Tip #2: Choose Your Garden Location Wisely {Surviving The Stores Through Gardening}

Welcome back to Surviving the Stores Through Gardening!   We talked last week about your goals for your garden and encouraged you to think about your purpose for your garden.   If you haven’t shared yet, make sure to go that post and share your goals with all of us!  We are excited to hear your ideas!

This week, we’re going to take a practical look at your available space.

It’s so important to critically evaluate your available space and choose your garden location wisely.  On our first garden, we picked a spot that didn’t get enough sun, and we could hardly grow anything.  We should have taken the hint that neither grass nor weeds grew in the spot…why would a garden?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you decide where to put your garden: 

* Can you easily reach your proposed spot with a hose or sprinkler?

* Does it get enough sun or is it a shaded area?  Most plants need 6 or more hours of sun daily.  Morning sun is generally better than afternoon sun.  

* Is it a relatively flat spot?    If the spot is sloped, you’ll lose a lot of soil to erosion and a lot of water to runoff.

* Does the garden complement your yard?  Well-placed gardens can enhance property values.  Some people chose the front yard for their garden, since they’re growing plants that will look nice there.   Be sure to check on any neighborhood or city guidelines regarding gardens in the front of the house. 

* Do you have room to expand?  If you start small but think you might want to expand later, take that into consideration as you pick out your spot.  

Enjoy some time out in your yard as you dream about your garden, and check in with us next week for our next gardening tip!

Let us know in the comments other things you would take into consideration in choosing a spot!

Sarah graduated from Baylor with a major in bioinformatics and is now making that degree work hard by raising her two kiddos and keeping her husband relatively well fed. In her quieter moments, she can be found enjoying a homemade chai latte and reading on her Nook.  You can also find her over at Renaissance Mama, on Facebook, and on Twitter!