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Topic 1: Choosing where to locate your garden bed: Getting startedEvery section has its unique characteristics, like cli-mate and soil, which determine its growing poten-tial – its advantages and disadvantages.

The aim of sustainable gardening is to plant in harmony with the site where all plants are placed according to the specific environmental conditions that suit them best; some like it hot and dry some like it cold and wet. Planning is about mapping where these growing conditions occur on your section so you can choose the best location for all the plants in your garden. If you let the personality of the section express itself through your choice of planting, not only will the plants do better but you will also be able to put in less work to achieve good results.

General requirements of vegetable gardens• A minimum of six hours full sun per day, (more

is better).• Shelter from cold and persistent winds.• Friable soil to a depth of about 600mm (60cm).

Friable means that it has a crumbly texture1.• Good drainage.• Adequate moisture.• Light air circulation.These are the main growing factors that will deter-mine where you should position your garden but they are not the only considerations and if the best site for a vegetable garden is also the best location for something else you want to use that space for then you may need to rethink your options. This is the purpose of the planning phase, to inform or back up your land use choices with sound reason-ing.

Good gardens start with planningIn a large section you may have lots of choices about where you position your garden. In a smaller section, your will probably have less options avail-able to you.

To determine the best place to locate your garden bed, you need to gather information about the sec-tion. In particular, we want to find out about the:

• Climate – this affects what types of plants will grow here.

• Soils – understanding what type of soils are pre-sent on your section will help determine what other components (such as sand or compost) need to be added to make your plants grow well.

• Aspect – which way the section is positioned in relation to north. This will help us to determine which areas of the section get the best sun.

• Relationship – to services such as water, com-post bins, tools.

• Proximity – to the house.• Access – how do we get from the house to the

garden bed/s.It is generally a good idea to show this information through a set of drawings and plans.

Developing a site planThe first plan you should draw up is a Site Plan. The site plan contains key information about how your section looks now – before you do any work to it. It records all significant permanent features like buildings, pathways, trees, garden areas you intend to keep, and overhead services, such as power lines and telephone cables.

To draw a site plan you will first need to measure up your section and all the key components. To do this you will need:

• Paper (ideally graph paper – paper which has horizontal and vertical lines).

• A clipboard, or something else hard to carry and write on.

• Pens and/or pencils.• At least one long measuring tape, such as a

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surveyors tape.• If possible it is useful to also have a smaller

measuring tape to use for secondary measure-ments.

Measuring up the sectionBegin by locating the boundary pegs. These should be along the boundary of the section, at each point where it changes direction. If you find a bound-ary peg loose you should contact a surveyor. In New Zealand it is illegal for anyone to move a boundary peg (including replacing it if it has been removed) except for a registered surveyor2. If you can’t find them you will have to assume the current fence lines are correctly located along the property boundaries.

Figure 1. A New Zealand boundary peg3.

Three videos are provided in this course, which give information about measuring your section and drawing up a site plan.

What should I do next?We suggest you watch the videos titled:

• 1.2 How to measure your section• 1.3 The real basics of drawing up your site plan• 1.4 The site planning process part 1: Drawing

the current situationThese can be found on the following pages of this website.

Once you have done that you will be ready to go out, measure up your section and draw up your site planning documents.

References1 D. Beaulieu, ‘Friable Soil’, About.com Landscap-

ing, 2012 <http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lazylandscaping/g/friable.htm> [accessed 1 Octo-ber 2012].

2 New Zealand Government, Cadastral Sur-vey Act 2002, 2002 <http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2002/0012/latest/DLM141995.html?search=ts_act%40bill%40regulation%40deemedreg_survey_resel_25_h&p=1> [accessed 1 October 2012].

3 Blackman Surveyors Ltd, 2012 <http://www.aucklandsurveying.co.nz/services/redefinition-surveys-boundary-peg-relocations/> [accessed 1 October 2012].

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