For me garden planning is a chore. There are so many things to keep up with what to plant, when to plant, how to plant the seeds, where to plant each thing and the list goes on and on! Generally speaking, I'm the type of person that has to research EVERYTHING before making a decision and that leads me to having tons of ideas on how to tackle any situation but a lot wasted time. I've collected my best gardening tips and put them together in this garden planning series! Part one of this gardening series will focus on choosing the best location for a vegetable garden.
Choosing your perfect Garden Location
As I learned the hard way, this is probably the most important aspect of gardening. First, my experience and then some tips!
In 2019, I started vegetable gardening. I had 0 experience with growing food and only a small amount of experience growing perennials (and let's be honest perennials grow themselves). :) I looked around at all of my possible garden locations and landed on a small, convenient spot at the entrance to our backyard. This area tended to be sunny and seemed like the perfect location for a kitchen garden. So, I had my husband
build some raised garden beds, had my family deliver some soil, and planted some veggies. In that first season we got tons of zucchini, a few squash, a small cucumber and that was about it. I was feeling pretty good about my first year gardening!
In 2020, I was determined to get enough zucchini, squash, broccoli, and tomatoes to replace my grocery purchases. Well, fast forward to the middle of the 2020
gardening season and I'm looking at my garden compared to all the YouTubers (Roots & Refuge anyone?) and things just weren't adding up. I was in the same growing zone, I started my seeds and got them outside around the same time, I had amended my soil, fertilized the plants, and yet they were no where near the size of the other gardeners. And I know, I know, we shouldn't compare ourselves to others but honestly something didn't seem right. I took some time to think and try to figure out where I went wrong. Around this same time, my husband had built me another raised bed, I needed to get some blackberry bushes in the ground and I had just discovered that my issue was lighting.
The original location for my garden only received 6 hours of sun MAX, in the middle of summer. Most vegetables will not grow in that amount of light and they definitely won’t thrive. So, here we were mid 2020 gardening season, with a full garden of
mystery plants planted, and 1
raised bed near the front porch that was THRIVING. We had to
move the garden. The entire garden. Plants. Cedar raised beds. Soil and all. I used my sun tracking tips to determine where on my property I could maximize the sun exposure and grow a lush green garden. Well, that landed us in the front yard. I thought about what the neighbors would say, what this might do for resale value (even though we have ZERO intentions of moving), how much effort it would take, if my plants would survive the move, and if I should even bother. Ultimately, I wasn't ready to give up the joy of gardening. Going out every Saturday morning soaking up the sun, harvesting (once or twice, lol) and spending time with my daughter. So, with my husband's help (aka he did most of the work). We did it! We moved 3 raised beds, plants soil and all to the front yard. It was the BEST decision ever! Special thanks to Brian, because it wasn't easy and he doesn't care to much for the garden.
6 Tips for Choosing the Perfect Garden Location
1. This one might seem obvious and if you're reading this article you probably already considered this but, think before you plant. Take everything into consideration and choose a good spot upfront, your back will thank you later. It may be helpful to use google maps and capture and overhead view of your property.
2. Choose a sunny spot and I mean all day sun 8+ hours. Track the sun by taking photos every 3 hours or more if you have a lot of dappled sun everywhere like me. Watch my
Tracking the Sun video for more details on the methods I tried for tracking the sun. You may also be interested in a fun technical way to track the sun and for that you can try
SunCalc. I found this app after making my video and played around with it. This blog isn’t sponsored by SunCalc, I just thought it was a fun thing for the nerdier gardeners.
3. Don't stress about what others will think. I don't communicate with most of my neighbors (or anyone for that matter, I'm pretty introverted and you know COVID) but I had 3 neighbors comment on the garden. They were all amazed at how good it looked and wanted to pay me for veggies. Little did they know, I hadn't grown much that year because we moved everything and it didn't like it. Fingers crossed 🤞🏼for a massive 2021 harvest for all!
4. Think about how you will get water to the planting location. Originally, my rain barrel was set up in the backyard which worked perfect until we moved the garden to the front yard and I'm hand watering with jugs upon jugs. With one rain barrel, the rain couldn't keep up with enough water for houseplants, flower gardens, and raised beds. I had to buy a longer hose because the one we had didn't reach to the front yard.
5. How close to your house should your garden be? We have a quarter acre suburban yard so anywhere my garden was, was going to be close enough but that may not be the case for you. If you’re planning a big farm, you may want your garden near your animals so that their waste can be used for manure.
6. Consider the view from inside. When my garden was in the backyard, I could see it out of my work from home window all day long! This made it super easy to keep an eye on and not forget about watering & weeding. With the way my house is set up, I can't see the garden from inside unless I look out the bedroom window or front door. We are never near those places and we keep the window & door closed.
I hope these garden location tips helped you choose the perfect spot and saved you a ton of work! I’m sure I’m forgetting something so let me know in the comments what you considered when you chose your perfect garden location. Let me know which garden planning topic you would like covered next.
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