Selecting the Right Location for Your Garden

Growing an herb or vegetable garden is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable, as well as productive, hobbies that you can engage in. With a little imagination, you can make your garden beautiful as well as productive, but just like any piece of real estate, with a garden it’s all about location. Choosing the right location for your garden is the most important part of your planning because no matter how much you tend and care for your plants, if they are planted in the wrong area, they aren’t going to grow properly. There are several important things to consider before you break ground for your garden.

Give Your Plants Plenty Of Sun

Sunlight is one of the essential gifts for the garden in that it at the root of promoting a healthy green space. Nearly every fruit and vegetable, as well as most herbs, will require full sun for a minimum of 6 hours each day in order to produce. This doesn’t necessarily have to be all at once. If your garden gets 3 hours of full sun in the morning, and another 3 hours in the evening, they will grow very nicely.

Knowing where the sunny areas of your property are sounds simple, but you must remember that the path of the sun will change during the course of the growing season. An area that is full sun in the early spring may be shaded by a fence or another structure later in the season. An easy way to find out where your garden will get maximum exposure to the sun is to mark the sun’s progress for a day.

By doing this you can gain some idea as to what areas receive the most sun. If you are tracking the progress of the sun in the early spring before the trees have begun to leaf out, make sure that you allow for the amount of shade that will be produced by the canopies of nearby trees. Many beginning gardeners have spent numerous hours preparing their garden only to find it fully shaded after the leaves come out. If you orient your garden north to south, there will be less chance of your plants shading each other.

Keep Your Garden Level

If you are using raised beds, this is less important because you will level the garden as you make it. However, for those planting directly in the ground, you won’t want any low spots where water can gather after a heavy rain. Planting on a slight slope can sometimes work well, especially if it faces the south, but a steep incline can lead to problems with erosion.

To make sure that your garden is not going to turn into a bog when it rains you simply have to watch after a rainfall to determine where the low spots are. If you need to place your garden in this area because of space limitations, some soil and a little work will be necessary to ready it for planting. Rototillers and a large landscape rakes are perfect gardening tools for leveling soil and make the perfect gardening gifts for the planters on your list.

Having a garden is a great way to provide your family with fresh produce and avoid all the chemicals and pesticides that are common with commercially grown vegetables. One last thing to remember is to keep your garden out of high traffic areas. If your space is limited and you think there may be a problem with people taking a shortcut through your tomatoes, an inexpensive garden fence may be a very wise investment. While this article covers the bases there are actually a number of books that go into detail about these concepts and these make good gifts for the women and other enthusiasts in your life.