Creating your own food garden

If you are going to go to all of the trouble to create your own food garden, you should make it a good one; a garden that is as useful, productive and interesting as you can possibly make it. Such a garden will produce food as its main function, but it should also be beautiful, stimulating to the senses, challenging (both intellectually and artistically) and full of wildlife. At the same time it should also be fairly low maintenance, so it doesn’t become a full time job. Few existing gardens actually accomplish all of these things (mainly because few people have tried), but it isn’t that difficult to achieve. You just have to do some intelligent design before you start and use your imagination (rather than mindlessly following tradition). The possibilities are almost unlimited, but you need to find out what they are. Expand your options by reading a lot (and taking notes), talking to other people and looking at pictures. There is no shame in copying a good idea (it’s the sincerest form of flattery) so if you see something you like, incorporate it into your garden.

There are three aspects to creating a productive garden, design, construction and management. As you might expect designers tend to over-emphasize the importance of the design part, but I think it is actually the least important. You just need enough design to point you in the right direction. To get the various components in the right places in relation to the sun, the land and each other, and put the plants in the right places. You will do a lot more of the design while you are actually constructing the garden and experience real garden problems. Design doesn’t stop even when the garden is established though, you will come up with many improvements during your day to day gardening activities. In fact this is when you really get to know the garden and its (and your) needs.

Countless books have been written about creating gardens, but when you get down to basics it’s pretty straightforward. Like many practical things in life it appears to be more complicated than it really is and can be made more complicated than it needs to be (this is encouraged by people who make a living from designing gardens). Anyone can design a basic food garden (which is all you need to get started), you just have to look at what you have, think about what you need and then come up with a logical plan. Don’t worry about not making a great design right from the start, just go at your own pace, in your own way, for your own satisfaction. Once set in motion the garden will keep evolving and improving for as long as you live in it.

The simplest way to come up with a practical basic design is to divide the garden into a number of separate areas and deal with them individually. You will work on planning and creating these areas one at a time, but it makes sense to create a master plan (on paper or computer) that ties everything together. This will help you to put each element in the right place, in relation to the site and other components. You then build the garden step by step, planting, renovating or replacing one component at a time (installing a whole garden at one time is only practical if you are paying someone else to do it).

The most important garden area (from a food production standpoint) is usually the annual vegetable garden, as it is the most efficient way to produce the food crops we eat every day. As the most productive part of the garden it is essential that we locate it where it will work most efficiently. This primarily means it must get as much direct sunlight as possible, but ideally it should also be close to the house for convenience in harvesting (and because you will spend a lot of time there). The most important area for human activities is the patio or deck area, which is usually placed at the back of the house, near the kitchen and living area (though it should generally also be on the south side of the house for sun exposure). This is the place where we spend most of our outdoor leisure time, so it should be the most attractive and comfortable part of the garden. It is also the place for the high maintenance edibles, such as the Citrus or other frost sensitive plants, or those that need protection from wildlife. You may also want a fairly ornamental front entrance garden (planted with the most attractive food plants) to show off to the street. Other important areas would be a play area, herb garden, water garden or workshop. The parts of the garden not needed for a specific purpose are commonly planted with low maintenance plants that produce food without too much attention: food producing trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals and fungi. To minimize the amount of work they require these might be arranged in a forest garden or hedgerow type garden that largely functions like a self-sustaining ecosystem (this sounds more complicated than it really is).

Every garden consists of a number of important components (vegetable garden, greenhouse, patio, pond, hammock, fire pit, bed, clothes drying line, compost area), and though each will be created separately they often affect other components (either positively or negatively). The master plan is the place where you resolve any conflicts or make beneficial combinations. One of the key elements in deciding where to place each component is how often you need to use or maintain it. Those that need the most attention should be closest to the house and those that don’t need any should be furthest away. This one design idea can save you a lot of work.

Though designing on paper is the most efficient way to get your garden started (and fun for many people) it isn’t the only way. If you prefer you can do it all in the garden. Just start planting and placing things where you think they might do best and see what happens. Interesting things often happen unexpectedly when you work like this and it can result in a great garden. If something turns out to be really bad it’s not the end of the world, you can always change things later. This trial and error approach isn’t very efficient and often results in wasted time, duplicated effort and other problems, but it is probably how most home gardens were created in the past and it usually works out pretty well if you are motivated.

The primary aim of the food garden is to grow food and you will spend a lot of time on finding ways to increase productivity, but this isn’t its only purpose. The garden is also a place for living and you should give some thought to how you can make it more comfortable. You mainly do this by creating beautiful spaces where you can relax and enjoy your surroundings. Make them special with a combination of artwork, water, productive (beautiful and maybe scented) plants and other fun stuff.  

There is a definite link between work and productivity, the more work you put in, the more food you get out. You have to find the right balance between the level of productivity you want and how much work you are prepared to do. Don’t create more intensively worked garden than you can comfortably handle. If you have a large garden, create your highly cultivated areas close to the house and plant the rest as low maintenance forest garden or leave it in its natural state (or a bit of both). Successful gardening means enjoying yourself: if you are having a good time creating the garden and really want to be out doing it every day then you are doing it right. If it involves so much work it starts to become a chore then something is wrong

I think of my garden as a symbiotic relationship between me, the land and its other inhabitants, working together (mostly) to create a place that is more diverse and productive than it would naturally be. I figure I must be doing something right because my garden is suddenly full of birds (this year I have found four bird nests within 25 feet of the house), lizards (it seems like foot long lizards are lounging under every board), bees come to (presumably) drink from my pond, butterflies and hummingbirds flock to the Buddleia by my deck, bats circle the garden every night, there is an owl living in a tree (I won’t even mention the wood rats). When I compare my garden to those around me this isn’t really surprising, as it is far more biologically diverse and productive.