Vegetable garden design. . . What the heck is that? You just dig up the ground, throw down some seeds, and add water. Right?
“Back in the day” when my wife and I first decided to grow our own food, we knew absolutely nothing, nada, zero, zip, zilch, about designing a vegetable garden. But that was okay since our first experience in the field (small pun intended) took the form of a community garden sponsored by our church.
A select group of knowledgeable members handled all the details of planning a vegetable garden. They selected the site, prepped the soil, and let the rest of us know what needed to be done and when to do it. It would have been difficult to get it wrong under those circumstances.
The Six Steps of Successful Vegetable Garden Design
So, what do we know now that we didn’t know then? Glad you asked. What I’m going to tell you is based on the assumption that you’re starting a vegetable garden on your own property and that you will be the one responsible for the vegetable garden design.
Step One: Consider Your Reasons for Starting a Vegetable Garden
Your reasons may consist of one or more of the following:
- Love of growing things
- Desire for self-sufficiency
- The need for physical activity
- Therapy and/or stress relief
- Eat inexpensive healthy foods
- Sense of accomplishment/success
A word of caution, however… If your sole motivation for starting a vegetable garden is to eat inexpensive food, you might want to consider your plan more carefully. While a good vegetable garden CAN be a source of inexpensive food, there are costs in both money and time for you to consider. Careful reading, studying, and planning will help you avoid the trap into which so many novices stumble – spending more money to grow their own food than they would have spent simply to buy it.
Step Two: Consider Your Needs and Abilities
At this point, we’re still a ways off from planting anything. First, you have some important choices to make. Choose correctly, and you’ll assure yourself maximum gardening enjoyment and productivity not only now, but for years to come. Ready? Let’s get started.
Take a moment to assess your level of gardening knowledge. Are you an experienced or inexperienced vegetable gardener, or do you fall somewhere in between? Your level of experience should be a determining factor in the size of your garden as well as the quantity and type of plants. If you’re just getting started, try to keep it small and relatively simple your first year. Your goals should be to gain some practical, hands-on experience and to enjoy a sampling of homegrown produce. Learn as much as you can by visiting web sites like this one or by reading books on the subject.
Are you healthy and able to meet the physical demands of gardening? Do you have problems kneeling? Is the problem serious, or is it something you could remedy with a good pair of kneepads? If kneeling is a hardship, you may want to consider purchasing or having someone build a raised garden with wide edges on which you can sit while tending your garden.
Are you, or is the person for whom you are designing a vegetable garden, handicapped? There’s no need for anyone with even a modicum of physical ability to be left out of the wonderfully therapeutic and stress-reducing activity that is gardening. A square foot garden mounted on a table offers easy access for anyone who is confined to a wheelchair or who needs to use a walker.
Are you able to tolerate heat and direct sun? I’m on a medication which forces me to limit my exposure to direct sunlight. What do I do? I wear a comfortable, wide-brimmed gardener’s hat, a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt (unbuttoned, over a t-shirt), gardening gloves, and jeans. In addition, I take frequent breaks and drink lots of water.
Before you turn over even one shovelful of soil, please give careful consideration to all of the above, especially those factors which may impact your physical well-being.
Now that you’ve taken your abilities, your own needs, and the needs of your family into account for your vegetable garden design, you’re ready to start constructing your vegetable garden.
Step Three: Location, Location, Location!
Guess what! One of the most significant elements of your vegetable garden design is its location.
The closer to your residence, the better. Why? Because if the expression, “out of sight, out of mind,” ever were true, it’s especially true when it comes to gardens. A garden you can’t easily see probably won’t get the regular attention it needs and deserves. And regular attention is what keeps your garden productive and attractive.
In an ideal world, your vegetable garden design would include a site on the southern face of a slight hill, a location that tends to be a bit warmer than the surrounding land and thus better able to help prevent damage inflicted by frost. If you don’t happen to have a gentle slope available, don’t worry about it. There’s no such thing as the perfect garden. All we’re trying to do here is maximize your success factors.
Consider your location in terms of how much sunlight the selected site will get. With 8 or more hours of sunlight, you can grow anything you want. If the site gets less than 8 hours sunlight, you can still grow sun-demanding vegetables like tomatoes, but your yield will be lower, your crop less productive.
While you’re at it, see if there are any young trees nearby. While they may not block your garden this year, in years to come, as the trees continue to grow, they just might.
Water has to be available for those days when Mother Nature simply refuses to cooperate. For the smaller raised-bed garden or square-foot garden, an ideal solution is a barrel of sun-warmed rainwater from which you can refill your watering can. For larger plots or row gardens, you’ll need to be able to run a sufficient length of hose.
Speaking of water, another important consideration as to location is drainage. A low-lying area where water tends to pond will not make a good gardening site, unless you do your gardening in raised beds.
Step Four: Put Your Vegetable Garden Design on Paper
Map it out. Draw out the rows or squares and list what you’re going to plant in each one and when. In your vegetable garden design, try to list subsequent plantings for each space as well. This will be a big help to you in keeping track of where everything is, at least until each plant has grown enough that you’re able to recognize it. Those of you who fall into the category of geeky and/or detail-oriented (you know who you are) may want to consider purchasing some vegetable garden design software for your computer. It’s amazing what some of these programs can do.
Step Five: Don’t Just Stand There Mulling Over Your Vegetable Garden Design… Plant Something Already!
But whatever you do, don’t overplant. You’ll quickly tire of all the extra work. Your family, friends, and neighbors may soon tire of you dumping your excess produce on them. Okay?
Now as to what to plant, here are some great recommendations from the University of Illinois Extension – Urban Programs Resource Network.
Types of vegetables – Choose vegetables that you and your family enjoy. Make sure they can be grown successfully in your garden considering space and sunlight conditions.
For shady gardens use this rule of thumb. The sunniest spot goes to vegetables grown for their fruits or seeds such as corn, tomato, squash, cucumber, eggplant, peppers, beans, and peas.
Plants grown from their leaves or roots like beets, cabbage, lettuce, mustard, chard, spinach, and turnips can be grown in partial shade.
For small gardens plant vegetables with a high yield per plant space such as bush snap beans, bush lima beans, Southern peas, leaf greens, tomatoes, and bell pepper plants.
Vegetables that take a lot of garden space for a long time and produce less are vining melons, squash, pumpkins, and sweet corn.
Step Six: Prepare Your Vegetable Garden Design for Next Year
That’s right… It’s mid-summer, and you’ve found a moment of calm somewhere in between harvesting and succession planting. This is the ideal time to sit down and take some time to think about your vegetable garden design for next year.
Why now?
Well, next year you’re going to want to go bigger and better, maybe experiment a little. Planning your vegetable garden becomes even more important. You’re going to want to make sure your soil conditions are just right and that, for the most part your garden site is prepped and ready. This is best accomplished in the fall. You’ll have all winter to order seeds, peruse gardening catalogs for ideas, order whatever you need, and come out swinging (planting, actually) early in the spring.
You might even want to develop three vegetable garden designs… one for Spring, one for Summer, and one for Autumn.
There you have it… the six steps to successful vegetable garden design. So why are you still reading this page? Go plant something already!
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