Choosing a Site for Your Home Vegetable Garden

Choosing a Site for Your Home Vegetable Garden

Article by Harry Baldwin

Home vegetable gardens are beautiful! They add a feel to a home that no other types of plants can ever add. There is no need to hide them in the backyard or similar, as your parents may have done.

Most of us won’t have a lot of choices when looking for a spot. Even at my house, with my nearly thirty acres, I only have a few possible spots. It needs to be near the house for ease of watering and to keep down pests like deer and raccoons, have good sunlight, and reasonably good soil. In fact I have no naturally fertile soil so I fertilize with manure and only one small area with decent sunlight due to all the trees.

Sun and Exposure

The most important consideration is sun. Pick a spot that catches sunshine early and holds it late. South or east sloping ground is ideal. If it’s out of the direct path of the chilling north and northeast winds it’s even better. If a building or even a fence protects it from this direction, it’s an enormous benefit as it can help your garden get an early start in the spring. You can always add a small and simple board fence or a hedge of low-growing shrubs. Protection from the north and northeast can help a lot and it’s importance is often underestimated.

Soil

You probably don’t have perfect soil and you don’t need it. Vegetables don’t need perfect, so don’t be too worried about it. Chances are you will not find a spot of ideal soil ready for use anywhere upon your place, but you can even grow vegetables in overly sandy or boggy soil with proper treatment.

The ideal garden soil is a “rich, sandy loam.” But we can’t overemphasize that such soils usually are made, not found. “Rich” in the gardener’s vocabulary means full of plant food. Soil can easily be made rich and kept rich in several ways. For example you can easily add manure or plant food to the soil.

Ideal garden soil also needs drainage. The term “sandy” in often used, means the soil containing enough particles of sand so that water will drain through it without leaving it pasty and sticky a few days after a rain. Soil with good drainage will be “light,” so that it crumbles and falls apart readily after being pressed in the hand. Note that good soil will not usually be sandy in appearance despite containing sand.

Don’t let the absence of perfect conditions stop you from starting a vegetable garden. Even a garden with mediocre exposure and less than perfect soil can yield a decent crop of veggies and add to the beauty of your home. And don’t forget that if you have no yard, if for example you live in an apartment, you can always grow vegetables indoors, but that’s another topic.

About the Author

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