Ed. — From the Sunday, Sept. 18, print edition.
VIRGINIA BEACH — Many of us in Virginia Beach have small suburban yards. Others have an acre or five, which isn’t all that uncommon in the southern reaches of our city.
The thinking is the same when it comes to using your land to create a family food system, and the steps toward building it out are reasonably similar for bigger or smaller properties.
I wrote recently about my transition to gardening on a decidedly suburban slice of Virginia Beach following my stroke this past year. Though I am still working as a consultant and developing compost on land in Pungo, the food we grow at home is made in a much smaller area. We’ve been able to get the most out of what we have.
I wanted to expand on that concept here and talk about planning and building up a garden around any property you have, which can even be applied to a small farm.
As I have written here many times in the past, everything good for a home garden or small farm starts with improving the soil. The soil, however much or little you have in your employ, will do its best work if you make it strong and keep it healthy.
Accepting that as a given, the first thing to do is evaluate the site you have. Is the house on the north side or south side? Is there much shade already? Is it a wet site or dry? Is there a place where you get lots of sun? Whatever the conditions, there is something you can grow almost everywhere.
Plan by starting with a thumbnail sketch of the property.
Start by drawing circles around your house on a piece of paper, assuming it’s a good site. You plan your garden in the closest circle to the house on whatever side gets the best sun.
You don’t have to worry whether it’s in the front yard or not unless your neighborhood association is the sort of advanced collective that likes to help folks worry about such things. Be the first on your block to be cool and garden out front.
Then place your composter on the side of the house, near enough to be convenient so you will use it. Without too much trouble, you can reduce your household waste while making good compost – all part of making good soil.
If you have room and the neighborhood allows such things, build a small greenhouse to save seeds and grow starts. Make sure to anchor it to the ground well in case of windy weather.
And, while you’re sketching this out, plan for what you want to grow and when you want to grow it so you can have them in progress when a spot opens. You can grow a lot of food in a small space by thinking ahead.
In the next circle on your thumbnail plan, you can put perennials like, say, asparagus or rhubarb or many others. Make sure and keep these well mulched so you don’t have to weed.
These can also be in raised beds for easy path control and mowing ease. This method also controls plants like mint which like to take over the garden. Some plants have world domination in mind. Keep your eye on the mint, is all.
Perhaps a third circle can then contain fruit and nut trees. You put these furthest out because they take the least time. You can plant these, along with everything else, according to your tastes.
The smaller amount of land you have to play with, the pickier you must become. You can also choose dwarf varieties in a smaller setting. I like to grow things that require less care, like figs and blueberries in our climate. I also like Asian pears. There are many choices out there. You can also look for native species which produce food. One nice choice is hazelnuts.
Think about time while drawing the circles of your garden to be. What you choose affects how much there is to do. Pruning, for example, can take time but rewards you with material for the next compost pile. I also think about the harvest size. The bigger it is, the quicker you can fill a basket. Some things like strawberries and blueberries are worth the picking time.
A fourth circle, if your property supports it, is for the most industrial stuff, like a shed for equipment or your compost pile if you don’t want it near your house. A chicken house, for those who can have such things in our city, can also be close to the house or far away in the fourth circle depending on your taste or need for convenience or esthetics. You will not regret the eggs.
Also remember to use trellises for ease of picking and space saving. They can also look really nice any time of year if you build them right, but also when they are covered with plants.
I have tried to cover as much ground as possible in a short space – pun intended. One reason I like to sit down and sketch a garden is because it simply forces me to think practically about growing – about space, soil, time, limitations, what land we have to work with and its quality or potential.
A garden I built for a customer in Suffolk hit some sweet notes. It includes a fig tree, several blueberry bushes, a deer fence, a rainwater collection tank and seven raised beds. I built beautiful trellises and a bench for sitting in the garden.
The property was low-lying, so I built a plateau first to raise the area up using truckloads of soil. Now they have food to eat, give to friends and put up for the winter. It gives them pleasure. A garden or small farm should be somewhere you want to spend time. That was bigger-budget family food system, but you can make your own system work with your own yard or acreage. You can create it the way it works best for you.
And, whatever you ultimately do with your initial plans, there are worse ways to spend time than sitting a bit and dreaming about how to grow delicious food.
The author is a farmer and consultant who writes about sustainable farming and gardening for The Independent News. Reach him via farmerjohnnewearth@yahoo.com.
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