Picking the right spot for your crisis garden is crucial to successful crop production.

If you plan on growing enough food to feed your family, you want to ensure that there’s no room for a mistake that can put your harvest in jeopardy.

Garden locations that can’t provide a supply of essential inputs, that are overly exposed to elements, and that are not accessible could lead to a total loss of certain crops.

In times of crisis, when your and your family’s health might depend on the very crops you’ll be able to produce, underperforming and getting insufficient harvest is not an option.

That’s why if you’re starting a crisis garden from scratch, you’ll need to take a good look around your property to find the best location for it.

To thrive, your garden plants will need sun, water, and good soil, but there are other factors you’ll need to consider to make your crisis garden fully productive and ultimately ensure that you obtain a yield.

In this post, I’ll outline eight of these factors, and I’ll give quick assessment instructions that you can do right away. These are:

Proximity to the house
Gentle slope
Open to the sun
Proper airflow
Access to water supply
Ease of accessibility
Good soil
Safe from external threats

You’ll need to consider all of these and identify a spot that has the most going for it, as this will dramatically increase your odds of growing a successful crisis garden.

In an ideal world, you would find a spot that ticks all of the boxes, but, like anything in life, you’ll have to make compromises, so don’t fret if you can’t satisfy all the outlined conditions, getting close to the ideal is what counts. There’ll always be trade-offs, just be mindful of how to compensate for any of the weaknesses.

In case you already have a spot for your crisis garden, then use this list to rethink how you use the space and how your garden is laid out.

Let’s now look at each of these factors in more detail.

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What is the right location for your crisis garden? Use this short and practical site assessment guide to find out. It will help you get a quick overview of your land, avoid major placement mistakes, and choose the optimal spot. You can download it here.

1. Proximity to the house

Zone 1 gardens, just outside David Holmgren’s house. Image source Melliodora ebook.

The first factor to consider is how close the site is to your house. Whether you’re on a 1/4 or 10-acre block, your crisis garden should be as close to your house as possible.

Gardens that feed the household belong to permaculture zones 1 and 2, as you’ll be making a lot of trips to your garden and spending a great deal of time with your plants. Plus, all of the required garden infrastructure and tools will be nearby in your house, toolshed, workshops, sheds… i.e. easily accessible, saving you even more time and effort.

Zone 1 is the immediate surroundings of the house and is the natural extension of the kitchen. Since gardening and cooking go hand in hand, you’ll want the fresh, nutritious greens that you eat daily to be just outside your kitchen or back door so that you can quickly pop out and harvest what you need.

The staple part of your garden could be further away from the house in your zone 2, as you’ll need more space to grow these crops, and you won’t be harvesting your potatoes or squashes daily. However, you’ll want to keep this part of the garden close as well, not somewhere way out there. The closer it is, the easier it will be to manage, maintain, and keep an eye on it.

Action item: Survey the area around the house for possible locations for your gardens.

—> Start at your front-/backdoor, the immediate area is the best location for your nutritious green crops.

–> Expand the search to the broader area around your house for your staple crops that need extra space and less frequent visits.

Site assessment tip: The garden location should be just a short stroll away. You want to avoid locations where you’ll have to walk more than 5 minutes to get to your garden.

2. Gentle slope

Staple crop garden on a gentle slope at Zaytuna Farm, image source: https://www.zaytunafarm.com

Contrary to what you might have heard, the ideal spot for a garden is not on flat land, but instead on a gentle slope.

A slope has many good things going for it (pay attention as I’ll mention its benefits throughout this post, not just here). Primarily it helps with proper soil and air drainage, as both water and cold air, under the influence of gravity, flow down the hill.

With weather extremes becoming the norm, massive downpours and excessive rainfall are happening more often. Sudden changes from hot to cold with damaging frosts are also more frequent, so you need to be prepared to deal with these extremes, which can be quite devastating for your crops.

Locating your crisis garden on a gentle slope helps you hedge against these events.

Due to the incline in the terrain, the excess water from massive downpours is channeled away from your growing area. This helps with proper drainage and prevents soil from getting waterlogged; plants can’t grow in waterlogged soil.

Of course, you can always grow your crops in raised beds to avoid this issue, but proper garden drainage is still important.

A slope also helps you avoid damaging frost. Since cold air is heavier than hot air, it “flows” downslope and collects at the bottom of a slope, hill, or valley, so by having your garden on a gentle slope, you are better protected from frosts. Plus, you can have a longer frost-free growing season, which is especially important if you’re planning a year-round garden.

Action item: Survey the slope of the prospective garden site.

—> Check the angle of the slope. Use the smartphone inclinometer app (e.g. Theodolite) for taking measurements on the site or Google Earth elevation profile function for online assessment.

Site assessment tip: The ideal slope is one that has less than 5% incline. However, you can easily cultivate anything up to 12%. More than that could lead to significant erosion and runoff problems unless you use terraces.

—> Look out for potential frost pockets.

Site assessment tip: You want to avoid locating your garden at the bottom of a slope. Instead, the ideal is on the upper half of a slope.

3. Open to the sun

Most vegetables need about 8 hours of sun per day to produce a good crop.

Fruiting vegetables, like most summer crops (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis, squashes…) need lots of light, while root vegetables (carrots, beets, onions, potatoes) can grow with 5-6 hours of sunlight. Leafy greens (lettuce, chard, arugula, spinach) can grow with only 3-5 hours of sunlight.

So some crops will be more demanding than others, but as an overarching rule, the more sun you can get, the more productive your crisis garden will be. You should aim at a full day of sun throughout the growing season. That is to say, unless you are in a really hot climate, then strategic shade is your friend.

The ideal spot for a crisis garden from a solar access perspective is an open site clear of any shadows from trees, structures or buildings, on a south-facing slope (here’s the slope again). You want to take full advantage of sunlight, so you don’t want anything blocking it, and you want to maximize what you get.

The south-facing slope helps you get the most from solar exposure. It receives the highest amount of sun compared to the east-, west-, or north-facing slopes. Also, because the sun’s rays hit the soil surface more directly, the entire garden area warms up quicker. This is especially important in spring as you can get a harvestable crop earlier.

Action item: Survey the solar access of the prospective garden site

–> Check the slope aspect, use a compass app on your smartphone to make measurements of the slope aspect. Face in the direction the slope faces and read the bearing on the compass.

Site assessment tip: South-facing slopes (Northern Hemisphere) work the best, SE or SW are good as well, E (morning sun) is better than the W (afternoon sun), and the north slope is the worst from a solar access perspective.

—> Use the Sun Surveyor or Sun Seeker apps to look at the sun’s path across the prospective garden area. Look for any potential obstructions that might reduce the amount of sun the location receives. In particular, pay attention to fall and spring equinoxes, and summer and winter solstices.

Site assessment tip: If the location receives full sun for 6-10 hours a day, it gets a pass. Note that in hot climates, some summer shade is desirable.

4. Proper airflow

Plants in your crisis garden need to breathe fresh air.

Stagnant air encourages fungal diseases brought by mold and mildew, creates a favorable environment for some insect pests, and holds air pollutants around plants. All of this can severely limit the productivity of your garden.

Thus a good airflow through your garden is essential if you want to prevent disease and encourage the healthy and robust growth of your plants.

Locating your garden on a slope (here’s the slope again) helps with this as the slope creates natural ventilation that stirs up any stagnant air. But slope or no slope, you’ll want to make sure that the gentle breeze can provide you with good air circulation.

A relatively open position where the garden can feel the wind is desirable in this sense, as you don’t want dense vegetation or other obstacles to make it hard for air to circulate.

On the other hand, although exposure to the gentle breeze is good, a constant strong wind will wreak havoc on your crisis garden. A strong wind will damage your plants, cool the whole growing area, and make it difficult to keep your light garden infrastructure in place.

The ideal is to find a balance, protecting your garden from damaging winds while giving it plenty of air for breathing. Windbreaks in the form of trees, hedges, low stone walls, or buildings can offer the necessary shelter.

Action item: Survey the airflow of the prospective garden site

—> Find the general information about the wind speed and direction distribution throughout the year. Use this website to generate a wind rose chart for your area.

Based on the wind rose chart check:

Are there are any natural windbreaks in the direction of prevailing strong damaging winds?
Is the site open and clear of dense vegetation in the direction of light wind breezes?

Site assessment tip: Wind speed is reduced the most near the windbreak. At distances of 25 to 30 times the windbreak height, wind speed is reduced by less than 10 percent.

If there is no natural wind protection, you can plant a hedge, build open or woven fences, and other semi-permeable alternatives. As a quick fix, you can set up temporary screens.

>>>Featured resource – Crisis Garden Site Assessment Protocol:
I’ve created a short and practical site assessment guide that you can use right away to get a quick overview of your land. It helps you shortcut the process and avoid major placement mistakes. You can download it here.

5. Access to water supply

The productive crisis garden is highly dependent on a consistent and sufficient supply of water.

This is especially true when you start sowing seeds and transplanting your seedlings as the soil should be consistently moist. But once the plants begin to grow, the water demand is also high; on average, your plants will need a steady supply of one inch (25 mm) of water per week during the growing season to be as healthy and productive as possible.

If that can’t be supplied by natural rainfall – and it probably won’t as the rainfall is becoming unpredictable and erratic – you’ll need an irrigation system which will ensure that water is available when you need it. So the potential site must have a water source that meets the needs and size of your crisis garden.

Ideally, you would have access to a year-round spring or stream that you can tap into, and that’s higher than your garden so you can gravity feed the water to it. Second best is a large enough pond from which you can pump the water, while a well is a good third choice.

What you want to avoid is having to haul water from a distant place. Therefore your crisis garden should be near a water source or you have a way to deliver that water to the garden in some way that doesn’t involve you carrying it manually.

That’s why it makes sense to have your garden near your house as you’ll have a water source nearby and ready to use.

Action item: Consider the water supply options for the prospective garden site

—> Think about how you will supply the water to your potential garden site.

Are there any year-round springs or streams you can tap into?
Is there a way to bring the water from a dependable pond?
Can your well or municipality water source supply the necessary water?
Do you have a water tank storage you could use?

Site assessment tip: Even a modest garden will require thousands of liters/gallons a week. Irrigating a 1,000-square-foot (~100-square-meter) garden at the recommended rate of one inch (25 mm) per week will use 600 gallons (2730 l) each time. If your water source can’t deliver that amount of water, and you can’t count on the rainfall, you’ll be short on water.

6. Ease of accessibility

Maneuvering with a walk-behind tractor, image source:https://www.themarketgardener.com

Logistically, your crisis garden should be easily accessible, meaning easy to enter, work in, and work around. This will save you a lot of work and trouble.

You want to ensure that you can access and operate within the garden with the largest equipment and vehicle you plan on using. This might be a truck or a car, tractor or walk-behind tractor, bigger manure-spreading trailer, or a wheelbarrow. Whatever you plan on using, consider the accessibility from that perspective.

Also, you’ll need frequent deliveries to the garden area. The main inputs your garden will need every year are soil, compost, mulch, and other amendments. Ideally, you want to bring those truckloads of material or individual bags to the garden site with a vehicle, not manually by hand, as close as possible to where they are needed.

So the garden location has to have enough maneuver space to do so, it has to support the weight of the equipment, and have a clear path to deliver it. Ideally, you would find a dedicated spot for garden supplies from which you can then manually redistribute them throughout the garden.

Action item: Consider the accessibility of the prospective garden site.

—> Examine the potential garden area from an accessibility perspective.

Can you enter it, work in, and work around it with the largest vehicle/equipment you plan on using?
Where can you unload your deliveries of soil, compost, mulch, and other amendments?
Is your unloading site easily accessible, has enough space to maneuver, can support the weight of the equipment, and has a clear path to do the delivery?

Site assessment tip: Be cautious about overly steep roads leading to the site and sites that don’t have enough maneuvering space for operating your largest vehicle/equipment.

7. Good soil

Good soil is the foundation of a successful crisis garden. For the best yields, your garden needs the best soil you can give it.

The soil quality depends on its composition; the proportions of clay, sand, silt, organic matter, and the history of (ab)use; when and how the soil was treated before you came in to steward the land.

The ideal soil is deep, dark, loose, fertile and full of life (huh, I can smell it and feel it in my hands right now), what some would describe as rich and healthy loam.

Although the goal is to have the best possible soil from the get-go, in reality, we’ll have limited choices, if we even have the luxury of choice that is. Our only option could be, for example, lifeless pure clay that becomes hard as concrete in summer or sandy soil that can drink gallons of water and become dry 5 minutes later or anything in between.

The good news is that you can make any of these soils productive for growing your crops. The absolute worst and truly inhospitable soils can be dealt with by simply installing raised beds on top of it and adding your soil, and the rest by proper soil management; adding organic matter, compost, soil amendments…

However, despite the fact that you can make any soil fertile, the amount of resources (time, work, money) you’ll have to throw at it depends on the initial soil quality, so it pays to look for the best soil possible.

Action item: Survey the soil of the prospective garden site.

—> Choose a spot that is representative of the site and dig a test hole that’s 12″ x 12″ (30 x 30 cm) and 12″ (30 cm) deep.

Examine the soil and check:

1.The compaction – how hard it is to dig the soil.

Site assessment top: The more compacted the soil the harder it will be to work the soil and grow productive crops.

2. Soil texture – Use your hands to get the feel for the soil’s texture (the proportions of different-sized particles that determine the soil’s physical characteristics).

Site assessment tip: The ideal soil texture from a gardening perspective is loam. Loam has almost equal amounts of sand and silt and a little less clay. This soil texture retains water, but drains easily and provides room for air to mix into the soil.

3. Earthworm number – count earthworms in the dug-up soil.

Site assessment tip: In general, if there are more than 10 it’s good, the soil biology is very much alive and present.

8. Safe from external threats

To ensure that you have something to show for all of your hard work you’ve invested into the garden, your potential site has to be safe and protected from outside threats.

Specifically, I see these threats as human and animal forces that, directly or indirectly, can destroy a whole growing season’s work in a moment.

I suspect that, going forward, abundant gardens will become a tempting target for thievery. Of course, we all are happy to share our food with those in need, but as with other areas of our material life, there will be some people who will want to steal from our garden just because it’s a viable target.

Wild animals, on the other hand, don’t think and calculate in terms of viable targets, they just adapt to what’s palatable and tasty in the environment. Deers, raccoons, kangaroos, rabbits… You name it, it can graze off or destroy your seedlings and mature crops in a few hours when you have not been watching.

Another potential outside threat that’s concerning is pollution coming from neighboring conventional farming sites and heavily traveled roads.

Toxic chemical residues traveling by surface and underground water runoff and by air as herbicide and pesticide drift can be catastrophic for your organic produce and for the health of your family.

Action item: Survey the site from a security perspective

—> Check if the prospective garden site is near any frequently used paths or roads that would put it on the thieves’ radar.

—> Are there any visible animal paths highlighting that the area is visited by animals regularly?

Site assessment tip: Although there are many temporary measures you can employ to deter the two- or four-legged marauders, ideally, your prospective site should be somehow out of sight for them yet easy for you to observe. That’s why placing the crisis garden close to the house makes so much sense. Alternatively, a good fence or a dense hedge will help you with this issue in any location.

—> Are there any conventional farming plots and heavily traveled roads bordering the prospective site?

Site assessment tip: Either avoid sites that are close to these pollution sources or plan to plant an evergreen hedge on the border as a buffer to block out the bulk of the pollution before it reaches your garden.

Conclusion

In summary, what I’ve listed here are factors that you’ll have to consider when deciding on the best location for your crisis garden, namely:

Proximity to the house
Gentle slope
Open to the sun
Proper airflow
Access to water supply
Ease of accessibility
Good soil
Safe from external threats

To ensure that you grow a successful crisis garden, try to find the spot that has the most going for it.

The ideal spot is a sunny, south-facing, gentle slope with deep, rich, loamy soil that’s close to the house so that you have a water supply nearby, you can keep an eye on it, you have a warm microclimate and protection from the wind, and where it’s easily accessible.

In reality, as with everything in life, in most cases, you’ll have to settle for something that’s not ideal and doesn’t tick all of the boxes, so prepare to make compromises. Just make sure that you think about how to mitigate any potential weaknesses or threats.

All right, so now you should have a pretty good idea about where to place your crisis garden on your land.

In my next post, I’ll talk about how to determine the ideal layout of your crisis garden. This will ensure that your garden is accessible and manageable and that your vegetables receive adequate amounts of essential inputs such as sun, water, and nutrients from the soil.

I’ll see you there!

-William

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How to choose the best location for your crisis garden (site assessment guide)