People love coming to our house to look at the garden. Some people give home tours but we give the garden tour. There is always something ready for harvest and it is immensely satisfying to go out and pick what you need for dinner. It is a beautiful garden but it is that way because it was planned very carefully. There are three major components that are essential to a successful garden: sun, soil and water. It sounds pretty basic and simple, but if you do not have ALL three you will reduce your chance for success. There are others things that contribute to a productive healthy garden but these are the most important ones in the planning process.
Location, location, location. You absolutely need full sun to get good results. Study your yard for potential sights that have maximum full sun. You will need at a very minimum 5 hours of direct sunlight unobstructed by shadows of trees, buildings or fences. Think about how the sun pattern moves across your yard. You might want to keep a log for a year to determine how the sun travels across your yard throughout the year. An area that might get great sun during the winter months might be totally shaded during the summer months. Don’t think about where you think it will look best unless of course this spot gets full sun. If you have a nice spot under that big oak tree that does not seem to grow grass and you think it might be a perfect spot for a garden please think again. Unless you chop down that big oak tree this will also not grow vegetables. It might however be a lovely place for a garden that has plants they do not require full sun. You can always add water and you can add better soil but you cannot add more sunlight. So first and foremost find a very sunny spot for your garden. If you do not have a fence around your chosen garden area and you have wildlife such as deer or rabbits consider a fence as deer love to munch on gardens.
If your yard is full of trees and fully shaded and you don’t want to sacrifice a tree for the garden then consider looking for a community garden patch. Many communities will allow you to rent a space for a garden. Community gardening has the added advantage of networking with other gardeners so you can take advantage of their successes and avoid the failures. Even if you have the space in your yard take a field trip to a community garden to see what is growing. We have found that most gardeners are very willing to share gardening tips on what grows best, when to plant and how to handle those pesky bugs and you can benefit greatly from their experience.
Soil is the next thing to consider as you are planning your garden. In the Hill Country of Central Texas and especially in our backyard soil is pretty much non – existent. So when John planned the garden we also planned on bringing in dirt from our local natural garden store. There are many type of soil but they can generally be categorized into three types, sandy, loam and clay. The size of the particles of the soil determines what type it is. Soil has three type of particle clay, silt and sand. Clay has the smallest particles and when you take a handful it will form a hard ball. Silt has medium sized particle and sand has the largest particle. When you take a handful of sand it will flow right through your fingers but silt will create a ball that crumbles easily. Clay soil has more Clay than silt or sand. Loam is the idea mix for vegetable is a mix of 20 percent clay, 40 percent silt, and 40 percent sand and Sandy soil has a greater mix of sand. Good soil should be very light and airy but it should form a crumbly ball.
Soil types have many characteristics that affect how well they will support plant life and growth. These include moisture content, organic growth content, pH, temperature and color. Vegetable gardens need soil that will retain moisture and have a good amount of organic content. Moisture content is important because the amount of organic materials that can survive in your soil is dependent on how much water is available for them. If the soil is sandy it will not hold water. If the soil has too much water content it will not allow for the necessary space needed to keep soil loose and the organic matter to thrive. Healthy soil contains good organic material such as bugs and worms that help aerate the soil and decompose old roots and plants. These decomposing organic material provides many nutrients that promote healthy plant growth. Typically the darker color of the soil the better it will be to support vegetable growth.
Soil pH is also an important factor that will determine how well plants will growth. Although it varies by plant typically you want soil that is about the same as rainwater. You can measure the pH of both by using standard pH testing kits available at most drugstore. To test soil just add a little water and use a testing strip to check against the color chart on the kit. Usually the typical ph is between 6 and 7, which is idea for most vegetables. You can also contact your local county agricultural extension office to check on testing soil. Some garden centers will also provide this service. One interesting note is that we discovered that the pH of rain water is determined by which direction the rain came from. We have noticed that rain coming for the southwest, which is Mexico in our case, tends to be more acidic that rain that is sourced from a weather system originating from West and North west. As I mentioned before, some plants like soil to be more acidic than others so optimally if you know you will be planting a vegetable that like it more acidic you should plan accordingly. Asparagus patches like the soil a little more alkaline so if you keep a separate bed for Asparagus then it will do better with a higher alkalinity. How do change soil pH? A way raise pH is to add Wood ash making the soil more alkaline. To lower pH add some peat mulch.
Another factor that affects vegetables growth is the temperature of the soil. Plants will only set fruit during certain temperature ranges. Again, contact your local country agricultural extension and ask about what grows best in your area and when is the best time to plant. Many will provide charts that will tell you the idea condition for each type of fruit and vegetable. An example is tomatoes which will not set fruit once the night time temperature gets above 75 degrees and the day time temperature get about 95 degrees. The nighttime temperature is the most important so if the temperature goes to 96 for a few hours but the nighttime lows is still 71 you should still set fruit. Understanding these ranges is very important because if you plant your tomatoes in Late May in Texas they will not have time to develop enough to set fruit by the time the hot summer temperatures kick in. On the other end the temperature scale you can’t plant tomatoes before the last frost or the plants will die so you need to balance this. We often go ahead and plant early and just make sure to protect the plants by covering them in the event of a late frost. This will make sure that the plants have plenty of time to set fruit before they get above the high temperature range.
If you do not have a nice dark loose type of soil do not despair. You can bring in soil or add compost to increase the organic matter. Once you prepare your beds make sure you are careful not to walk on the garden as it compacts the soil and inhibits the organic decomposition.
If you live in a place that usually gets a pretty good annual rainfall then consider yourself very lucky. In central Texas we can get little to no rain for months at a time and then get 4 inches of rain in a couple of hours. This presents a challenge for home gardeners as consistent watering is key to a productive garden. When planning the location of your garden make sure you also plan on having access to water close buy to make sure your can provide extra water to your plants when rain is not in the forecast. We have a drip irrigation system that is set up on a timer to make sure our plants get consistent water. The timer is nice because if you go away for a long weekend or on vacation the garden will still get watered. Manual watering is just fine especially if you are lucky enough to get rain on a frequent basis. The garden does need to be watered every few days, more if the temperature is very hot.
The size and design of your garden will be determined by many factors including how much space you have, how fancy you want to get, and how many vegetables you want to grow. Make sure you design your garden so that you can reach every point in it without walking on the soil which will compact it and prohibits organic decomposition.. Our preferred method is a raised bed garden but it is also possible to just create the beds without a raised structure. Raised beds provides many advantages including higher yields, less weeding and a longer growing season as raised beds soil warms up quicker than gardens dug below the natural grade. One drawback is that in warm climates like Texas or Arizona the soil temperature peak sooner so you have to balance the advantages of getting your seed in early to how long they produce in the hot summer. The ideal width for a section is about 4-5 feet - this allows you to reach 2 to 2 and a half feet from both sides. You can make the length as long as your area permits. So if you want a rectangular garden then make it 4 feet by 8 feet or 4 feet by 12 feet. See Example A. Another suggestion is to make several bays as shown in example B. Again you can make as many areas as you like. The size of your garden is really dictated by the amount of land you have available that is sunny and is also close to a water source.
For more space extend the bays on both ends as seen in example 3.
If you want to start small or you have limited space you might want to try Square foot gardening. This method developed by Mel Bartholomew (
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/The-Project/what-is-square-foot-gardening.html) allows you to garden in a very small space with high yields. With square foot garden you clear a space that is 4 feet by 4 feet. You can make this raised bed or just make sure you prepare the beds so that you have at least 8 inches to a foot of loo
se soil by adding a good garden mixture which includes compost, peat and vermiculite. You then use string to create a Grid over the area as in the following illustration. When the plants die or quit producing you can either snap them off at the roots or pull them, add more compost and then plant a new plant.
Raised bed structures can be just about anything but avoid treated lumber and railroad ties as they will leak harmful chemicals into your soil. There are a few companies that sell kits for raised bed gardens and most of these are made of safe recycled plastic material that will not decompose as lumber will. There are also some may out of cedar. They tend to be a bit pricey so depending on your budget you may want to build your own. If you have brick or stone you can also use this to make your structure. If you do use lumber make sure you reinforce the corners. One suggestion is to use brackets or alternate the ends and then drill a hole and insert rebar to connect all pieces together.
Another option is to just start digging and not create a raised bed. This is also fine unless you really do not have an abundant of soil. The raised bed allows you to create more depth for your garden. If your soil is not idea for growing anything but rocks we really recommend the raised bed approach as you can just add a good garden mixture right on top. Also if your garden is very large it may not be practical to use raised beds but just make sure you build up the garden in between rows and that you only walk in the paths between rows.
You will need at a minimum a long shovel, pitch fork and gloves. The shovel is used to double dig, the fork is used to aerate and lift the soil. If you have a lots of rocks in the soil you may need to break them up to remove them. You will want to remove weeds and grass as you prepare the beds so weeding tools also come in handy. Double digging is a technique used to prepare garden beds for planting. It is a method of loosening and aerating the soil that allows roots to grow deeper and access water more easily. The first time is always the hardest and if you keep from walking on the soil the second time you plant the soil will be much easier to prepare for planting.
