Starting a new garden or revitalizing a garden can sometimes seem like a challenging task with many uncertainties, questions, and opportunities. Before your garden consultation, we’ve put together this guide to help you think through some of your goals and objectives for the garden.

If you have a bit of time, here are the things we recommend you think about when deciding what kind of garden you’d like and how you think it should look.

Time Commitment:
How much time do I have to maintain the garden, including time to water, harvest, and eat the produce. Am I planning an extended vacation during the summer or will my work schedule change over the next several months?

Time doesn’t have to be a limiting factor for your garden as we can help you with irrigation systems and garden maintenance, but it is something to consider.

Sun Conditions:
A highly productive vegetable garden needs a bright, sunny area that gets at least 6 hours of sun per day. The more sun you give your plants, the more they will yield. For urban gardens, common obstacles include mature trees, picket fences, and tall buildings like condos that compete for the sun’s rays.

Food Preferences
What you like to eat will be a major determinant for the garden. For example, don’t grow brussel sprouts if your family doesn’t like to eat them and you don’t have a lot of space in the garden. Also, keep in mind if you choose to have a larger garden, have a plan for eating, preserving, or sharing the produce once the garden reaches its maximum productivity in the summer.

Garden Goals:

There are many reasons to grow your own food. It could be the satisfaction of eating something you grew yourself, getting you and your family engaged in an outdoor activity, improving your health and well-being, trying a new hobby, eating the freshest produce, living a more sustainable life, or some of the many other reasons people have told us when we ask them about their garden goals.

Timing:
For Toronto and Southern Ontario, the outdoor planting season starts in April with specific cool weather crops like peas, spinach, and radishes. In May and through to early June is when we plant out the majority of the remaining crops. Throughout the summer, we continue succession planting into early September to ensure a regular harvests especially for greens and root vegetables.

These are just a few of the things to think about before your consultation. For those who want to dive deeper into the world of edible gardening, we’ve rounded up some links to our most helpful articles. You can also visit our blog where we post weekly gardening tips and other interesting information as well.

If you’re ready to get started and learn more about an edible garden for your space, please connect with us using the button below. We look forward to speaking with you more about how we can help.