Planning Your 2026 Vegetable Garden

Every December I tell myself I’m going to plan the garden properly this year. Make a diagram. Rotate the crops.  Actually think about it before February when I’m panic-ordering seeds at midnight because the Territorial catalog showed up and I completely lost my mind.

This year I’m actually doing it.  Or at least writing it down, which is close enough.

Why December Is Actually the Right Time

December feels like the garden is dead. It’s not. It’s just soggy and resting, same as me. But this grey downtime is genuinely the best window to plan because nothing urgent is happening, the seed catalogs are landing in the mailbox, and you still remember what went wrong this past season while the wounds are fresh.

I still remember planting my zucchini too close to the tomatoes in 2024.  Classic move. The zucchini won. The zucchini always wins.

Start With What You Actually Ate

Before you touch a catalog or draw a single box on graph paper, think about what your family actually consumed this year. Not what you grew.  What you ate. Because I grew approximately 40 pounds of Swiss chard last season and my daughters treated it like I was trying to punish them.

Write down three or four vegetables you went through fast and wished you had more of. Then write down what bolted, rotted on the vine, or got donated to the neighbors because nobody wanted it.  Plan accordingly. This is not complicated. It just takes honesty.

Zone 8b Timing: The Actual Numbers

Last frost in Redmond typically lands somewhere around late February to mid-March, though the weather here has the energy of someone who never read the forecast.  Average first fall frost is around mid-November. That gives us a solid growing window if we use it right.

Here’s how I rough out the 2026 calendar every December:

• January: Start onions and leeks indoors. They take forever and you will forget if you wait.
• Late January/February: Start peppers and eggplant under lights. Peppers need 10-12 weeks before transplant and they are not negotiating.
• Late February: Start tomatoes indoors, 6-8 weeks before last frost. Direct sow peas outside if the soil cooperates.
• March: Direct sow spinach, lettuce, kale, and carrots outside. Transplant brassica starts.
• April/May: Harden off tomatoes and peppers. Plant out after last frost, which around here usually means waiting until late April at the earliest and not trusting it until May.
• July onward: Start fall brassicas indoors (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower) for September transplants.

I keep this on a piece of paper taped to the inside of the cabinet where I store my seeds. Low tech. Zero dollars.  Works every time.

The Actual Planning Part (The Cheap Way)

I used to buy those fancy garden planning notebooks. Twice. I filled in roughly one page of each before abandoning them completely.  You can get a pad of grid paper at drug store for $1.49. Problem solved.

Map out your beds, note what was growing in each spot in 2025, and rotate your plant families. Brassicas move, tomatoes move, legumes move.  The basic reason is soil-borne disease and nutrient depletion, and you don’t need a whole explanation because the rule is simple: don’t put the same family in the same spot two years running.

If you want something more structured, a garden planning journal does make it easier to track what you planted where across multiple years. I resisted this for a long time. I was wrong to resist it.

Order Seeds Before February

This is the one place I will tell you not to wait.  Seed companies sell out of popular varieties, and if you’re ordering from Territorial Seed or Baker Creek, the good stuff goes fast. Especially anything that got trendy on gardening TikTok, which, I don’t know, apparently that’s a thing now.

I set a seed budget every year.  This year it’s $34. I will almost certainly go over by $12 and pretend I didn’t. The point is having a number before you open the catalog, because without one you will just keep clicking and suddenly you have seven types of tomatoes and no room for any of them.

If you want to cut that budget down, save seeds from open-pollinated varieties you grew this year. Tomatoes, beans, peas, and peppers are all easy. Lettuce will self-sow if you let it bolt, which I did accidentally this summer and now I have free lettuce coming up between my strawberries. I’m calling it a feature.

The best time to plan the 2026 garden was probably October.  The second best time is right now. I’d say there’s no thyme like the present, but I’m trying to have some self-control.

Trying.

Photo by Zoe Richardson on Unsplash