Plot Set Up

Welcome back to this series focused on the base concepts and principles which aren’t often discussed in detail but are very important for a successful growing season. Now that you’ve decided why you are gardening, we will discuss how to set up your garden plot. There are multiple ways to do so, each with their own pros and cons. Let’s get into it.

            The most basic way is to just pick an area of your yard and set it aside for gardening. You want to pick an area that will get plenty of rain and sun. If you are growing any large plants, it’s also best to pick an area with some distance from your house. You never want to plant anything that is going to draw in a great deal of water near your house. Water is the enemy of any construction material. Exposure to some water is inevitable but there’s no point in creating unnecessary problems. Another reason to create distance between your house and garden plot is access. You’ll be surprised how much your plants will grow and make it difficult to move through your garden. Access to all sides/borders of your garden is very useful.

            To prepare the soil, most people rototill the garden plot area. You can manually do this with a shovel or, if you want to save yourself some time and effort, you can rent or buy a rototiller. After rototilling, you remove the clumps of grass, rocks, etc. you see; break up any large clumps of soil; and you are ready to plant. The drawback to this method is by rototilling the soil, with the grass still on top of it, you will not be able to remove all the grass and it will create more work during the growing season. Some people disagree with this method because they believe by exposing lower layers of soil to the air it releases nutrients in the soil. However, without breaking up the soil, you can’t remove rocks or loosen the dirt and it’s much more difficult to remove mass areas of weeds or grass. This makes it much more difficult for your seeds to sprout and make it out of the seedling stage. I’ve only found this method suitable to hardy plants that will grow tall quickly. For example, this works very well with sunflowers.

            The method I use is a mix of all of these. I will first scalp the grass from the ground. To do this, I use a shovel to cut the perimeter of the garden down below the grass roots. I then repeat the process length wise in rows about the width of the shovel head and again width wise the length of the shovel head. I then dig the shovel head under each square and push it forward to cut the sod from the ground. I prefer this method for several reasons. First, I can make sure my garden area is completely free of anything but dirt before I plant. Of course, there are still some roots that find a way to grow but it is very manageable. Second, I do not like wasting anything. By scalping the sod from the rest of the dirt, I’m able to use those squares of sod on areas where the grass isn’t doing well or areas I just want to build up higher. It works wonderfully. I then do break up the dirt. Usually, I use a shovel because a little manual labor is good for you and unless you are preparing an extremely large garden plot, a rototiller is really just unnecessary if you are physically capable to use a shovel. I do believe some nutrients are lost when breaking up the soil so I’ll then take compost or manure and spread a layer over top of the soil I loosened to add nutrients to the soil. Any of these can work, it just depends on how much time you want to spend preparing, how much time you want to spend maintaining, if you are capable of doing manual labor, and if you value reutilizing resources or are ok with waste.

            The next way to set up a garden plot is the raised garden. There are two general types of raised gardens. There is the raised garden where you build a wooden framework that sits directly on top of the ground and the raised garden built on stilts or other type of platform with the bed approximately waist high. There are several benefits to either type of raised garden. First, you get to create your own soil mix. You’ll find many different formulas for the ideal soil mixture. Some of it will depend on what you are growing. For example, if you are growing plants that like acidic soil, you’ll need to take acidity into account. I like finding solutions that are generally good in all situations. My recommendation for anything you grow is four bags of top soil to one bag of compost manure and for every two bags of compost manure you add one bag of peat moss. You then mix this combination thoroughly. This will provide a healthy mix of nutrients without risk of burning plant roots and good aeration due to the peat moss. The second benefit is it can be easier, especially for raised gardens on a platform or stilts, to control some of the bugs in your plants. The third benefit is it will help save your back. When you have to bend all the way to the ground or squat for a long time it can get pretty hard on your body. Every inch above the ground puts less strain on your body. With a waist high raised garden bed, there is almost no strain on your body. Fourth and something most people don’t think about, it is easier to protect a raised garden from grass clippings when the lawn is being mowed. A ground level garden will be covered in mown grass. Fifth, due to the wood construct already in place for a raised garden, it’s easier to put up protective fencing to keep out any undesired animals. Cost is minimal so the only real con is you are stuck with the size of the raised garden you build. You can’t just dig up more of your yard like with the first option.

            The third way to set up a garden is using planter pots that have at least a 1’ x 1’ opening. Benefits to this method are you can create your own soil, you can grow crops anywhere, it’s easier to keep invasive plants away from the others, you have fewer weeds to worry about, and you can likely set up the pots in a way that is easy on your body. The primary cons to this method are the cost of pots large enough to grow crops in and the number of pots you would need to grow a garden. One way to limit this cost is to use grow bags. These are much cheaper than pots but not as durable and not as nice looking.

The fourth way to set up a garden is to build a green house. In a greenhouse you create your own soil mixture, it helps to control the access of bugs to your plants, it keeps animals out of your garden, it protects your garden from grass clippings, and a properly constructed greenhouse can double your growing season in most climates with four seasons.  Building a proper green house that will last through weather and various seasons is expensive in both time and money. I’ll discuss green house construction in another article but if you enjoy gardening and want to get the most out of the time, money, and effort you put into it; a greenhouse is well worth it.

Personally, I use all of these methods depending on plant, space, etc. I have a greenhouse where I plant my primary crops for the year. I have raised gardens for berry bushes and vines. I grow sunflowers directly out of a grass covered part of the yard. I use grow bags if I decide to grow invasive plants like tomatoes. All of these methods are valid depending on your situation, intent, and goals. Figure out which way or combination of ways is going to work best for you!

-The Old Man