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When choosing the best position for a vegetable garden, you want to make sure you pick a place that vegetables can thrive while growing.
Starting your garden isn’t a simple task of just digging out a place haphazardly. There are many considerations you need to make when picking the right spot for your home vegetable garden. In this post, we go over some of the major considerations you need to go over when choosing the right spot for your home garden.
You want to make sure you have everything your vegetables need. And if you are just starting out with a garden you might want to try sticking to some of the easier vegetables and fruits to grow in your garden.
What Is The Best Location For A Vegetable Garden?
Distance
When you are just starting out as a new gardener distance can play a major role in how successful you will be your first gardening year.
It is best to make sure you won’t have to walk too far from your house if possible. Sometimes this won’t be possible if you are using a community garden that requires some travel to get to.
Sunlight
You will want to pick a spot to grow your garden that it will get at least 6 hours of sunlight each day. If you can locate a place that get’s 8 hours of sunlight it would be better. Vegetable plants usually range from 6 to 8 hours of sunlight needed per day.
Is Morning or Afternoon Sun Better For A Vegetable Garden?
It is best if the sunlight in the position you are choosing for your vegetable garden gets the morning sun instead of the afternoon sun. Afternoon sunlight is much harsher on plants and can cause them to overheat easily.
If you are picking an area where there are trees, make sure the shadows cast by those trees is mostly in the afternoon. This can help protect your garden plants form the harsh afternoon sun.
One way to ensure that your garden is in a position for the best sunlight you can watch the shadows in your yard to see where buildings and trees cast shadows throughout the day. You can use wooden stakes to help you mark out areas so you don’t end up putting your garden in a spot where the sun will be blocked.
Soil
You want to make sure where you plant to put your garden that the soil there is well draining.
Also it is best to make sure that the soil where your garden is going to go is not too compact. This would impair root growth and that would affect the growth of your garden vegetables.
You can always add soil amendments to help improve the quality of your garden soil. Things like adding compost to the soil, worm castings, or sand can improve the current quality of your soil.
How to Start Composting In A Tumbler
Trees
It is best to keep your garden area away from trees. If you are planting right beside a tree, there would be competition for water within the soil.
You can use the shade of trees to your advantage, but just be sure the tree who’s shade you are using is actually planted away from your garden and not right beside it.
Rain and Water
You need to consider the normal weather patterns where you live. Does the rain tend to come in at a slight slant form a certain direction?
If you pick a spot that is next to a fence, there is a chance that the fence could block some of the rain that falls and the soil won’t retain the water your plants need to grow. If there isn’t any way you can avoid this, you can always water your garden plants yourself. But having mother nature help you out is always better, not to mention cheaper if you have to pay for water.
Another part of water for your garden you need to consider is how easy it will be to water your garden. Rain doesn’t always come at the exact time we need it to. So you need to make sure you can easily get a water hose to your garden, or some type of water supply, even if it’s a rain barrel that gives you water for the garden.
Stick to Flat Land
You don’t want to put your garden on a hill or any steep incline. Having your garden on a hill or steep incline can affect water running off from plants at the top and the plants at the bottom getting too much water. It will also cause an erosion problem with the soil in your garden.
Another drawback of not using flat land would be strain on yourself when working in your garden. No one wants to be trying to tackle gravity on a hill when gardening.
Wind Protection
It is best to place your garden in a place that will offer some protection from harsh winds. High winds can damage your plants that are growing in your garden.
Wind can not only topple over taller plants in the garden, it can also cause soil to dry out, which is not a good thing for growing vegetables.
One of the best ways to protect your garden from harsh winds is to use hedges as a barrier to your garden to help filter the wind instead of just deflecting the wind.
Another way to help keep the wind from damaging your garden is the use of fences.
When using anything to help keep the wind from your garden, always make sure that the shadow cast from the barrier will not affect the sunlight that your garden will get.
Container Gardens
If you don’t have the right plot of land or large enough land to dig a garden, you can always choose the option of container gardening.
Choosing to go with a container garden ensures that your vegetables have the well-draining soil they need. You can move the containers to the perfect spot for sunlight to meet that plant’s individual needs. And container gardens allow those in the city to still have a vegetable garden.
You can check out our post The Best Vegetables for Container Gardening to see how to get started with a container garden.