Planning an edible garden is an exciting endeavor – however, it can be easy to get bogged down in logistics. Before building, it’s important to select a site where your edible crops will thrive year-round. A well-planned garden meets both practical and personal needs, but without some factors – like sunlight – your garden will not be as successful. This guide will cover how to conduct a site survey and choose the best location for your edible garden, including factors like groundwater and accessibility.

Conducting a Site Survey: Setting the Foundation for Success

A site survey is a way to gather information about your property’s growing conditions. This process helps avoid placing your garden in a sub-par location, and challenges misconceptions about where you can grow food. We suggest starting with the assumption that anywhere on your property can hold a garden, and eliminating areas from there based on the factors outlined below. This will help you avoid mistakes from focusing on just one factor.

First, eliminate any obvious areas where you can’t grow food. This includes driveways, rooftops, and heavily shaded spaces. Next, identify areas with heavy shade, large tree cover, or overgrown vegetation. As we’ll cover below, plants in your garden will struggle to thrive in little to no sunlight.

Essential Factors for Choosing Your Garden Location

The five factors we consider when conducting a site survey are sunlight, groundwater, terrain, visibility, and accessibility. Two factors we consider non-negotiable because they will affect the performance of your garden: sunlight and water. The others can make it more difficult to build or maintain a garden space, but to an extent can be a matter of personal preference.

1. Sunlight: The Most Important Factor

Sunlight is the most important factor to your garden’s success. Sun is the driving force behind energy production in plants. Without adequate sunlight, your plants will likely experience stunted growth and a less robust harvest. In general, the more sun the better! We recommend 6+ hours of full sunlight for root crops and larger fruiting crops like tomatoes, squash, and carrots. If you garden only gets 4 hours of sunlight a day, you will have the most success with baby greens, lettuce, and tender herbs like dill. We consider two hours of partial shade, like under a tree, to be the equivalent of one hour of full sun. You can use dappled light creatively for partial-shade crops.

You don’t need to stand in your garden every day in every season to understand how sunlight affects your property. There are handy phone apps like the Sun Surveyor app that will take a live reading of your prospective garden space and automatically calculate sun exposure in different seasons. Keep in mind other features, like nearby buildings, that will also shade small plants.

2. Water Access: Ensuring Easy Hydration for Your Plants

Water access is also essential to healthy plants, whether you opt for hand-watering or an automatic drip irrigation system. Water access matters because raised beds often dry out faster than in-ground beds. Annual crops generally have shallot root systems that require frequent watering, unlike perennials like trees that can pull water from the earth. If you intend to hand-water your garden, consider how close your garden is to your hose spigot. You don’t want to carry a heavy watering can over long distances or steep terrain.

However, you don’t necessarily need to place your garden directly next to a hose. Drip irrigations are relatively easy to set up and run underground long distances through your yard. Drip irrigation is also convenient because it will automatically water your garden in the right place, at the right time, in the right amount. This minimizes fungal issues due to overwatering or overhead watering, and will help your plants thrive with the right amount of water. You can even set it to water your garden when you’re on vacation.

3. Terrain: Smoothing Out Challenges

We find that building a garden on flat, stable ground will generally provide you the best experience. This includes ease of installation and ongoing garden maintenance. First, uneven or sloped terrain complicates the setup of raised beds. Although you can custom-build raised beds so the final garden is level, it may require more advanced carpentry skills. It also makes working and using tools like wheelbarrows and heavy bags of soil difficult.

On an ongoing basis, sloped terrain also makes access to the garden difficult. Building on a level surface will also minimize soil erosion on slopes from water runoff or pathways, including general wear and tear on raised beds over time.

4. Visibility: Keeping Your Garden Top of Mind

In general, we recommend placing your garden in a visible and high-traffic location. “Out of sight, out of mind” is a real phenomenon and we find that the gardens that get the most interaction are the ones that are visible from inside the house. Especially for newer gardeners, it may help to see when different crops are ready to harvest. However, not everyone wants their garden to be high visibility. It can be helpful to ask yourself questions like, do you want your garden to be visible from the street? What room(s) in my house faces the garden location? Will this garden block sight-lines to other parts of the yard, like children playing?

Consider how additional infrastructure will affect the visual weight of your garden. For example, in urban areas fencing is often necessary to keep out animals like deer and groundhogs that will jump or climb 5-6 feet to find food. If you’re concerned about pests but the appearance of a boxy garden doesn’t appeal to you, consider planting native perennial plants in beds around the garden for a more “natural” look.

5. Accessibility: Making Gardening Easy and Enjoyable

For similar reasons, we recommend placing your garden close to pathways or main living areas. For example, if you place your garden next to your garage you will pass by it most days and therefore be more likely to interact with it. You can ask yourself questions like, How often do I visit this space in my yard? Which door do I use most often to enter the house?

Placing a garden near your kitchen will also enhance the magic of homegrown food. What’s better than harvesting fresh herbs to use in dinner, or seeing a ripe tomato that’s ready to throw into a salad? Even if your main raised bed garden is in another part of your yard, a tiered planter for herbs can keep homegrown flavor close at hand. Ensure your garden is accessible for all gardeners, especially those with limited mobility. This includes the width of gates and pathways, the height of raised beds or in-ground beds, and whether you need stairs to access the space.

Conclusion

Choosing the right location for your raised bed vegetable garden is crucial for ensuring a thriving and productive garden. By carefully considering factors like sunlight, water access, terrain, visibility, and accessibility, you can create an environment where your plants will flourish. Whether you’re a first-time gardener or looking to optimize your existing setup, taking the time to plan your garden’s placement can save you from common pitfalls and maximize your harvest.

If you’re ready to take the next step and build the perfect garden for your space, don’t hesitate to book a consultation with one of our experts today. We’ll help you design a garden that meets all your needs and sets you up for gardening success!