Planning a Pantry Garden: How I Grow the Ingredients We Cook With

This garden isn’t planned plant by plant — it’s planned by purpose.

Each year, I plan our garden as a pantry first, choosing what we grow based on the foods we actually cook, preserve, and enjoy throughout the year. This approach keeps the garden manageable, intentional, and deeply connected to how we eat at home.

In this post (and the accompanying video), I’m sharing the real, paper-based system I use every year to plan our pantry garden — starting with the garden we already have, identifying what can’t be moved, what will change, and where long-term plantings need to be protected. From there, I assign beds by plant type so crop rotation and flexibility are built into the plan from the beginning.

This isn’t about growing everything.It’s about growing what belongs in your pantry.

You’ll also find a free printable pantry garden planner linked below, designed to mirror this exact process so you can adapt it to your own space — whether you garden in raised beds, containers, or a mix of both.

For the Printable Please - CLICK HERE