Where to Garden Setting Your Sites

by James W. Wilson.

James W. Wilson is Executive Secretary, National Garden Bureau, Los Altos, Calif.

You can grow vegetables, fruits and berries successfully in full sun and away from tree roots. But only a few garden sites are far removed from the shade cast by walls, fences, or trees or free from foraging tree roots. Thus, gardening often becomes an exercise in compromise, where you learn to live with site-imposed restrictions and settle for somewhat less than optimum garden and orchard performance and yield.

Home gardeners should look beyond the traditional concept of a single plot as a vegetable and/or fruit garden. More often than not, two or more small plots have advantages over a single garden. Small plots are also easier to dress up with flowers to make them blend into the landscape.

If space permits, a separate orchard or berry plot is to be preferred over a combination garden/orchard. Toxic pest control sprays from fruit trees and berries can drip on vegetables. Also, certain kinds of berries spread aggressively and would invade nearby vegetable rows.

Site selection for fruit or nut trees is more critical than for vegetables, berries and bush fruits because orchards are not "portable". You can't move an orchard around like a vegetable or flower garden. The location of fruit or nut trees, and the form, flower and foliage color of the varieties chosen, can have a significant impact on the home landscape.

Fruit, nut and citrus trees change not only in size but also in form as they mature. Deciduous trees are rather stiff and stark in winter because of pruning, and citrus trees lose color and some of their foliage.

Most professional landscapers prefer not to integrate fruit or nut trees in a landscape plan but would rather set them along the back or side of the property, where they are screened by more graceful trees or large shrubs. Pecan and oriental chestnut trees are an exception; they make excellent shade trees and require no pruning except for shaping and removal of dead branches.

A survey for potential garden and orchard sites on your property might prove disappointing, but you have options today that were not open a few years ago. Gardens on company property or in community plots have experienced a resurgence in popularity. Container gardening permits vegetable and fruit culture where no suitable plots of soil exist.

Let us explore the environmental conditions that largely determine garden performance, to help you assess whether you should attempt to grow vegetables and fruit and, if so, where to begin. Nothing is so demoralizing to a beginning gardener as the emphatic failure that can follow an attempt to grow food crops under difficult-to-impossible environmental conditions. And nothing is so satisfying as success in one's first attempt at gardening and the gradual improvement in results as one learns by experience.

Mulching with grass clippings can save a lot of weeding. This bean planting has been mulched in foreground. Weeds must be pulled from unmulched section.

Water Needs

Water availability is an important consideration. In many areas home gardeners rely on rain alone to supply water for vegetable gardens. Even in moist areas, water is needed for transplanting and for bringing vegetables through drought conditions. Therefore, when possible, locate gardens near a faucet where a short hose can reach all parts.

There are no shade-loving vegetables or fruits. All respond to shade by growing slower and taller and maturing later, if at all. All vegetables grow best in full sun, except in extreme desert situations where shade from the afternoon sun can improve growth and prolong the harvest season. All fruit trees and berries prefer full sun and will grow slowly and bear poorly if subjected to shade of even medium density.

Most vegetables can tolerate a certain amount of shade from walls, fences, trees, and other vegetable plants. Plant performance improves in direct relationship to the distance from the shade-casting source. Soil shaded much of the day warms and dries out slowly; bacterial activity and nutrient release are retarded.

As a general rule, it is a waste of time to try to garden within 6 to 8 feet of the northern side of 1-story structures. The south side is an ideal location with its full sun. Gardens close to the west or south sides of low structures grow well, especially warmth-loving species, because the structure radiates heat late in the day. The east side receives full morning sun but plant growth may be slower than on the west side where afternoon sun elevates the soil and air temperature. A short period of shade doesn't retard growth significantly.

If you live in a winter garden area, take special care to locate your garden or orchard away from the long shadows cast by the low-in-the-sky sun. Full sun is essential for satisfactory winter growth, and heat absorbed by the soil during the day promotes root activity and slows the cooling at night.

"High shade" cast by tall trees free of lower branches can often be tolerated by vegetables because the shaded area moves with the sun and covers the garden only a short time. Many trees cast spotty rather than dense shade. With mature trees you can expect widespread roots, often extending to 1 1/2 times the distance from the trunk to the outer branches.

Many homeowners make the mistake of planting their grounds with fast-growing species of shade trees and, within 10 to 15 years, find it impossible even to grow grass, much less fruits or vegetables. At this point consideration should be given to relative values of summer shade versus sunlight on the garden. If the tree is not an attractive or valuable species, trim it to let the sun in. Salvage value, in the form of firewood and ground-up twigs and branches, can reduce the cost of tree removal.

A simple, often overlooked fact about sunlight and shade is its effect not only on photosynthesis (food manufacturing) but also on relative warmth of the soil. Seeds sprout faster and plants grow more rapidly in warm soil.

Areas of your garden exposed to even two to four hours of shade daily will produce slower rates of plant growth than those in full sun. Shaded areas should not be planted with early maturing vegetables or fruit because their bred-in advantage is defeated.