A garden is full of function and beauty with a touch of adventure.  It can come in any shape and size!  Yet, starting a garden can be a little intimidating.  If you are starting from scratch it will take some planning to get it just right.  I am only 4 years into my garden, so the beginning stages are still fresh.  However, far enough that I have learned a few things along the way.

1) Location

Choosing a location is very important.  Your garden will need at least 6 hours of full sun.  You will need to consider how large you would like your garden.  Consider the possibility of starting small and having the ability to expand your garden down the road.

When we first moved into our house, a great footprint of a garden already existed!  However, it was knee deep or higher in weeds so it took quite a bit of effort to get it back into working condition.  The location of our garden is right next to our deck.  It is in a great location and gets a ton of sun!

Below are a couple pictures of our very first garden.  Before this picture, you couldn’t see the ground.  We even found a golf club hidden in the weeds, that is how bad it was!

2) Type of Garden Bed

The type of garden bed really depends a lot on preference.  So let me break down some of the benefits of each.

Benefits of Raised Beds

• Easier to manage
• Less weeding and maintenance
• Crops are protected from getting trampled
• Better drainage (which also means it needs more consistent watering)
• Structure that gives your garden a permanent space and identity

Benefits of an In-Ground Garden

• Less expensive
• Less work to get started
• Unlimited Space, which can be useful for crops that need a lot of space like watermelon, pumpkins, etc…
• Less permanent structure which allows you to move the garden if you need
• Accessible for large equipment (you can use a tractor to quickly till your garden instead of a small rototiller)

In my garden, I actually have raised beds and in-ground beds.  The raised beds existed when we moved in and I wanted to plant more, so we made a few in-ground beds also.  I personally like raised beds. The reason I lean towards raised beds is because I feel like they are more manageable and less time consuming.  I also recommend putting down stone between your raised beds and this is why…

5 hours!  It took me 5 hours in one day to weed all of that out.  Every time I walked into my garden, I brushed up against itch-weed and broke out in a rash on my ankles.  Enough was enough, I weeded it one final time and went to get stone.  You can’t even see our precious crops!

We laid down landscape fabric!

Then poured in stone.

In the next year or so, I would like to make all of our beds raised.  Last summer, I also added mulch to my in-ground beds and it worked so well!  It was so helpful keeping the weeds down!

One last tip on the shape!  If you do raised garden beds, make sure you can easily reach all the plants in your beds.  One of our raised beds is 8 X 8 (which was here when we moved in) and it is really hard to get to the plants in the center.  So if you are building a garden from scratch, take that into consideration.

PIN IT FOR LATER!

3) Irrigation

I am definitely not an irrigation expert, but if you are in the process of designing a garden you need to consider it.  Yes, you can always drag the hose over and water the garden twice a day which is what we have been doing for the past four years.  Let me tell you, it is not fun and not efficient.  However, sometimes you just need to work with what you have.  Eventually, when we re-do some of our raised beds (because they are really old and the sides are beginning to fall apart), we are going to install a drip irrigation system.

My advice is to do it right the first time!  If you are building a garden from scratch, have an underground water line to your garden with the ability to add a drip system into each raised bed or down the rows of your garden.  It is the best way to consistently water your garden and if you work, you can even put it on a timing system!

4) Pest Control

When designing your garden, you also need to consider what animals are around. Deer, rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels are common offenders.   For us, we have chicken wire at the bottom of our fence to keep the rabbits out, but chipmunks climbs right in and eat my strawberries.  So last year, we built an enclosure to protect my strawberries!  It worked like a charm.

If you have never gardened before…your vision of all those cute and cuddly creatures in your yard is about to change.  Let me tell you a story.  After waiting two years for my pear trees to be mature enough for good fruit, it was finally time!  I watched in huge anticipation as my baby pears grew.  They were almost ready, I wanted to wait a couple more days just to make sure.  Instead, the very next day I stood there looking outside as a squirrel carried my precious pear along the fence and up into a large oak tree.   Standing there, probably with a tear in my eye, I watched as that squirrel feasted on my pear.  What a sad day!   So note to self, don’t let your crops run away, do a little research and protect them!

5) What To Grow?

Decide on the purpose of your garden.  Do you want to grow adventurous foods to try or do you want to plant crops to help your grocery bill?  I think it is easy to get swept up into growing things, and end up with a lot of things you don’t love eating.  However, I am definitely more of a practical gardener and not very adventurous.  I like to grow things that we will eat and love using my garden to help cut my grocery bill.

I am continuing to figure out ways to grow fruits, since my kids love fruit.  Currently, we grow raspberries, pears and strawberries.  A blueberry bush, a tangerine tree or possibly a lemon tree are on my list to try.  This summer I am hoping to try at least one of them.  I’ll definitely let you know if I do!

I really hope these five steps will give you some direction to help you plan out your garden.  Gardening is so much fun!  It is also so fun to get your kids involved.  My kids get so excited to watch all the plants grow and absolutely love helping pick the crops.  Plus, nothing beats fresh produce on the dinner table!  Happy Gardening and thanks for checking out my post!