Thoughts on how to plan before buying seeds

Look at these.  I sowed these a week after the last third below.

These were sown in 3 stages.  There's not a lot of difference.

Here's how they looked on April 8th.  The younger ones sure caught up.

So, I remember the author of Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades (Steve Solomon) saying that if you stagger your sowings, then in the spring, you need a larger time gap than mid-summer.  I guess this is proof that I need a large time gap.  Now I want to prove the other half.

And, gosh, look at this miner's lettuce that I sowed outdoors under fleece.  The leaves are plump.

Indoors, the leaves are not plump at all.  And they're leggy.  Why bother with the trouble of transplanting for these?!?

I mean, really, why bother?

I think I need a list of seeds that really must be sown indoors (nightshades, melons, squashes).  Oh.  I guess that's my list.

Then, I need to record how much I harvest per seed, and how much I use.

Then, I need the seed spacing, but with its best companion.  Gawd, Charles Dowding sows 4 beets per module and spaces those 12" apart diagonally.  Also, he spontaneously pops new seedlings into a place where he knows he'll be removing plants within a week or so.

Anyhoo, I only have limited space, so if I try to fit things in....  Like if I know I want to harvest 10 baby butternuts, and they need 2 feet of space, I'll need 20 feet of a bed.  And what can I companion plant in there?  And what can I succession plant in there?

I guess it's going to take intense planning in the coming years, with copious data collection and trial and error.