---
product_id: 147655868
title: "The Family Garden Plan: Family Garden Planning Guide for Growing More Food and Harvesting Year-Round"
price: "$44.31"
currency: USD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/147655868-the-family-garden-plan-family-garden-planning-guide-for-growing
store_origin: US
region: United States of America
---

# The Family Garden Plan: Family Garden Planning Guide for Growing More Food and Harvesting Year-Round

**Price:** $44.31
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- **What is this?** The Family Garden Plan: Family Garden Planning Guide for Growing More Food and Harvesting Year-Round
- **How much does it cost?** $44.31 with free shipping
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## Description

Grow a year's worth of wholesome fruits and vegetables for your family. Fifth-generation homesteader and host of the popular Pioneering Today podcast Melissa K. Norris shows you how to plan, plant, and maintain a productive garden that provides food throughout the year. Using the same methods and techniques she relies on at her own homestead, Melissa walks you through each stage of the gardening process, helping you make the most of your available space and choose the best crops for your family and growing conditions. Inside you'll learn how to: • Select the right food crops for your area and family • Plan your garden for maximum production • Protect plants from common pests and diseases naturally • Determine when fruits and vegetables are ready to harvest • Improve soil health through crop rotation and backyard composting Filled with simple-to-follow charts, worksheets, and photographs, this book provides the tools and confidence you need to grow more of your own food. Perfect for gardeners, homesteaders, and families seeking greater self-sufficiency, The Family Garden Plan helps you make the most of your garden space and enjoy good food for the people you love.

Review: The Perfect Guide to Having Our Best Garden Yet!! - Melissa Norris is a fifth generation homesteader, a wealth of knowledge and experience, and a fantastic teacher. I discovered Melissa Norris, her books, podcast, and Facebook groups several years ago. I’m grateful. I’ve learned much from her. Her books are a joy to read. It’s less like reading an instruction manual or textbook, and more like chatting with a good friend. Her guidance is invaluable. Her books “Hand Made” and “The Made From Scratch Life” inspired me to step back from the chaos of modern living and get back to old-fashioned living. From mason jars to cast iron cooking, Melissa and “Pioneering Today” academy has helped me confidently embrace a simpler, more satisfying, healthier life. Her newest book, “The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food” is a wonderful step by step guide to help us grow a year’s worth of healthy food in our own gardens!! This book is a perfect “how-to guide” for beginners covering every aspect from planning, choosing and starting seeds, planting, maintaining your garden, and bringing in and preserving the harvest. The charts, worksheets, and photos will make it easy to plan our best garden yet. While being perfect for beginners, it’s still a great resource for more experienced gardeners. The charts and worksheets are incredibly helpful. So much information, concisely organized in an easy to read, easy to find manner. It’s a handy way to keep notes together for planning each years garden. The food needs for a year worksheet will be helpful while planning out how much food we can anticipate needing. The charts on how much to plant per person to grow a years supply and how much each plant produces on average are helpful too. We will be more likely to grow enough of what we will use, and less of things we won’t. The sections on planning your garden space has so many practical and cleaver ideas for maximizing yield with minimal space. It also discusses things to consider for best garden placement, size, shape, and even info in raised beds and vertical gardening. The section on choosing seeds is so informative. I love that Melissa uses heirloom seeds passed down through the generations within her own family. Seed saving is a practical and valuable tradition, one I hope to start. The section on crop rotation and companion planting is packed with helpful tips. I was excited to learn more about trap crops; this is when you use another plant to trap or pull threats away from your desired harvest crop. This is such a wonderful way to protect your crops from bugs, without using chemicals. Attracting pollinators makes me happy too. There is even space in the book to record your garden plans. This will make it easier while planning next years garden taking crop rotation in mind. Growing, harvesting, using, and preserving fresh herbs is one of my favorite things to do. Fresh herbs just taste better. Growing herbs is a very easy way for beginners to start and doesn’t require much skill or space. It’s refreshing to see an informative section on medicinal herbs. As a herbalist, I’m so glad this is included in this book!! Growing your own herbs is a wonderful way to become more self-reliant and self-sufficient. I’m eagerly going through this book. I’m starting to plan our garden based on our needs. I’ll be putting in more raised beds this year. This book has brought some concerns to my attention I had previously overlooked. This book is already helping me avoid making costly and inconvenient mistakes in my garden planning. Having a place to record information will be a nice time saver in future years, I can do my research once, then next year I’ll still have it all in one easy to find place. Of course, I’ll make updates as needed. I plan to use this resource as a guidebook and workbook. It will become a nice piece of our family history to pass on to the next generation, hopefully along with some of our own saved heirloom seeds.
Review: Great Gardening Reference - Full disclosure, I was part of the pre-release launch group of The Family Garden Plan. I loved this as an ebook then and waited not so patiently for the actual book to arrive after the release date. I love the way Melissa K Norris gives examples of what she is writing about. I have read a lot of gardening and food preservation books and know more then the basics, but very rarely have I made it through a whole book because of sheer boredom. This book is very different. It walks the reader through every step of growing more food for your family. The format provides a guide for each reader versus a one garden fits all. There are many reasons to buy this book. Melissa adds a personal touch to the reference material that she clearly writes about. She begins by engaging her readers in self discovery of their family's own food needs. By doing this, she makes each chapter as individual as each reader. The Family Garden Plan educates both novice and experienced gardeners in things like gardening zones and micro climates, planning a garden, seed starting, and choosing which type of gardening fits best. The information doesn't stop there. Norris covers caring for your soil from seed to harvest and then ways to preserve the harvest that you have lovingly grown. One of my favorite parts are the many charts that are included. After filling out the " food needs for a year" chart I know how much of each vegetable we eat. This chart along with the "how many vegetables to plant" and other worksheets gives me a good idea of the amount of plants and the best way to get them all in. I highly recommend The Family Garden Plan.

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #138,546 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #111 in Organic & Sustainable Gardening & Horticulture #125 in Vegetable Gardening #1,331 in Christian Women's Issues |
| Customer Reviews | 4.8 out of 5 stars 1,698 Reviews |

## Images

![The Family Garden Plan: Family Garden Planning Guide for Growing More Food and Harvesting Year-Round - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Nidxa4ZeL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Perfect Guide to Having Our Best Garden Yet!!
*by S***E on January 8, 2020*

Melissa Norris is a fifth generation homesteader, a wealth of knowledge and experience, and a fantastic teacher. I discovered Melissa Norris, her books, podcast, and Facebook groups several years ago. I’m grateful. I’ve learned much from her. Her books are a joy to read. It’s less like reading an instruction manual or textbook, and more like chatting with a good friend. Her guidance is invaluable. Her books “Hand Made” and “The Made From Scratch Life” inspired me to step back from the chaos of modern living and get back to old-fashioned living. From mason jars to cast iron cooking, Melissa and “Pioneering Today” academy has helped me confidently embrace a simpler, more satisfying, healthier life. Her newest book, “The Family Garden Plan: Grow a Year's Worth of Sustainable and Healthy Food” is a wonderful step by step guide to help us grow a year’s worth of healthy food in our own gardens!! This book is a perfect “how-to guide” for beginners covering every aspect from planning, choosing and starting seeds, planting, maintaining your garden, and bringing in and preserving the harvest. The charts, worksheets, and photos will make it easy to plan our best garden yet. While being perfect for beginners, it’s still a great resource for more experienced gardeners. The charts and worksheets are incredibly helpful. So much information, concisely organized in an easy to read, easy to find manner. It’s a handy way to keep notes together for planning each years garden. The food needs for a year worksheet will be helpful while planning out how much food we can anticipate needing. The charts on how much to plant per person to grow a years supply and how much each plant produces on average are helpful too. We will be more likely to grow enough of what we will use, and less of things we won’t. The sections on planning your garden space has so many practical and cleaver ideas for maximizing yield with minimal space. It also discusses things to consider for best garden placement, size, shape, and even info in raised beds and vertical gardening. The section on choosing seeds is so informative. I love that Melissa uses heirloom seeds passed down through the generations within her own family. Seed saving is a practical and valuable tradition, one I hope to start. The section on crop rotation and companion planting is packed with helpful tips. I was excited to learn more about trap crops; this is when you use another plant to trap or pull threats away from your desired harvest crop. This is such a wonderful way to protect your crops from bugs, without using chemicals. Attracting pollinators makes me happy too. There is even space in the book to record your garden plans. This will make it easier while planning next years garden taking crop rotation in mind. Growing, harvesting, using, and preserving fresh herbs is one of my favorite things to do. Fresh herbs just taste better. Growing herbs is a very easy way for beginners to start and doesn’t require much skill or space. It’s refreshing to see an informative section on medicinal herbs. As a herbalist, I’m so glad this is included in this book!! Growing your own herbs is a wonderful way to become more self-reliant and self-sufficient. I’m eagerly going through this book. I’m starting to plan our garden based on our needs. I’ll be putting in more raised beds this year. This book has brought some concerns to my attention I had previously overlooked. This book is already helping me avoid making costly and inconvenient mistakes in my garden planning. Having a place to record information will be a nice time saver in future years, I can do my research once, then next year I’ll still have it all in one easy to find place. Of course, I’ll make updates as needed. I plan to use this resource as a guidebook and workbook. It will become a nice piece of our family history to pass on to the next generation, hopefully along with some of our own saved heirloom seeds.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Great Gardening Reference
*by A***R on January 15, 2020*

Full disclosure, I was part of the pre-release launch group of The Family Garden Plan. I loved this as an ebook then and waited not so patiently for the actual book to arrive after the release date. I love the way Melissa K Norris gives examples of what she is writing about. I have read a lot of gardening and food preservation books and know more then the basics, but very rarely have I made it through a whole book because of sheer boredom. This book is very different. It walks the reader through every step of growing more food for your family. The format provides a guide for each reader versus a one garden fits all. There are many reasons to buy this book. Melissa adds a personal touch to the reference material that she clearly writes about. She begins by engaging her readers in self discovery of their family's own food needs. By doing this, she makes each chapter as individual as each reader. The Family Garden Plan educates both novice and experienced gardeners in things like gardening zones and micro climates, planning a garden, seed starting, and choosing which type of gardening fits best. The information doesn't stop there. Norris covers caring for your soil from seed to harvest and then ways to preserve the harvest that you have lovingly grown. One of my favorite parts are the many charts that are included. After filling out the " food needs for a year" chart I know how much of each vegetable we eat. This chart along with the "how many vegetables to plant" and other worksheets gives me a good idea of the amount of plants and the best way to get them all in. I highly recommend The Family Garden Plan.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ If you get just one gardening book, get this one!
*by G***N on January 10, 2020*

I got an advance copy to read and pre-ordered a paper copy right away to make sure I had my own. This book is for anyone who is serious about growing enough food in the family garden to feed your family for a year. Melissa has the charts and planners to help you with that, plus lots of extra gardening tips to keep that garden healthy and productive without making you exhausted. If you've been looking for an all-purpose garden planning and advice book, this is the one to get. The book is worth the charts alone! The companion planting charts, the pest control charts, the charts on how much of each plant it takes to feed one person for a year so you know how many to plant, the charts for everything--these charts are so amazingly helpful in the garden planning stage as well as the actual gardening phases for succession planting and tracking pest control. Last year, I found Melissa's blog post on how much to plant for a year, and my husband and I took the plunge. We didn't get there, not by a long shot, but it was the best gardening year we've had yet, and even the teens ate the fresh produce without grumping about it. This year, with this book's help, we have a better handle on what we're doing (again, those charts are huge!), and we are really planning out our succession planting, pest control, and just how much to plant this year. Even my husband is 100% on board and making plans for helping more with canning this year. We have three teens, one on the high school swim team, and growing enough to feed them for months, if not a year, has seriously helped our food budget. Add in some sustainable gardening practices, which Melissa goes into practical detail in the book, and it isn't as much work as a traditional garden, not to mention cheaper in terms of water and seed saving and more. I've read through a lot of sustainable gardening and permaculture books, and honestly, this is the most practical, most useful book I've seen yet.

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*Product available on Desertcart United States of America*
*Store origin: US*
*Last updated: 2026-08-08*