and stop planting anything. It is the proverbial Little Red Hen storybook going on in my life. No one wants to plant, weed, harvest, can or otherwise do a thing with the food, until it hits their plate. When I was a teenager, I had to weed uphill both ways, in the rain, with no shoes. I never complained.

This year will be different. I have my garden drawn onto a grid, with plants represented by little shaped pieces of paper. My husband suggested that I need not cut each carrot shape out of the bits of paper, but what fun is that? What does he know, staring out that window like he does. The only slippery slope to my garden plan, is that I also have a backup plan. That is, if the frost is late and kills the lettuce, I know what to plant in it’s place. Snip, snip, snip. See how easy that is? The snag is that some of the replacement plants need to be planted by a certain date to ensure a long enough growing season before the second harvest.

You see, I have also planned the second harvest. Provided that everything goes according to plan, I have carefully predesignated the crops that will be replacing the first veggies as they are pulled up. We gardeners know that any exposed soil, is wasted soil. No need for that kind of disregard for Mother Nature. As long as I stay on schedule, and rip up or plant seeds and seedlings according to plan, I will have a full garden bed and then a full pantry.

It all looks so simple on paper.