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sandturtle

New home, big backyard (see pics), vegetable bed location suggestions?

sandturtle
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago

We just moved into this house (zone 6a, Southeastern Ontario), it has a fairly big backyard,and I'm hoping to plant/ grow some fruits and vegetables next season.

I'm fairly new to fruit/ vegetable gardening, so I'm hoping a few of you might be able to point me in the right direction with my placement of beds, etc.

This thread is essentially just a big "where would you guys place your fruit/ vegetable gardens if you had this backyard" type of a question.

I've included a bunch of google earth pictures here along with one ground view photo to make it easier to get an idea of what I'm working with.

The only thing that's a bit hard to tell from the photos is the grade/ contour of the land (if you drew a straight line from the east fence to the west fence - that's pretty much the starting point for a fairly steady/ even incline with a rise of around 4 feet over a 100 foot run (4% slope) by the time it gets to the n/s high point line which is basically represented by the front edge of the brown shed.

Then, from that n/s line in front of the shed to the back (west) fence line, the ground is fairly flat (it's really the only close-to-flat area of the yard other than a thin patch of lawn just beside the deck to the north where the slope evens out a bit for maybe 4-5 feet before continuing the down slope the rest of the way to the east fence line.)

The difference in elevation from the front/ west edge of the back deck to that front shed line is around 2 - 2.5ft

There's also a slight down slope starting about 7- 10 feet off of the north fence line going down to the base of the fence and this goes all the way across the fence to the east fence line/ gate area. It's probably got a slope of around 4-10% as well.

I'm planning on putting up two new 10ft x 10ft sheds in the spring and I already have the foundation dug out and ready for the first one closest to the existing brown wooden shed. S1 and S2 represent the placement of the two new sheds. The existing shed is close to 8 feet from the south fence line and the two new sheds will be spaced 10 feet apart starting 10 feet away from the existing shed.

It's possible that I could fit a few smaller beds beside or in between the sheds.

For now, the north fence line is only chain link all the way across, so there's no privacy and any beds that might end up planned for placement along that fence line will probably have to wait until we have the time/ money to install a wooden fence (or related) in front of that town owned/ installed chain link fence.

At the moment, I have two large mounds of soil (maybe 1.5-2 cubic yards worth) from the ground that I excavated for the foundation of the first new shed. The mounds are on two tarps about 30 feet north of the existing shed and close to where the 2nd new shed will eventually be placed. I will start with this soil for rough placement of any beds I plan to make.

There are so many things I'd love to try to grow, but I don't want to get ahead of myself and end up with failed attempts all over the place. So, along with the bed placement, any recommendations on which fruits and vegetables might be best to try first from the list below, would be appreciated.

Some vegetables that come to mind that I'd like to try to grow:
- Kale
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Peppers
- Potatoes (sweet potatoes and yams, too)
- spinach
- Tomatoes (roma, cherry, grape, etc)

Fruits:
- Blueberries
- Haskap berries
- Gooseberries, jostaberries
- Strawberries
- Thornless varieties of many different brambles: raspberry, blackberry, loganberry, tayberry, etc
- Kiwi
- Melons
- Any exotic fruits/ berries (if possible)

Thanks for any input you can offer.





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