How to choose the right location for your vegetable garden?

Practicality

It is very important to consider practical aspects in your choice, even if you are not always convinced of this at the outset. Even with the best intentions, a great distance between the vegetable garden and the house, complicated access to water, and tools that are “miles away” will wear down even the most motivated.

As you will have understood, make sure to install your vegetable garden not too far from the house. Ensure easy access to water and the ability to reach tools easily. Place your essential compost near the vegetable garden (even if it means having a special bin for vegetable waste at home to limit trips to the compost in the rain during winter).

Don’t plan too large, even if it means expanding later. It would be a shame to tire of the fifteenth kilogram of courgettes. If you apply permaculture principles, which are very interesting, you will have a highly productive vegetable garden in a small area.

Also consider the practicality of movement within the vegetable garden area: being able to access all parts of the plot, having walkable paths, not a muddy terrain.

Once the practical criteria have been reviewed, don’t forget the aesthetic aspects: if the window of your living room overlooks the vegetable garden, it better be attractive! While it can be quite ornamental with careful planting and some flowers, it won’t be so in every season. Ideally, think about your views from the house, and if you have no choice, pay attention to its aesthetics; you will be all the happier for it!

Ensure you can move easily within your vegetable garden and reach all areas of the plots

A flat plot

Gardening on a flat plot is also essential: imagine watching your watering water leak from your wilted tomato plant to irrigate the adventive weeds a little further away! If the ground isn’t flat to begin with, you should consider levelling it. In case of a steeper slope, think about a terracing system. Between the two, a raised bed can also be a good solution to create a flat surface in a sloped area. Carefully construct your bed with boards to elevate it on the slope.

Set up your plot on flat ground to avoid disappointments

The essential shade

Having become a crucial topic in vegetable gardening with climate change and the very hot summers we are experiencing, shade is essential in the garden during summer. Or at least the possibility of shade. How many vegetables suffer from sunburn, scorched by the intense heat? This issue is not straightforward, as it is true that the vegetable garden requires a well-sunny location all year round. It is also true that trees have a bad reputation near the vegetable garden because their roots dry out the soil and their branches cast too much shade all year round.

That said, this is a traditional view of trees in the vegetable garden. With the development of permaculture principles and some very interesting concepts like agroforestry, this perspective is being challenged, and we are rethinking the role of trees in the vegetable garden, in the form of hedges, isolated trees, or orchards. By carefully selecting species with deciduous foliage, paying attention to the tree’s habit, or considering the garden as a system with different layers: orchard, small fruits, and vegetable crops. We think of the whole as a unit, with different leafing, seasons, and possible sizes to bring in light.

Thus, it is a delicate balance to find. Already, if shade is provided by a tree, it should be deciduous for maximum sunlight during the leafless seasons. It may be worthwhile to consider planting fast-growing bushes near the vegetable garden while calculating their shade projection.

Otherwise, we try to create temporary and reversible shade! Growing tall annual plants, which develop very quickly, is a clever solution. Choosing heat- and drought-resistant species is even better.

The other option is to install removable structures without preventing rain from reaching the vegetable garden soil. We can consider shade structures in the form of shade cloths, horizontal canes set high on stakes, or screens on the sides, provided they are placed wisely. Among makeshift solutions, umbrellas or overturned crates over seedlings, young plants, or salads will also do the trick.

These latter solutions are more about remedying a lack of shade while waiting for a tree to grow, for example. But it is better to integrate the shade factor for high heat from the outset with sustainable solutions.

Of course, just as compost is essential; seeking shade in summer without having previously mulched the vegetable garden extensively with a thick layer of organic mulch to limit water evaporation is counterproductive.

→ Read Pascale’s very useful article on the topic of shade in the vegetable garden during summer.

If vegetable crops need sunlight all year round, it becomes crucial to provide shade in summer