Project 1: Create a Garden Area

Why would you want to do this? You want to try growing your own food and to taste the difference of homegrown produce, such as tomatoes, peas, beans, and carrots. You can always turn the garden back into lawn if it doesn’t work out.

Why wouldn’t you want to do this? You don’t have any unpaved outdoor space, or you just don’t want to grow your own food.

Is there an easier way? Sometimes it is easier to hire someone to do the labor for you, especially if you have any physical limitations, but if you have the capability, it can be more rewarding when you do it yourself. If you dig your own garden area, you may even be able to skip a few sessions at the gym!

Cost comparison: Once your garden is up and running, your grocery-store-produce costs will diminish greatly.

Skills needed: A basic willingness to work hard and be patient with small successes over time.

Learn more about it: Two of my favorite resources that I return to year after year are The Essential Kitchen Gardener (Holt, 1991) by Frieda Arkin and How to Grow More Vegetables (Ten Speed Press, 8th ed., 2012) by John Jeavons.

If you have a yard, no matter what size, you have a place to grow food. There are many projects out there that focus on different ways to garden depending on the shape of your space, but this simple project turns just a square or rectangular piece of your yard into a growing area.

Whenever I read an article about starting a garden, I find that the first piece of advice is to pay close attention to site location. Soil and exposure—to light, wind, and the elements—are the two most important factors. It is possible to slightly alter the exposure of your growing area once it is established, whether by trimming trees selectively to increase sunlight, putting up shade cloth and screens to reduce sunlight, or planting hedges to reduce wind and increase warm microclimates. To a certain degree, however, you are stuck with the land that you have. Soil, if poor, can be worked and amended for improvement, but the ultimate consistency and pH of the native soil are fixed factors.

If you want to create an outdoor garden area, look for a spot with optimal exposure and soil quality; ideally, you’ll be able to find one site that has both. If this is not the case, you’ll have to decide which is more important to you and consider if the other factor can be achieved with some modifications.

Consider the following when selecting a garden site (if you don’t have a suitable piece of ground, see the chapters on raised beds, planters, or community gardening for other ways to start a growing area):

The aching back and dirty hands will be well worth it when you’re enjoying your homegrown fresh produce.

•Does the site get good sun for at least six hours a day in spring and fall? If not, could it get more sun with selective tree-trimming or structure removal? If you want to grow warm-season vegetables and fruits (e.g., tomatoes, basil, eggplant, peppers, squash, beans, melons), you’ll need a bare minimum of six hours of full sunshine a day and ideally southern or western exposure. If you don’t mind limiting your growing to cool-weather crops (e.g., cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, kale, peas, Asian greens), you can squeak by with less (but not much less) sunlight. The cool-season crops still need the light, but they can handle indirect light and partial shade whereas the warm-season crops really need full sunlight and heat to flourish.

•Does the site have good soil? Are there always some puddles, even in drier times? Are there a lot of weeds? Does nothing grow there, even during the wet seasons? Is there access on at least two sides for you to work the ground? Is the site up against a fence or a wall? Is there space around it to walk or push a wheelbarrow?

You can always amend soil. Double-digging and adding copious amounts of compost and manure can make even the worst sites fertile. Long-standing puddles indicate either overly compacted soil or drainage problems; barren soil with nothing growing can indicate serious nutrient deficiency. The presence of weeds can be a good sign, and the types of weeds can help you ascertain details about the chemical makeup of the soil. You’ll need to have at least two sides of the space open to access your plants, and you’ll need enough space to be able to walk and transport amendments and tools. An adjoining fence or wall can be good for trellising or climbing plants, but it can be problematic if it casts shade or if it reflects excess heat in hot seasons.

Digging allows you to delineate your garden area, remove weeds, and prepare your soil for amendments, if needed.

•Is it in an area where animals might deposit waste or where unaware pedestrians might walk on it?

•Is it near any large trees with roots that would impede smaller plants?

•Does it have access to water?

•Is there enough space for you to plant what you want to grow?

•Is the site located conveniently for you to see and tend?

Once you’ve found the spot that will become your garden, decide what you want to grow and how much space you want your garden to occupy as a whole. It’s helpful, but not necessary, if you can calculate how many of each plant you will need per person in your family and the approximate square footage that those plants will require.

Next, figure out how you want to water your garden. If you routinely go outside for a bit each day, do you want to rely on a spigot and watering can? Watering everything by hand is by far the most beneficial for the garden and plants—the best thing you can do for your garden is give it regular attention to monitor its progress and problems—but it is also the most time- and labor-intensive method. You can compromise by watering by hand with a hose that extends to the garden area, as well as having a sprinkler that you can hook the hose up to as needed. This allows you to hand-water most of the time but use a sprinkler when the garden needs a long, deep drink.

A single sprinkler for the whole garden may not be the best answer, especially if it is a large or irregular area. Another factor to consider is that some plants need lots of water, while others not only tolerate but actually thrive on less (e.g., tomatoes develop better flavor if you cut back on watering as the fruit begins to color). So giving all of the plants the same amount of water won’t bring out their best. One more point to bear in mind: a dedicated watering system for the garden is great, but it allows you to be less attentive to the garden, which means you may not always notice problems or pests in time to prevent damage. That said, if you want to install a subterranean system, do it now before placing the garden.

Once you’ve decided on your area and have all of your plans in mind, you can really get started.

Materials:

•Shovel

•Long hose, long string, or white flour

•Strong back

•Optional: Pitchfork or pickax

Step 1: Stand in your garden-to-be and draw out lines that mark its outside shape and dimensions. Lay out the lines with hose or string, or sprinkle lines with flour. All three of these materials can delineate nice curves; for straight lines, you can use long boards to help you keep the edges straight.

Step 2: Start digging! A straight-edge shovel is best for edges, but use whatever you’ve got. Cut the edge lines along your drawn border, and turn every shovelful of soil onto itself. Do this for the whole area, flipping each shovelful upside down. You can chop the soil as you go, or you can do the digging and turning with a pitchfork (or pickax) to really churn up the soil. The purpose is to loosen and mix up the soil as much as possible.

As you dig, remove any rocks that are bigger than your fist; smaller rocks can stay. Remove any weeds, shake the soil off their roots, and throw them out. Note whether you see many or few worms, and watch for bugs such as spiders and beetles—maybe set them aside for further inspection if you don’t recognize them and you’re not squeamish.

Step 3: Once you’ve chopped up the whole area and turned everything as inside out as possible, test your soil. All of the experts tell us to test our soil, and I’ve ignored this advice in the past, to my regret. Remove your blistered hands from your shovel and test your soil, right now, right here (after you crack open a beverage of choice and congratulate yourself on your hard work).

At this point, you ought to have a fair sense of what kind of soil you have. If it is thick, heavy, and difficult to break up, it is probably clay (which can contain lots of nutrients). If it is loose and dry and won’t stay in a pile or falls out between the pitchfork tines, it may contain a lot of sand (which can make for great drainage). Lucky you if it is dark, it is somewhat moist, and it breaks up easily but holds in a clod when squeezed—you have loam! Chances are, you’ll have a mixture of these three soil types.

Even if you already know what type of soil your area is reputed to have, and you recognize it as you dig, it’s still worth it to test your soil. Not only will you give your back a chance to recover from all of the digging, but by stopping to test your soil, you’ll understand what you’ll be facing with your garden. Because soil types and testing methods vary widely from region to region and town to town, consult your local county extension department for soil-testing sources and how to decipher the test results. Soil tests run the gamut from DIY kits available at your local garden center to tests that require you to send samples to a lab, and the results will tell you what sort of amendments to add to your soil to bring it as close to a neutral pH (7.0) as possible. You will probably also learn about the structure of your soil (clay, loam, sand), how your soil type will affect drainage and plant growth, and what types of plants will fare best in your site.

Step 4: If you will be doing raised beds, now is the time to lay them out (see Project 7 in this section). If you are going to garden directly in the ground, skip this step.

Step 5: Mulch. You can lay down sheets of cardboard (a single layer will suffice) or a layer of newspaper (ten to twenty-five sheets thick) and top it with grass clippings, kitchen waste (no meat), autumn leaves, conifer needles, farm-animal manure, purchased compost, bagged soil, or a truckload of topsoil.

Mulch your garden liberally before planting.

Planting Advice

By digging up and turning everything, you not only have loosened the area for roots but also have upturned long-buried weed seeds that will be so happy to be getting air and light that new weeds will jump out of the ground. However, when you cover the ground with biodegradable mulch ASAP, your plant roots will be able to grow down through it, but the weed seeds won’t have a chance to germinate. The deeper you pile the mulch, the richer the soil will ultimately become from natural composting and worm activity. You can incorporate into the mulch any necessary soil amendments recommended by the soil test (you did do a soil test, right?). Water the mulch well and let it settle a bit.

If it is the fall, pile the mulch as deeply as possible and leave it for the winter. In the spring, when you start to plant, you’ll find a thriving population of soil creatures in the lower area, and the roots of your plants will happily dive into this rich substrate. If it is the spring, make the final topping on your garden one of soil or compost. You can plant seeds directly in the top layer or dig a hole through it and set transplants in the hole.

Keep an eye on everything you plant, keeping seeds well moistened until germinated and well established, and watering transplants well to make sure they have good root-to-soil contact and grow long enough to find their own soil access. Enjoy the literal fruits of your labor.

All gardens benefit from hand-watering and daily attention.