Getting your garden set in place is an amazing feeling. It is literally putting roots into your community and your home. Transforming part of your backyard into a productive place that will actually feed your family is brilliant—if it works. And for that to happen you want to make sure you keep a few things in mind when you plan and build your garden, including where your garden should be and what plants to grow.
You’ll not only need to plan your garden, but also determine the best style of garden for your situation. Whether you use traditional gardening methods, raised beds, or containers, you’ll want to gather the needed materials ahead of time.
First you need to think about what your family eats. This is an area where I think a lot of hobby gardeners fail. They focus solely on a limited number of vegetables, which generally make up a small portion of their typical diet. When trying to support a family with your food, you want to think about nutrient-rich, high-protein, and high-caloric plants such as fruits, potatoes, beans, and grains.
My husband loves tomatoes, so we devote a significant portion of our garden to tomatoes. We eat a lot of fresh tomatoes while they are growing and I preserve them by making sun-dried tomatoes and salsa, which are things we use a lot in our family. I can get organic pasta sauce for a reasonable price, but salsa and sun-dried tomatoes are more costly to purchase in our grocery store, so that’s what I focus on. Watermelon, raspberries, onions, asparagus, green beans, and squash are other items we eat a lot, so we find lots of space for these plants in our garden.
I also look at the cost of getting organic or locally grown produce in my area when working with a limited space. I’ve found that herbs in particular are often overlooked by the average home gardener, and fresh herbs are usually very pricy to purchase. For example, my local grocery store charges more than $3 for a small package of fresh basil, but a packet of seeds for basil is only $1. I can grow $50 worth of basil (or more!) in just one summer season.
You can grow a variety of fresh herbs in a simple and inexpensive container garden.
It’s really hard to give specific numbers for people who are beginning gardening. I wish I could make your planning easier by telling you that if you use 1,000 square feet for your garden area you’ll be able to grow 50 pounds of vegetables, but that’s not possible. I would be wary of holding too fast to any list that tries to give you exact numbers when it comes to food production. What I’ve found is that not only does that number change year to year, but even which crops do well changes from year to year.
One year our tomatoes did not do very well, but we had a lot of peppers, squash, melons, and cucumbers. This past summer we didn’t get peas, but our tomatoes and green beans did particularly well. There will always seem to be some ebbs and cycles in the garden. Weather, seed fertility, disease, and a variety of other factors can all contribute to which crops will do well in any given year.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
Keep a record of which varieties of plants do well in your area, and save seeds from the plants that perform the best in your garden—you’ll see your productivity level increase over the years.
One of my favorite methods of gardening, especially for beginners, is the Square Foot Gardening method. While I don’t follow this method completely, I do use a lot of the principles recommended as a starting place for my garden each year. Mel Bartholomew is the creator of the Square Foot Gardening method and author of All New Square Foot Gardening. I’m going to briefly discuss the principles of Square Foot Gardening and what aspects can be adapted to various kinds of gardens.
The Square Foot Gardening method breaks up the garden into 4×4-foot sections with paths set in between each of the large squares. Each square is then broken up into individual square-foot sections and planted according to the number of plants allowed to occupy each space. Seeds are sown singly to avoid overcrowding and soil is amended as the crops are planted and harvested. With this method gardeners can produce a large amount of produce in a more condensed space than industrial farms. They also cut back on weeding and watering because of how the plants grow close together and help shade out weeds.
A square-foot garden is the first garden I planted when I moved to Oklahoma with an 8-week-old baby in August 2006. We didn’t have a lot of time left in the gardening season but I wanted to do something to make it feel like home so I dug up a 4-foot square and put in some overpriced tomato starts and some fall-season seeds like lettuce and spinach.
This square-foot garden has been divided into individual squares. Within each square a single plant or type of plant is added to the bed. The squares on the left are planted with tomatoes, while the two squares on the right side are planted with Verbena (bottom) and strawberries (second from bottom). When Serene adds other plants such as carrots, radishes, or bush beans, she will plant more than one in each of the single squares because those plants can be spaced closer together.
(Photo courtesy of Serene Vannoy)
Even after I outgrew this gardening method in our own backyard garden, I still use the close spacing techniques. I also adopted the trellising of my vegetables after finding it so successful and now grow as much as possible vertically. This lets me pack as many plants as possible into our garden spot—we have to fence it to keep the critters out, which means I really am working with a finite space.
Raised-Bed Gardening
Raised beds can be used to create garden spaces without having to dig into the ground. Essentially they are huge containers, boxes without the bottoms. I’ve seen raised beds as short as 2 inches and as tall as 3 feet. They are really useful when building gardening spaces in less-than-ideal conditions. If you have a lot of concrete, hard clay, or infertile soil to deal with, or just want to work your garden without stooping and bending over, a raised bed might be a great solution.
Raised beds are built with wood, brick, or stone walls in most of the versions I’ve seen. Railroad ties are popular in my area and provide a wide, sturdy side wall. Regular lumber like 2×4 boards or even repurposed boards from around the house can also be used. Natural stone is available inexpensively for those who live in rocky areas but will require manpower to dig up and place.
If you are building your raised beds on concrete, you’ll want to build them up high enough so that the soil inside the raised beds is able to support the entire root system of your plants. This means at least 18 to 24 inches for most plants and more for perennials such as berries and asparagus. If your raised beds will be sitting over soil, you can probably make them shorter because ultimately the roots will reach into the soil below. The poorer your soil quality is, the deeper you’ll want to make your raised bed; however, if you amend the soil you can improve the quality of the soil below while still enjoying an immediate harvest. You’d also need to make the beds deep enough to choke out any weeds from the ground or lawn below.
One way to inexpensively fill the bottom of your raised bed while improving the soil below is to use the lasagna gardening technique. Lasagna gardening uses layers to improve the soil and smother weeds and traditionally involves very low-key ingredients. Start with a thick layer of newspaper (the black-and-white pages, not the glossy pages) that is at least several sheets thick so it will smother out all the grass and weeds. Then layer in soil builders like compost, straw, manure, sawdust (from nontreated wood), leaves, grass clippings, and other biodegradable plant materials. You can make an entire raised bed of this mixture and let it age a season before planting, or bring in topsoil for the uppermost levels and get started planting right away.
The biggest benefit of raised beds is that you’re able to control the quality of the soil for your plants. Your soil can be filled with organic material and won’t be compacted or hard for roots to stretch. Raised beds also have excellent drainage, which is handy in places with heavy rainfalls or if your land is high in clay and has poor drainage.
The downside of using raised beds is that they are more costly at the start. That initial outlay of expenses is more than just your seeds and plants, but also includes lumber to create the bed, and soil to fill the bed. In some areas the cost of purchasing topsoil can be expensive, so take that into account when considering using a raised bed for your garden. On the other hand, if you can collect leaves, pine needles, and grass clippings, you can get a good start on filling the raised bed with compost.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
Some composting materials can change the pH level of the soil. Pine needles, for example, can create a more acid level in the soil, especially if used in large amounts. Using a variety of materials to build your soil can help keep things balanced. (See Chapter 6 for more about soil.)
Traditional Garden Plots with an Intensive Twist
A traditional ground-level garden plot can grow a tremendous amount of produce for your family, if you ignore the typical growing techniques that have been shrunk down from industrial farming. The typical farm with hundreds of acres of land in production uses wide rows designed for mechanized planting, watering, and harvesting. Instead of trying to translate the monoculture and mechanical methods of large-scale operations into the backyard farm, grow more with less using intensive and Earth-friendly methods.
Our vegetable garden is naturally raised a little with all the layers of compost and mulch we’ve added, but we don’t have it built up with timber like a raised bed, or limited to 4-foot by 4-foot sections like the Square Foot Gardening method. We do use a lot of the techniques found in both these methods to grow our garden with an intensive twist you just can’t duplicate without the hands-on attention and care of a small backyard farm.
For example, we plant our seeds close together not just down the row, but across multiple rows. So if bush beans are to be planted 4 inches apart, I will plant down a single row and space the seeds 4 inches apart. Then I step over 4 more inches and plant a second row with bush beans. We’re able to reach through the plants for harvesting without any trouble, and get a lot more plants into our garden that way. I’ll usually plant about 3 feet before leaving enough space to walk through the garden.
We also seed the garden very carefully. I don’t scatter seed and then thin the plants that sprout up. I plant each seed individually so plants are already spaced nicely. This means I’m not only controlling how close together my plants grow, but I’m also saving a lot of money because I’m using all the seeds I plant.
Planting our potatoes closely allowed the plants to act as a living mulch, shading out weeds. We planted these rows 3 feet across.
Intensive gardening methods have several benefits for the backyard farmer:
Planting in large swaths of land means you can concentrate all your soil-building efforts and know it will be used by the plants. Instead of laying down compost over the entire field, and then leaving dirt unused between every row, you are making the most of the fertile soil by planting the entire area.
You can water the garden without wasting your water on areas that aren’t producing anything. The water conservation efforts of an intensive garden will be greatly improved with plants shading the dirt beneath them and every drop of water falling where it will be used.
Weeding is easier with intensive gardening because the plants help shade out and block out weed seeds. Weeds that do begin to grow are easily plucked out.
Growing plants vertically, up the trellis or fence, can make a huge difference by giving you space in an extra dimension. I discuss vertical gardening in detail later in this chapter.
Garden planning is something that never ends. Every year we try something new or stop doing something that didn’t work so well the year before. Now we are growing our plants from seeds and saving them year by year.
Your garden journal, or garden log, should be a useful tool you add to each year and refer to on a regular basis. Some of the things you’ll want to make note of in your journal include these:
A planting diagram of your garden layout and what went where each year. You think you won’t forget but the truth is, you probably will. Especially after more than a single year.
A planting log of what you planted, when you planted it, when it sprouted, when you transplanted it, and how it performed. This can include the germination rates of each variety and how it did in the garden through the year.
A list of where you purchased your seeds in case the germination rates varied from one company to another.
Notes about pests or diseases you encountered through the year. Especially important if you are saving seed!
How much you harvested from your vegetable garden of each type of crop.
Do’s and don’ts for the following year. You always think you’ll remember but it’s better to write things down.
A list of monthly chores performed or to perform. If you plan to sell your produce or livestock, you will also want to track your financial expenses.
Note water and fertilizer usage in your garden to see where improvements can be made the following year.
See Appendix B for some garden journal sheets that you can print out and use. These will help you both in planning your first year’s garden and in improving your garden each year thereafter. You’ll be able to track which crops and varieties do best in your region. You can print out additional copies at BackyardFarmingGuide.com.
The other way to maximize your garden’s produce is to use your space wisely. Small-space gardening techniques can be used in the backyard farm to make sure that you are getting the most from your land—however large or small that may be.
Whether you have a quarter-acre like my husband and me, or a small suburban backyard, you can still grow a great deal of food for your family by implementing the three space-saving techniques discussed in this section: vertical gardening, container gardening, and edible landscaping.
One of my favorite ways to save space and grow more in the backyard garden is to grow vertically. The traditional method of growing many plants is a space-consuming technique and can limit the amount, or even types, of crops grown.
By using the vertical gardening space, you’ll be able to grow more produce. And you’ll be able to include some of the larger vegetables and melons that you might not think to include in a home garden. The following is a list of produce that are well suited to grow vertically:
Blackberries
Cantaloupes
Cucumbers
Gourds
Grapes
Indeterminate tomatoes
Peas
Pole beans
Pumpkins
Raspberries
Watermelons
Zucchini
There are so many ways to take advantage of the vertical space in your backyard homestead: trellises, arbors, fences, hanging plants, cages, teepees, and more! The options are hugely varied, but we’ll touch on a few of the most common and easiest to implement.
Trellis. One of my favorite options for growing vegetables vertically is using a trellis. In our current garden, we have a permanent trellis structure that we use for a variety of vegetables depending on the current crop rotation. One year we might plant it with melons and cucumbers, and the next year we’ll train our tomatoes up the trellis.
In a previous garden space, I used a rope trellis support for our tomatoes and tied it at an angle from the backyard fence. The ropes were a one-season-only solution, of course, and would have needed retying for the next growing season, but they worked beautifully.
When I’m trellising melons (and squash) in my garden I like to stick with melons that mature at around 10 pounds or lighter so I don’t have to tie the individual fruits with netting of any kind. Also keep in mind that because of the more perennial nature of fruits like blackberries, raspberries, and especially grapes, you may need to use a more permanent trellis material such as wire rather than rope.
We secured the rope at the top of our solid privacy fence and staked it into the ground. These indeterminate tomatoes grew well up the slanted rope trellis.
Arbor. A permanent structure like an arbor is a classic solution for growing grapes. I’ve also seen adorable vegetable garden entrances with gourds and cucumbers growing over the top of an arbor.
Fence. Don’t ignore the already-existing structures in your backyard. Fences can be a great asset for backyard farming. You can create a trellis on a solid fence, as I did with the tomatoes in the previous photo. You can also use the fence itself as a trellis when you have something like hog panel, chain link, or other open fencing types. Do keep in mind, when you’re using fencing as a trellis, that you’ll need to have a fencing material sturdy enough to support the plants.
Cage. These are a staple of the classic vegetable garden, most often seen with tomatoes. Traditional two-tier cages tend to work best with determinate tomatoes versus indeterminate tomato varieties. See Chapter 8 for details about growing tomatoes in the backyard farm.
DEFINITION
Determinate tomatoes are typically bush form plants that reach a specific height (say 4 to 5 feet tall), then flower and produce fruit all at once. Determinates should not be pruned by removing the suckers at the stems or fruit will be diminished. These are best suited for cages and fruit is often used for canning, paste, or sauce making in large batches. Indeterminate tomatoes are typically vining plants that grow continuously throughout the season, flower sporadically, and produce fruit steadily until first frost. They can grow as tall as 12 feet or more and will dwarf (or topple) a traditional tomato cage. Indeterminates are usually considered more tasty and flavorful.
Teepee. Like trellises and arbors, a teepee provides support for climbing vines. A cane pole teepee planted with several bean or pea vines is a classic garden icon for good reason. The space saved by growing these climbers upright is space you can use to tuck in more plants.
Garden teepees made of bamboo can be a great way to grow beans, peas, or cucumbers vertically in a small-space garden.
(Illustration by Becky Bayne)
Hanging plant. Vegetables that can be grown up can also be grown down. Create more space for your vegetables by planting them where they will hang down. A great example of this is the bags that grow tomatoes upside down. Just make sure they get plenty of sun and water.
Container Gardening
Container gardening is a popular way for small-space gardeners to enjoy the fun of gardening when they don’t have a yard. But there’s no reason that container gardening has to be limited to ornamental plants! Use containers whenever you need to eke a little extra growing space out of your backyard farm.
Vegetables grown in containers do need some extra attention in order to produce well. Keep these basics in mind:
Watering: You’ll need to water a container more often. Unless you use a self-watering container, plan to check your container crops on a daily basis.
Soil quality: Containers are notorious for losing the micronutrients out of the soil after repeated watering. Be prepared to add compost, fertilizer, and mulch on a regular basis—especially for heavy-feeding crops like tomatoes.
Room to grow: Generally speaking, the bigger the container, the better. A larger container will allow crops a chance to mature at a normal pace without being stunted. If you must use a smaller container, choose dwarf varieties.
I love using containers for my herb garden so I can keep them close to the kitchen. There’s nothing as wonderful as working on a dish, stepping out the door, and harvesting fresh basil or thyme to add to that night’s dinner. And for me, the easier things are to manage, the better.
I see people stressing out about what makes a good container or not. The truth is, anything can become a container. I’ve seen strawberries growing in an old bath tub that someone repurposed from a landfill. The main requirements for a container when growing edible plants are the ability to hold enough soil and good drainage. That’s it! Beyond that, the sky is the limit.
We’ve used wooden barrels, EarthBox self-watering containers, old horse watering troughs with rusted-out bottoms, children’s wading pools that cracked and would no longer hold water, repurposed nursery pots that landscaping plants came in, and more. Don’t feel like you have to spend money on “real” containers from the garden center. Backyard farmers are notorious for not spending money unless they absolutely have to.
Trailing rosemary in a glazed, terra-cotta container.
Most of the crops in a backyard farm can be adapted to a container. However, there are some that don’t do well at all. Asparagus, for example, is a perennial vegetable with a huge root system that wouldn’t be sustainable in a container.
Check the mature size of the plant for an idea of whether you can expect it to do well in a container. Don’t forget that you can add a trellis or cage to a container and even grow climbing plants such as cucumbers or squash. The following plants are examples of specific varieties that are ideally suited for container life.
Tomatoes:
Balcony Tomato. As the name implies, this red cherry tomato plant grows to a dwarf 2 feet in size that won’t overrun a medium container.
Gold Nugget. One-inch, round tomatoes are a cheerful golden color on bushy plants that grow about 3 feet tall and wide.
Orange Blossom. A true orange hybrid tomato, this variety produces 6- to 7-ounce tomatoes.
Valley Girl. Eight-ounce, red tomatoes that are tasty, and the plants tolerate temperature variations, making it hardy in a container.
Eggplant:
Fairy Tale. Only growing to about 18 inches, the purple fruit comes in clusters that reach about 5 inches in length.
Dancer. Medium fruits that reach 8 inches long, this eggplant is a compact but high-yielding variety.
Squash:
Bush Pink Banana. Only 3-foot-long vines produce several large winter squash fruits. You’ll need to trellis them but not as far as most squash vines.
Carrots:
Atlas. Only 2 inches long, this is one carrot you could grow in a container without impeding the root size.
Lettuce:
Bibb. An heirloom lettuce with delicate flavor that grows only 6 to 12 inches.
Buttercrunch. An All-America winner that forms tight heads of 6 to 10 inches.
Greek Dwarf Basil. This is a great compact herb plant that only grows 6 inches tall.
English Munstead Lavender. A favorite of mine for containers, lavender can tolerate the drier conditions of life in a container.
Fruit:
Sunshine Blueberry. Only 3 feet tall and wide, this is a self-pollinating blueberry, making it ideal for a container garden.
When trying to determine if a particular variety will do well in a container, look for hints in the product description. Words like “compact,” “bush form,” or “nonvining” are good clues.
PLANT STANDS
Elevating your containers can allow you to add even more room for growing produce. Don’t be afraid to lift a container out from behind a shady wall so it will get the six to eight hours of sun it needs. Or use a porch rail or window sill for an herb garden, placing plants at eye (and nose) level where they can best be appreciated.
Edible Landscaping
Another fun way to add more produce to your overall production each year is to consider the ways to substitute edible plants into your ornamental landscaping. Like a harvest-producing ninja, you’ll sneak a row of rainbow chard in a sidewalk border and use thyme as a ground cover along your walkway. Suddenly, in all the places you used to grow plants that only looked good, you’ll have plants that can ultimately feed your family (or your livestock) instead!
The main thing you need to pay attention to when making this switch is to consider the gardening basics I cover in Chapter 6, such as how much sunlight the area receives. Here are some suggestions for how to make easy switches for edible landscapes:
Ground cover: Instead of sedum, creeping phlox, or vinca ground covers in your ornamental beds, plant thyme or lettuce.
Flowering perennials: Instead of daisy and Coreopsis, plant chamomile and echinacea.
Ornamental annuals: Instead of impatiens, pelargoniums, and petunias, try Swiss chard, basil, and cilantro.
Climbing vines: Instead of morning glories, honeysuckle, or wisteria, try planting peas, pole beans, small squash, and grape vines.
Landscaping shrubs: Instead of one of the many large flowering shrubs, try elderberry, shrub roses, and blueberry plants.
Ornamental trees: Small trees like crab apples and ornamental pears can be replaced with true fruiting counterparts such as peaches, pears, apples, and citrus. Dwarf forms can even be grown in large containers!
Shade trees: Traditional shade trees like catalpa, magnolia, and oak can be switched for nut-bearing alternatives such as pecan and walnut, or full-sized fruit trees.
When you are looking for ways to make the switch, think about what aspect of the ornamental plant you appreciate the most. Is it fragrance you enjoy? Try rosemary, old-fashioned roses, or elderberry. Is it colorful fruit that you appreciate? Consider persimmon, blackberries, or other edible fruits. Perhaps the foliage has a unique color like gray or purple? Plant lavender or tri-color sage.
Note the use of beautiful pepper plants in this urban raised bed. The foliage is as pleasing as any other bedding plant, and the fruits are highly ornamental as well.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Whatever your gardening situation, chances are there will be ways to include more edible plants into your traditional landscape design.
By using ninja-planting tactics, placing containers in otherwise unplantable situations, and managing your crops like a professional, you’ll find that even the smallest backyard farm can produce an abundance of food.
