Chapter 3: Planning Your Veggie Garden

In This Chapter

Finding the right spot for your garden

Getting the scoop on vegetable varieties

Knowing how to time your planting

Mapping out your garden design

Before you go out and till up the whole yard to create a vegetable garden, you need to do a little planning. I know, I know. You're dreaming of luscious melons, mouth-watering tomatoes, and crisp salad greens picked fresh from your garden. But as my dad used to say, "You gotta have a plan, Charlie." So, in this chapter, I provide you with a basic plan for locating and mapping out the perfect vegetable garden to suit your yard and needs.

Deciding Where to Put Your Vegetable Garden

When considering where to plop down your plot, think of these three main elements, which are necessary for the perfect spot: site, sun, and soil. The following sections describe each of these and give you some things to think about when surveying your yard for the best possible spot for your plot. Figure 3-1 puts some of these ideas into visual perspective.

Don't be discouraged if you lack the ideal garden spot — few gardeners have one. Just try to make the most of what you have.

Considering different sites

Choosing a site is the important first step in planning a vegetable garden. This may sound like a tough choice to make, but don't worry; a lot of the decision is based on good old common sense. When you're considering a site for your garden, remember these considerations:

Keep it close to home. Plant your garden where you'll walk by it daily so that you remember to care for it. Also, a vegetable garden is a place people like to gather, so keep it close to a pathway. (I talk about garden paths later in this chapter.)

Vegetable gardens used to be relegated to some forlorn location out back. Unfortunately, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. I like to plant vegetables front and center — even in the front yard. That way you get to see the fruits of your labor and remember what chores need to be done. Plus, it's a great way to engage the neighbors as they stroll by and admire your plants. You may even be inspired to share a tomato with them.

Make it easy to access. If you need to bring in soil, compost, mulch, or wood by truck or car, make sure your garden can be easily reached by a vehicle. Otherwise you'll end up working way too hard to cart these essentials from one end of the yard to the other.

Have a water source close by. Try to locate your garden as close as you can to an outdoor faucet. Hauling hundreds of feet of hose around the yard to water the garden will only cause more work and frustration. And, hey, isn't gardening supposed to be fun?

Keep it flat. You can garden on a slight slope, and, in fact, a south-facing one is ideal since it warms up faster in spring. However, too severe a slope could lead to erosion problems. To avoid having to build terraces like Machu Picchu, plant your garden on flat ground.

A bit of science also is involved in choosing the right site. Microclimates are small areas of your yard whose temperatures and related growing conditions are slightly different from the overall climate of your yard, neighborhood, or town. These differences usually are caused by large objects, such as your house, a wall, or a tree. For example, the south side of your house may be hotter than the rest of your yard, because the sun reflects off the walls and the house blocks prevailing cold winds. Or an area under a large tree may be cooler than the rest of the yard because of the shade provided by the tree's canopy.

How big is too big for a veggie garden? If you're a first-time gardener, a size of 100 square feet is plenty of space to take care of; I like to tell beginning gardeners to start small and build on their success. However, if you want to produce food for storing and sharing, a 20-foot-x-30-foot plot (600 square feet total) is a great size. You can produce an abundance of different vegetables and still keep the plot looking good.

Speaking of upkeep, keep the following in mind when deciding how large to make your garden: If the soil is in good condition, a novice gardener can keep up with a 600-square-foot garden by devoting about a half-hour each day the first month of the season; in late spring through summer, a good half-hour of work every 2 to 3 days should keep the garden productive and looking good. Keep in mind that the smaller the garden, the less time it'll take to keep it looking great. Plus, after it's established, the garden will take less time to get up and running in the spring. And if you use some of the time-saving tips throughout this book, you may be able to cut down the time commitment even more.

Letting the sun shine on your plot

Vegetables need enough sun to produce at their best. Fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, and eggplant, need at least 6 hours of direct sun a day for good yields. The amount of sun doesn't have to be continuous though. You can have 3 hours in the morning with some shade midday and then 3 more hours in the late afternoon.

However, if your little piece of heaven gets less than 6 hours of sun, don't give up. You have some options:

Crops where you eat the leaves, such as lettuce, arugula, pac choi, and spinach, produce reasonably well in a partially shaded location where the sun shines directly on the plants for 3 to 4 hours a day.

Root crops, such as carrots, potatoes, and beets, need more light than leafy vegetables, but they may do well getting only 4 to 6 hours of sun a day.

If you don't have enough sun to grow fruiting crops, such as tomatoes and peppers, consider planting a movable garden. Plant these crops in containers and move them to the sunniest spots in your yard throughout the year. I discuss this technique more in Chapter 18.

Keep in mind that sun and shade patterns change with the seasons. A site that's sunny in midsummer may later be shaded by trees, buildings, and the longer shadows of late fall and early spring. If you live in a mild-winter climate, such as parts of the southeastern and southwestern United States where it's possible to grow vegetables nearly year-round, choosing a spot that's sunny in winter as well as in summer is important. In general, sites that have clear southern exposure are sunniest in winter (refer to Figure 3-1).

You can have multiple vegetable garden plots around your yard matching the conditions with the vegetables you're growing. If your only sunny spot is a strip of ground along the front of the house, plant a row of peppers and tomatoes. If you have a perfect location near a backdoor, but it only gets morning sun, plant lettuce and greens in that plot.

If shade in your garden comes from nearby trees and shrubs, your vegetable plants will compete for water and nutrients as well as for light. Tree roots extend slightly beyond the drip line, the outer foliage reach of the tree. If possible, keep your garden out of the root zones (the areas that extend from the drip lines to the trunks) of surrounding trees and shrubs. If avoiding root zones isn't possible, give the vegetables more water and be sure to fertilize to compensate.

Black walnut trees pose a particular problem to vegetable gardens because their roots give off a substance called juglone that inhibits the growth of some plants, including tomatoes. Plants growing in the root zones of black walnuts often wilt and die. Try to leave at least 50 feet between your garden and any walnut trees.

Checking your soil's drainage

After you've checked the site location and sun levels of your prospective garden, you need to focus on the third element of the big three: the soil. Ideally you have rich, loamy, well-drained soil with few rocks (as I describe in Chapter 14). Unfortunately, that type of soil is a rarity. But a key that's even more essential to good soil is proper water drainage. Plant roots need air as well as water, and water-logged soils are low in air content. Puddles of water on the soil surface after a rain indicate poor drainage.

One way to check your soil's drainage is to dig a hole about 10 inches deep and fill it with water. Let the water drain and then fill the hole again the following day. Time how long it takes for the water to drain away. If water remains in the hole more than 8 to 10 hours after the second filling, your soil drainage needs improvement.

Soils made primarily of clay tend to be considered heavy. Heavy soils usually aren't as well drained as sandy soils. Adding lots of organic matter to your soil can improve soil drainage (I tell you a lot more about how to do that in Chapter 14). Or you also can build raised beds on a poorly drained site (see "Deciding on hills, rows, or raised beds," later in this chapter).

But slow water drainage isn't always a bad thing. Soil also can be too well drained. Very sandy soil dries out quickly and needs frequent watering during dry spells. Again, adding lots of organic matter to sandy soil increases the amount of water it can hold.

If you encounter a lot of big rocks in your soil, you may want to look for another spot. Or consider going the raised-bed route. You can improve soils that have a lot of clay or that are too sandy, but very rocky soil can be a real headache. In fact, it can be impossible to garden in.

Don't plant your garden near or on top of the leach lines of a septic system. I'm sure you know why. And keep away from underground utilities. If you have questions, call your local utility company to locate underground lines. If you're unsure what's below ground, visit www.call811.com to have lines or pipes identified for free.

Understanding Veggie Varieties

Before you go drooling over the luscious veggies in catalogs, in garden centers, and online, it's good to know a little about the varieties you can choose from. If you select your veggie varieties before you design your garden, you can ensure that you have the proper amount of space and the best growing conditions. (I explain how to design your garden later in this chapter.)

A variety is a selection of a particular type of vegetable that has certain predictable, desirable traits. These traits may include the following:

Adaptation: Some varieties are particularly well adapted to certain areas and climates. For example, some tomato varieties produce good-tasting fruit in the cool, foggy coastal climates of the Pacific Northwest. And certain bean varieties are better adapted to the hot, dry deserts of the American southwest.

Appearance: You can choose from a rainbow of fruit and leaf colors, such as purple peppers, yellow chard, and orange tomatoes. Leaf textures and shapes range from frilly to smooth to puckered. The flowers of some vege-tables, such as okra and eggplant, are attractive in their own right. You get the idea. The more beautiful the vegetables, the more beautiful the vegetable garden — and the more stunning the food.

Cooking and storage characteristics: Certain varieties of beans and peas, for example, freeze better than others. Some winter squash varieties may be stored for months, but others need to be eaten immediately.

Days to maturity (or days to harvest): Days to maturity refers to the number of days it takes (under normal conditions) for a vegetable planted from seed (or from transplants) to mature and produce a crop. This number is especially important for vegetable gardeners who live in short-summer climates. Average days to maturity are listed for each type of vegetable in the appendix. You can find specific variety information on individual vegetables in Part II.

Extended harvest season: A certain variety of corn, for example, may ripen early or late in the season. By planting varieties that ripen at different times, you can start harvesting as early as 60 days after seeding and continue for 5 or 6 weeks. Seed catalogs and packages often describe varieties as early season, midseason, or late season in relationship to other varieties of the same vegetable.

Pest resistance: Many vegetable varieties are resistant to specific diseases or pests — a very important trait in many areas. Some tomato varieties, in particular, have outstanding disease resistance. See Chapter 17 for more on pest control. You also can read about specific pest-resistant varieties of individual vegetables in Part II.

Plant size: The trend in vegetable breeding is to go small. Tomato, cucumber, and even winter squash varieties are available in dwarf sizes. These varieties are perfect for container growing or small-space gardens.

Taste: Pick a flavor and you can find a vegetable that stars in it. You can grow fruity tomatoes, super-sweet varieties of corn, bitter melons, and spicy peppers. You'll discover flavors for every taste bud.

To realize the scope of your vegetable variety possibilities, see the individual vegetable descriptions in Part II. It's also important to note that you can categorize a variety as a hybrid, an open-pollinated, or an heirloom variety. Here's what these terms mean:

Hybrid: Hybrid seeds (also known as F-1 hybrids) are the result of a cross of selected groups of plants of the same kind, called inbred lines. (A cross is when pollen from one flower fertilizes a flower from another similar plant, resulting in seed.) Hybrid seeds generally are more expensive than open-pollinated seeds, and they can't be saved and planted the next year because the offspring won't have the same characteristics as the parents. If you did plant them next year, you'd get a mix of characteristics — some desirable and some not. The plants are uniform, but they often lack a diversity of shapes, colors, sizes, and flavors. However, hybrid plants are more vigorous, productive, and widely adapted than other varieties.

Open-pollinated: Open-pollinated varieties basically are inbred lines allowed to pollinate each other in open fields. They produce offspring that are similar to their parents. Before the arrival of hybrids, all vegetable varieties were open-pollinated. Some gardeners like these varieties for their flavor, their diversity, and the fact that they can save the seeds each year to replant. The resulting offspring are pretty predictable, but they don't provide the consistency of hybrids.

Heirloom: Any open-pollinated variety that's at least 50 years old is generallyconsidered an heirloom. Heirlooms are enjoying quite a revival because of the variety of colors, tastes, and forms that are available. They're worth trying, but keep in mind that some varieties may not have the disease resistance and wide adaptability that hybrids generally have.

One category generally available only to commercial farmers is that of the genetically modified variety. This kind of plant has a gene from a completely unrelated species inserted into it so that it exhibits a certain trait. For example, geneticists have inserted a gene of the biological pesticide Bt (see Chapter 17) into potatoes so that when the Colorado potato beetle (their biggest enemy) eats a potato's leaves, it also eats the pesticide and dies. Many questions exist about the long-term health risks and environmental safety of manipulating the gene pool so dramatically and quickly. For this reason, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) aren't allowed in organic gardening.

Timing Your Planting Wisely

As my dad used to say, "Timing is everything." This axiom is especially important for vegetable gardening, so file it where you can't forget it. Remembering it will save you lots of heartache and disappointment. For example, if you plant tomatoes too early, the plants will sit there like bumps on a log, not growing and possibly rotting in cold, wet soil or turning mushy and black after they've been zapped by frost. Plant lettuce too late, and it'll produce more flowers than leaves, and the leaves you harvest will be tough and bitter. I can give you examples like this for every vegetable, but I'll spare you the monotony. Just know that planting at the wrong time of year is a recipe for disaster.

If you follow the rhythms of nature and plant when conditions are perfect for proper growth, growing vegetables is a breeze. But how are you supposed to know about these rhythms? Start tapping your foot, because the following sections will have you moving like Fred Astaire.

Some like it cool, some like it hot

Vegetables can be divided into the following two categories based on the temperature conditions in which they grow best:

Cool-season vegetables: These vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach, peas, potatoes, broccoli, and cabbage, grow best in the cool weather of spring and fall. As vegetables go, they're fairly hardy and survive despite freezing temperatures. In most areas, cool-season vegetables are usually planted in early spring so they mature before the onset of hot weather, or in late summer to early fall for maturation in the cool months of fall or early winter. However, in areas where summers are very cool and winters are mild, such as in coastal areas of the western United States and the far north, cool season vegetables can be grown year-round and may be the only vegetables that can thrive in this climate.

What happens if you plant a cool-season vegetable when it's too warm? Not a lot of good. Lettuce will bolt, meaning it starts to flower before you get a chance to harvest it. In other words, instead of producing tender, crisp leaves, lettuce will send out a tall flower spike. Any leaves that are left on the plant will be bitter-tasting and tough. Broccoli will form loose clusters of yellow flowers instead of forming nice tight heads. And peas won't properly fill their pods with sweet, succulent peas. You get the idea!

Warm-season vegetables: These vegetables, such as beans, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, melons, squash, okra, and corn, like it hot and grow best in the warm months of summer. They need warm soil and air temperatures to grow their best; if they're planted while the weather is still too cool, they'll suffer and not grow. Because freezing temperatures kill these vegetables, they're usually planted after the threat of frost in spring. In warm areas, they also can be planted in late summer for a fall harvest.

To push along warm-season veggies, wait until the soil and air are the proper temperature. Or consider using season extenders to trap heat around the plants. Season extenders also help in cool summer climates such as the Pacific Northwest, where the weather rarely gets warm enough even in summer to ripen heat-loving vegetables like melons. (Chapter 21 has more ideas on season-extending techniques.)

Frost dates and the length of the growing season

You should know two very important weather dates for your area if you want to grow vegetables successfully:

The average date of the last frost in spring

The average date of the first frost in fall

These frost dates tell you several important things:

When to plant: Cool-season vegetables are generally planted 4 to 6 weeks before the last spring frost. Fall planting of cool-season vegetables is less dependent on frost dates, but it's usually done 8 to 12 weeks before the first fall frost. Warm-season vegetables are planted after the last spring frost or in late summer in warm areas for a fall harvest.

When to protect warm-season vegetables: Frosts kill warm-season vege-tables. So the closer you plant to the last frost of spring, the more important it is to protect plants. And as the fall frost gets closer, so does the end of your summer vegetable season — unless, of course, you protect your plants. I show you how to provide frost protection in Chapter 21.

The length of your growing season: Your growing season is the number of days between the average date of the last frost in spring and the average date of the first frost in fall. The length of the growing season can range from less than 100 days in northern or cold winter climates to 365 days in frost-free southern climes. Many warm-season vegetables need long, warm growing seasons to properly mature, so they're difficult, if not impossible, to grow where growing seasons are short.

How are you to know whether your growing season is long enough? If you check mail-order seed catalogs or even individual seed packets, each variety will have the number of days to harvest or days to maturity (usually posted in parentheses next to the variety name). This number tells you how many days it takes for that vegetable to grow from seed (or transplant) to harvest. If your growing season is only 100 days long and you want to grow a melon or other warm-season vegetable that takes 120 frost-free days to mature, you have a problem. The plant will probably be killed by frost before the fruit is mature. In areas with short growing seasons, it's usually best to go with early ripening varieties (which have the shortest number of days to harvest).

However, you also can find many effective ways to extend your growing season, such as starting seeds indoors or planting under floating row covers (blanketlike materials that drape over plants, creating warm, greenhouselike conditions underneath). Various methods of extending growing seasons are covered in Chapter 21.

There you have it; now you know why frost dates are so important. But how do you find out dates for your area? Easy. Ask a local nursery worker or contact your local Cooperative Extension office (look in the phone book under county government). You also can look in the appendix of this book, which lists frost dates for major cities around the country.

Frost dates are important, but you also have to take them with a grain of salt. After all, these dates are averages, meaning that half the time the frost will actually come earlier than the average date and half the time it will occur later. You also should know that frost dates are usually given for large areas, such as your city or county. If you live in a cold spot in the bottom of a valley, frosts may come days earlier in fall and days later in spring. Similarly, if you live in a warm spot or you garden in a microclimate, your frost may come later in fall and stop earlier in spring. You're sure to find out all about your area as you become a more seasoned vegetable gardener and unearth the nuances of your own yard. One thing you'll discover for sure is that you can't predict the weather.

Listening to your evening weather forecast is one of the best ways to find out whether frosts are expected in your area. But you also can do a little predicting yourself by going outside late in the evening and checking conditions. If the fall or early spring sky is clear and full of stars, and the wind is still, conditions are right for a frost. If you need to protect plants, do so at that time. Frost-protection techniques are covered in Chapter 21.

Designing Your Garden

After you've found the best spot for your plot, selected a few veggie varieties, and figured out when you need to plant those varieties, it's time to map out your garden. Designing a vegetable garden is a little bit of art and a little bit of science. Practically speaking, plants must be spaced properly so they have room to grow and arranged so taller vegetables don't shade lower-growing types. Different planting techniques fit the growth habits of different kinds of vegetables. You also should think about the paths between rows and plants. Will you have enough room to harvest, weed, and water, for example?

On the other hand, having fun with your vegetable garden design is important too. Many vegetables are good looking on their own, but you also can get creative with combinations of vegetables with different flowers and herbs.

In the following sections, I give you the basics so you can start to sketch out a garden plan. I also provide some sample designs to get your juices flowing. If you stick with your plan, you'll be a vegetable gardening wizard in no time.

These sections give you the nuts and bolts information you need to create a final vegetable garden design. Don't stop here though. The descriptions of individual vegetables in Part II suggest ways to grow various types of vegetables — information that will probably influence your design. And the information on planting times earlier in this chapter, the scoop on succession planting in Chapter 16, and the lowdown on watering techniques in Chapter 15 can influence the way you arrange and plant your garden.

Deciding on hills, rows, or raised beds

Before you sketch a plan, you need to decide how to arrange the plants in your garden. You can use three basic planting arrangements:

In rows: Planting vegetables in rows is the typical farmer technique. Any vegetable can be planted in straight rows, but this arrangement works best with types that need quite a bit of room, such as tomatoes, beans, cabbages, corn, potatoes, peppers, and summer squash.

In hills: Hills are typically used for vining crops such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and winter squash. You can create a 1-foot-wide, flat-topped mound for heavy soil, or you can create a circle at ground level for sandy soil. You then surround the soil with a moatlike ring for watering. Two or three evenly spaced plants are grown on each hill. Space your hills the recommended distance used for rows of that vegetable.

In raised beds: Raised beds, which are my favorite, are kind of like wide, flat-topped rows. They're usually at least 2 feet wide and raised at least 6 inches high, but any planting area that's raised above the surrounding ground level is a raised bed. Almost any vegetable can benefit from being grown on a raised bed, but smaller vegetables and root crops, such as lettuce, beets, carrots, onions, spinach, and radishes, really thrive with this type planting. On top of the raised bed you can grow plants in rows or with broadcast seeding (see Chapter 13 for more on seeding techniques).

A raised bed can be a normal bed with the soil piled 5 or 6 inches high. I call this a temporary raised bed. Or you can build a permanent raised bed with wood, stone, or masonry sides, as shown in Figure 3-2.

Raised beds have several advantages, including the following:

They rise above soil problems. If you have bad soil or poor drainage, raised beds are for you. You can amend the garden soil in the raised bed with compost or the same sterile potting soil you use for containers (see Chapter 18). And because you don't step on the beds as you work, the soil is more likely to stay light and fluffy, providing the perfect conditions for root growth — especially for root crops such as carrots and beets.

They warm up quickly. Because more of the soil in raised beds is exposed to the sun, the soil warms early and dries out faster, allowing for early planting and extended harvest seasons.

If you're in a hot climate and have sandy soil, raised beds may not be for you, because they'll dry out and heat up too much.

They reduce your work. By growing your vegetables in raised beds, you can maximize your fertilizing and watering so that more nutrients and water are actually used by the plants rather than wasted in the pathways.

They're easy on your back and knees. If you design the beds properly (about 18 to 24 inches high and no wider than 4 feet), raised beds can make vegetable gardening a lot more comfortable. You can sit on the edge and easily reach into the bed to weed or harvest. You can even cap the edge to make it more benchlike.

They're attractive. You can make raised beds in almost any shape you like — rectangle, square, triangle, circle. Your garden can take on a whimsical design with a little creativity. Just keep the width less than 4 feet so you can easily reach the center of the bed without stepping on the soil.

Wooden raised beds should be made of rot-resistant woods, such as redwood or cedar, or recycled plastic timbers. I like to use two 2-x-10 boards for the sides, and then I anchor them with lag screws at the corners with short 4-x-4 posts buried a foot deep. (You don't necessarily need the posts, however.) If you plant several raised beds, leave at least 3-foot-wide paths between them for access. (I discuss garden paths in more detail later in this chapter.)

Some gardeners use pressure-treated wood or creosote-treated railroad ties to construct raised beds; check with your local lumberyard for these materials. I prefer not to use woods treated with chemicals. They'll last a long time, but research has shown that some of these chemicals leach into the soil and can adversely affect your plants.

The one downside of permanent raised beds is turning the soil. Lifting a tiller onto the bed can be difficult, so they're best turned by hand with an iron fork. (I like to "fluff" my beds each spring with an iron fork.) You also can use a minitiller, which I discuss in Chapter 20.

In dry areas such as the desert Southwest, the traditional bed isn't raised — it's sunken. These waffle beds are created by digging into the soil about 6 inches deep and making a small wall of soil around the outside edge of the bed. This design allows the bed to catch any summer rains, protects young plants from the drying winds, and concentrates water where the vegetables grow.

Spacing your plantings properly

After you know what you're planting and how to arrange the plants, it's time to talk spacing. Make a list of the different types of vegetables that you want to grow, and then pay attention to these columns in Table A-1 in the appendix:

Plants/Seeds per 100 ft. of Row: This column tells you how many plants/how much seed you need to purchase.

Spacing between Rows/Beds (Inches): This column includes the ideal distance you should leave between rows or beds of different vegetables. This is usually a little more than the distance you should leave between plants.

Spacing between Plants (Inches): In this column, you find the ideal distance to allow between individual vegetable plants within a row or planting bed.

Average Yield per 10 ft. of Row: This column shows you how much you can expect to harvest.

The vegetable spacing information that I provide in Table A-1 in the appendix is more like guidelines than hard-and-fast rules. If you're growing on raised beds or growing dwarf varieties (see Part II for examples of these types of varieties), you can plant a little closer together, because you'll be concentrating the fertilizer and water in a smaller space.

Even though closer planting is possible, don't plant so close that plants have to compete with each other for food, water, and light. If you do, you'll eventually get smaller harvests or lower-quality vegetables.

Following the paths

You can get so involved in the beds, rows, hills, and vegetable varieties that you forget about the paths between everything. Keep the paths at least 2 to 3 feet wide so you can easily walk on them. For larger gardens, consider a few main paths that are wide enough for a passing garden cart.

Be sure to use mulching materials on the paths to keep weeds at bay and make for easier walking. The last thing you want to do is weed your garden paths! Most gardeners tend to use whatever materials are cheap and widely available. Pine straw in the South, hay in the North, and gravel in the arid West are all possibilities for garden paths. I prefer organic materials (everything from ground bark and straw to sawdust, leaves, and grass clippings) because they add organic matter to the soil, helping my garden prosper. Check out Chapter 15 for more information on mulching your beds.

Sketching it out

After you determine the location and dimensions of your garden, you need to sketch out a simple garden plan. Your drawing doesn't have to be a work of art, just functional. All you need is a piece of graph paper and a pencil, a list of vegetables you want to grow, and maybe a seed catalog or two. Then just grab your pencil and graph paper and start drawing. First, draw the garden to scale. Leave space from the edge of the paper, draw in the first row, leave room for a path, and then create your next row. Continue filling in the rows with your favorite crops, taking into account the space requirements of the crops you want to grow (refer to Table A-1 in the appendix); whether you want to plant in rows, beds, or hills; and how much of each vegetable you want to harvest.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you sketch out your garden plan:

You can't plant everything. Choose your crops carefully, and only grow what you like to eat. And grow only how much you think you can eat. Eating broccoli for breakfast, lunch, and dinner can get old fast.

Not all plants have it made in the shade. Tall crops like corn should be placed where they won't shade other vegetables. The north end of the garden is usually best.

These roots aren't made for walking. Plan your garden with walkways so you can get to plants easily without damaging roots. (For more about walkways, see the previous section.)

Planning on paper helps you purchase the correct number of seeds or transplants and use space more efficiently. It's a good way to see the possibilities for succession planting (following one crop with another) and interplanting (planting a quick maturing crop next to a slower-maturing one and harvesting the former before it competes for space). For example, you may see that you can follow your late peas with a crop of late broccoli, and you'll be ready with transplants in July. Or you may see that there's space to tuck a few lettuce plants among your tomatoes while the vines are still small. You can find out more about these techniques in Chapter 16.

In the following sections, I provide some sample garden designs for inspiration. If you're looking for a basic veggie garden design, flip to Chapter 2. Keep in mind that you can alter the designs in these sections to fit the size of your garden; you also can substitute similar-sized vegetables for those that you don't like. The options are endless!

A raised-bed greens garden

The 6-foot-x-10-foot garden in Figure 3-3 is an easy one to tuck along a house or garage or in a small space near your kitchen. It's composed of four 2-feet-x-4-feet beds with mulched paths in between. The raised beds make this garden easy to access and care for.

The key to getting the most from the raised beds in this plan is to succession crop. For example, after the spinach crop is finished, plant summer lettuces or chard. Some greens, such as the loose-leaf lettuces and mesclun, can be cut and allowed to regrow for a second or third crop (see Chapter 10 for more information on cut-and-come-again lettuce). With a little forethought you can have fresh greens and salad fixings from spring through fall.

An edible-landscape garden

The garden in Figure 3-4 is beautiful and functional. I designed it to be around the front entrance of the house. It allows you to have blueberries, dwarf apple trees, and raspberries close to the house rather than way out in the backyard.

I created permanent raised beds on either side of the walkways leading to the front door. The paths between the beds are growing grass and are wide enough for a mower to pass through. In the beds are a combination of edible flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits, all selected with beauty and productivity in mind.

For example, you can grow colorful heirloom tomatoes, a combination of sweet and hot peppers, purple and yellow beans, basil and other herbs, cut-and-come-again greens, strawberries, and vivid root crops. You also can try growing edible flowers such as nasturtiums, marigolds, calendula, and pansies in their own bed and scattered throughout. See Chapter 12 for more on edible landscaping and growing fruits and herbs in your garden.

An ethnic pizza garden

The garden in Figure 3-5 uses the pizza garden theme from kids' gardens, where each "slice" is a potential topping on a pizza. In my case, each "slice" of this 20-foot-diameter pizza is composed of specialty varieties of different ethnic vegetables. Ethnic cooking is booming as people discover cuisines from around the world. Many of the special varieties and ingredients in ethnic cooking aren't readily available in grocery stores, but you can grow them at home.

The mulched pathways (each 3 feet wide) allow for 3 beds to be in each slice. The four cuisines are Asian, Italian, Mexican, and French/Continental. Not all the vegetables you need for cooking are represented in this garden, but it has some key ingredients that you can't do without, such as chili pepper for Mexican cooking, basil for Italian dishes, and pac choi for Asian cuisines.