Vegetable Garden Design

Serving and eating fresh food you grew yourself is immensely satisfying to both your taste buds and your spirit. There's really no comparison between the flavor of supermarket produce and vegetables plucked from your garden moments before you eat them. Plus, it's awe inspiring to watch tiny seedlings grow into huge plants laden with tomatoes, beans and peppers.

If you have garden space and a little time, you owe it to yourself to master the "art" of backyard farming. It's really not that hard, and the rewards are plentiful! I'll briefly cover the basics of vegetable garden design, but you might also want to get some gardening books from the library.

Planning is crucial

Smart gardeners think carefully about where to situate their garden. They also know their soil type, planting dates for their particular climate, and how they will water the garden. However, before you sow a single seed, it's essential to consider the overall vegetable garden design.

Advance planning can make or break the success of the garden, because if you design something unmanageable, inconvenient or ill-timed, then all the pricey tools and heirloom seeds won't help much. It’s better to have a modest, well-maintained garden than a large one that's overrun with weeds. Plus, if a garden presents too many obstacles and isn't enjoyable, it'll likely be abandoned.

Choose a good site

Some things to consider are the amount of sun (most vegetables need a full day), wind exposure, ground slope, water access and location. The nearer the garden is to your home, the more convenient it will be for you to tend.

The traditional method of vegetable garden design is to plant in long rows; however, many gardeners today opt for using raised beds. This allows you to create the ideal soil composition by filling the beds with a mix of soil, compost, peat moss, topsoil and supplemental nutrients.

Raised beds are simple to build out of lumber, bricks, faux-stones or boulders, and can be any length, but for easy access to the middle they should be no more than five feet wide. Laying them north/south gives all the plants even sun exposure.