Site observation, selection, and planning (part 1)
Part 1 - an introductory guide to growing your own food - site observation, selection, and planning what you want to grow
Welcome! I’m so glad you’re joining me and are interested in growing your own food. Whether you have grown a garden before and want to learn a bit more, or this is your first time, I’m here to help you gain the confidence and know-how to do it successfully. Experimenting is fun, and I highly recommend it (after all, trying things, failing, and learning from those experiences will ultimately make you a better gardener), but I’m here to give you some foundational information. Hopefully some of my tips and planning suggestions can save you from making some of the mistakes I made when I was first learning.
Gardening is a rewarding and empowering activity, and has so many benefits that will be unique to you. There are few things as deeply satisfying as being involved in the journey from seed to the food you feed yourself and family, and perhaps even give back to your community.
This guide is for people that have access to a yard, whether their own property, a neighbor’s, or a community garden plot. Container gardening has a different set of things to consider, and I will cover that in the future. This guide will be specifically for those gardening in the Front Range of Colorado.
Site observation and selection
I know, I know, you’re probably thinking, “why can’t we just dive in to growing things, Nicole? Why do we have to go through the boring stuff?” Doing these things now will set you up for success and less frustration in the future. There’s nothing worse than skipping some steps in the planning process and realizing months later that something isn’t working out well in the garden. All that time you’re going to invest with your garden, you might as well give it the best chance of success with a solid foundation. Ready to embark on the satisfying and empowering journey of growing your own food? Grab a beverage of your choice, and sit for a spell with your gardening friend. Ready? Let’s go!
One of the first things you’ll want to do is go out into your yard and observe a few things. Which direction does your yard face? How much sun does it get? Are there any trees or fences that shade it? Are you starting from a blank slate, or are there existing beds?
Looking South, house is off to the right
If you are starting from a blank slate, choose a spot with the most sun. It will give you the most flexibility with what you grow since most veggies like full sun. Ideally, you'd be looking for a spot that gets a minimum of 6-8 hours of direct sun. If you have existing beds, make note of the light. You’ll apply this information when planning what you want to grow.
An east-facing spot is great because. Choosing an east-facing location can help mitigate intense afternoon heat and light, which can be too strong for some plants. Our backyard is east-facing. We even grow veggies successfully right up against the house, including tomatoes and peppers. The rest of our garden beds are in the middle of the yard, which receives sun all day except in the late afternoon/evening.
A west- and south-facing spot can be good as well, but the intense afternoon heat and light could be too harsh for some plants, especially if they are getting even more heat reflected off of the side of the house or concrete of the foundation. However, a lot of veggies love the extra heat, like plants in the nightshade and squash family (think tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumbers). My happiest surprise was a rattlesnake watermelon that volunteered in our southern side yard that is covered in river rock. It thrived! It grew better than any melon I have intentionally planted. The vines spanned the entire side of the house and we had a dozen huge watermelons. I am thankful to the critter that transported the seed there, probably from our compost bin not far away.
A northern spot can work if you don’t have any other growing areas, you just have to observe how much direct light it gets, how much of the day it is shaded (if it is) by the house. If it’s a distance from your house and doesn’t get shaded, even better!
Next, look at how much space you have. You could measure it if you’d like, which would also help if you decide you want to sketch up your garden plan. If you have a lot of space, great! You can consider large plants like squashes, pumpkins, melons, tomatillos. Have just a small spot? You’ll want to choose veggies that you can get the most bang for your buck with, while also keeping in mind what your family is most likely to eat. Beets and radishes are great for tucking between other plants and maximizing space, but if you don’t like them, skip ‘em in favor of something you know your family likes.
Planning what you want to grow
Keep in mind what you have learned while observing your growing locations and how much space you have, and start to think about what your family likes to eat.
Have a spot that gets partial sun? For some veggies that don’t need heat and full sun, as long as it gets at least some direct light, you can still be successful. Think swiss chard, mustard greens, peas, kale, cabbage.
If you have a small space, start making a list of the plants that require less space that you and your family also like to eat. You’ll be able to grow pretty much anything you’d like if you have a large growing area. I’ll make another post with a list of my favorite varieties of food to grow in Colorado.
Anything else to consider? What are your goals with growing a garden? Do you want to can your own veggies? In that case, you may be interested in a paste variety or determinate variety of tomato. With determinate varieties, most of the fruit ripen around the same time. Roma is an example. Do you want a salsa garden? A tea garden? A garden where you can get what you need to use in a certain cuisine? Anything else you are imagining? Once you have taken notes on what you want to grow in your dream garden, it’s time to see how much you can reasonably grow.
For the sake of simplicity and ease for beginners, for planning purposes, I recommend using the spacing recommended on the back of the seed packet or tag the plant comes with. A google search can provide a quick answer, but you can find general spacing guidelines here. I will get into other techniques that I recommend and use in my own garden, like intensive planting, in a future blog post.
Now you have a couple of options. If you are more of a planner and want to take some of the uncertainty out of the process, you can design your garden with a computer program, or do it with paper and pencil. If you're looking to do your design digitally, I recommend Garden Planner. It's pretty fun to play around with and very user friendly. There is a button labelled “add veg bed” that allows you to select fruits, veggies, and herbs. Keep in mind, this uses generous spacing and you can probably fit a bit more into your bed. Still very useful though. Most of the time, I just sketch my ideas in my garden journal.
Alternatively, you can jump in with less planning, estimate how many plants you will need for your space, and plant based on the recommended spacing. If this is the route you’re going, be mindful of putting plants that get taller north of those that do not get as tall so that they don’t get too shaded. My recommendation to beginners would be to spend a little more time upfront to plan things out.
In Part 2 of the series, we'll talk about site preparation. If you think you'll want to start your own plants from seed, check out the seed starting series:
Part 1 - equipment
Part 2 - how to start your seeds
Part 3 - what to do now that they've sprouted