It’s been wet in northeast Missouri this spring. Very wet. I drive past lakes that are supposed to be cornfields, and listen to the woes of my gardening friends who planted in lowlands. Planted three times this spring, after two rounds of flooding. That’s not so bad, when the garden is a hobby. In an emergency situation, you might really need to have that garden or those trees and berry bushes survive. How do you site them for best success?
This would have been great gardening land…most years. If you can’t afford garden failure, you can’t site the garden in a flood plain.
A low site will be drowned, some years
This one’s true even for my friend Doc, who lives in the desert southwest. It’s even more true here in the midwest. If you plant in that lovely, rich lowland soil, your site will be suitable only to be a rice paddy some years. The ground’s rich down there because of soil deposition eroded from highlands and dropped during floods.
Putting some garden down there because it’s good land in dry years is a reasonable choice. Absolutely depending on that garden by putting all of your irreplaceable seeds down there is not. I’d also think a second and third time before putting perennials down by the creeks. Some species don’t mind the occasional drowning, but some it kills off. If cottonwoods grow well, the nut trees usually found on hilltops are at risk.
Soil type matters, too. The soil at The Place is full of clay. That makes for a very reliable dam for the pond, Yay! It can also turn holes for trees into very tiny swimming pools. There’s one spot on our hillside orchard that’s in just a little bit of a crease in the hill. That crease is enough to make that tree hole fill with water even in minor rains. I could see that when I dug it (because, water in the hole the next day). I optimistically planted there anyway. Three times, with progressively more water tolerant species. The fourth planting won’t be a tree; it will be much more shallow-rooted berries. I may be slow, but I do learn.
A site near a big tree needs to consider shade and species
The shade part’s pretty obvious in summer. Many garden plants like full sun. A few like partial shade. Specifically, spring crops like spinach and lettuces tend to bolt (get bitter and go to seed) later in the year in a partially shaded spot. This extends their harvest.
You’ve got to have more foresight if you’re putting the garden in when the leaves are off the trees. (Which is a good plan; by the way. You can read more on it here.) Remember not only how much shade the nearby trees throw, but where shadows will land when the sun is higher in the sky. A spot north of a building might be shaded at midday in winter but in full sun during the summer.
Also, some trees engage in chemical warfare to discourage competition. Walnuts are famous for this. Their roots put off compounds that discourage other species. I avoided planting under walnuts, but I thought maples would be ok; I’d never heard of a maple inhibition problem. Well, the end of my garden closest to the maples begs to differ. I had four years of failures of a succession of different species in that spot. I’m finally getting success this year, which I earned by adding extra thicknesses of soil on top and planting shallow-rooted species that don’t actually reach down into the ground shared by the maple.
Some site problems can be modified
Hilltop sites dry out faster than lowland sites; and in dry years that can be a problem. Add mulch; problem solved.
High wind sites can break delicate plants. Add supports and judicious use of twine; problem solved.
High salt sites kill many common garden plants. Just don’t plant there or go to salt-tolerant species; *some* site problems can be solved, not all of them.
My favorite site modification is for extending spring crops. I love my asparagus, spinach, and strawberries, in particular. If planted in an open bed, their seasons tend to be quite short. Ground soil temperature increases quickly encourage the strawberries to quit fruiting and the spinach and asparagus to go to seed. What’s the fix? Plant them among or on the shady side of plants that leaf out a bit later.
My strawberry/asparagus bed is a great example of this. I wanted an early crop in spring, so I put this bed along the south side of a shed, where the white shed will reflect light onto the bed when the sun angle is low early in the year. By late summer the overhang of the shed roof stops this reflected heat. The asparagus is planted right among the strawberries. The asparagus pops up first and produces the most before the strawberries really get going. Once the berries have leafed out, they shade the ground, keeping the asparagus roots cool. I got asparagus all the way through June this year — unheard of in an open bed.
This plan Totally worked. The strawberry foliage kept the ground cool enough to give me an extra month of aspargus eating!
That doesn’t extend the strawberries, so I planted some more of them partially in the shade of the raspberries and blackberry vines. It’s too early to tell how well that will work, since I started the experiment just this year.
A support fence down the middle of a strip garden planted with climbing peas, paired with spring lettuces and radishes on the north side where they’re shaded by the peas has worked out well, too.