TTTB Top 5 garden considerations

As 2018 comes to a close, garden planting is just around the corner, but before plowing and planting comes planning. Here are our top 5 Things To Think Bout before you plan your garden.

1.  Goals
2.  Location
3.  Soil
4.  Water
5.  Plants

1.  Goal - Accomplishing small goals is envigorating while the goal at the finish line is the motivation.  Set goals in the beginning and remind yourself of why you started.  You might have the goal to simply research gardening and start with a potted plant or succulent, or you might have the goal to feed the world.  Write it down.  The goalpost will shift, write those goals down too.

2.  Location, location, location - accomplishing our goals is easy if we set ourselves up for success.  If we put our garden close to the house or in an area where we are going to walk every day, we will naturally spend more time there and increase the chances of success.  A feasability study of location considerations also include solar aspect and market accessibility.  You generally don’t want to put a greenhouse in a shady spot, and you most likely want to have people to sell things to nearby.

3.  A soil study is vital to not wasting your time in the garden.  Plants thrive at different levels of acidity in the soil.  A Ph test will tell you how to remediate your soil to an optimal growing environment.  A soil study will also show the distribution of clay, sand, and silt in your soil.  This will help determine course of action for optimal soil structure.

4.  Water -  Like my momma always said, “water always wins.”  So our first water consideration is erosion.  Erosion will steal your hard work in washing away top soil.  Swales, gabbions, hugelkuktur, along with contour and keyline planning will slow, spread, and sink water into the ground where you want it, not running over your field.  The second aspect of water is how are we going to get water to the plants we want to grow.   We spend days talking about irrigation and rainwater collection in our workshops, so I’m not gonna go in depth here because the beauty of proper erosion control is the reduction and ultimate elimination of irrigation requirements as water is stored in the soil structure itself.

5.  Plants - Now that we thought about all that we can think about the plants, the real reason most of us start gardening.  People are often overwhelmed the first time planning a garden in the variety of plants offered at the seed store.  It is simple.  Plant what you like, and what your friends like.  Make a list of the things you have eaten in the past month, deconstruct them and there you go.  Eat a lot of pasta?  Roma or San Marsano tomatoes might be right up your alley.   Eat a lot of salads?  Iceburg and romaine are staples of the salad bar.  Carrots? Plant carrots.  Are you Popeye?  Plant spinach.