Power Hand Tools

There are many computerized design tools available today. To the technologically savvy gardener, these tools are a blessing. Those who aren’t comfortable with such tools, on the other hand, can work just as well with a pen and some paper. If you’re not sure how to design a garden, this is the best way to start.

Learning how to design a garden on paper is not as complicated as most people think. Before you begin, you’ll need some pencils and graphing paper. These tools can be easily acquired from your local office supply store. The graphing paper is an important choice because it allows you to easily plot a garden to scale. After all, you won’t need to spend much time drawing straight lines.

When you’ve gathered your tools, note down the space of your garden. Find out how long the boundaries are, the width of your garden, and its length. If you have access to your house plans or blueprints, it might help to use them as your reference. If not, you can use a tape measure to know the dimensions of your garden.

Now it’s time to plot your garden on paper. Most gardeners observe the rule that one foot in the garden translates to one inch on the graphing paper. Those who use the metric system can have one meter equal to three or four centimeters on paper. Don’t worry about getting things perfect the first time, as this is only a draft.

Once your garden outline is ready, it’s time to get specific. Plot out your gardening beds, compost bins, and other necessary spaces onto your paper. Use a pencil so that it’s easy to make corrections. Here are some tips you can keep in mind:

* As a gardener, do not be afraid to think out of the box, literally. Remember that gardens don’t necessarily have to be square or rectangular. Your garden can be any shape you want! If you stick you the traditional garden shapes, you can end up compromising space for aesthetics.
* If the only space you have is a small triangular or circular patch of land, use it the best way you can. The important thing is that the size of your beds are contained enough that so that you can still tend to it as well as you would regular shaped beds.
* When plotting out your garden, keep the tallest plants and those that will need trellises at the north or northeast side your garden. This will help ensure that the taller vegetables do not shade the other plants as they continue to grow.

Now that you know how to design a garden, you have no excuse to put it off. It’s really easy to do if you have the right tools and know how to use them.

Tim Warren is a garden design enthusiast. For more tips and advice on how to design a garden, visit http://www.vegetablegardenguide.net

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