Selecting Crops

Several factors influence which crops you grow in your edible yard. The most important ones are:
    · Which "growing region" you're in
    · What kind of physical setup you have
    · What your objectives are (like, what do you want to eat?)
We'll discuss each of these below. Just remember, these topics are huge - we can only cover the barest fundamentals here; for more information, see the Gardening page in this site's "References" section.

Growing Region:
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines a set of "plant hardiness zones" in North America. You can find a 2006 map of U.S. climate zones on the Arbor Day Foundation website. Be aware, though, that because of the global climate changes going on, the climate zones are changing. For example, the place where we live, Austin, Texas, has moved from zone 8 to zone 9 since the original map in 1990. (For comparison between the 1990 map and the 2006 map, go to this page on the Arbor Day Foundation web site; it's the second image down.)

It's important to know which zone you're in because some crops can only be grown in certian regions. Citrus trees, for example, don't do well north of about region 8 - and even there, they need to be covered for part of the winter.

So how do you actually go about implementing the recommendations of that map? Begin by finding your local county Agricultural Extension Service on the web. Use your favorite search engine and look for "[your county] [your state] agricultural extension service" - for example, I would look for "travis county texas agricultural extension service".

On that agency's site, look for the garden planting guide for your county. For example, when I look up "travis county texas garden planting guide" I"m taken to the Vegetable Gardening page of the Aggie Horticulture site. What you really want now, though, is the planting calendar. Again for Travis County, Texas, you can find a link to it on the Vegetable Gardening page of the Aggie Horticulture site - or you can just jump to the planting calendar from here by clicking this link (but be sure you have a PDF displayer program installed on your computer). It's dated January 2010, so it takes into consideration the fact that Austin has shifted from growing zone 8 to growing zone 9 recently.

That calendar will tell you what you can plant in your area, and when to plant each thing during the year. Once you know that, you can go on to the next step.

Physical Setup:
This just means, "What places do you have to grow things in?" And yes, you do have places to grow things in, wherever you live. If you live in a house with a yard, that yard is prime growing space, but even if you live in a 10th-floor apartment, you can use window boxes or hydroponic containers. [I've even seen a commercial for a system for growing tomato bushes upside-down in an apartment in nothing but water.] Remember this: Life will find a way.

Since this site is about the edible yard, we'll be talking about growing food in the land around your house that right now just grows grass. Some of the factors you're looking for here are:
    ·  Kind of soil (rocky, sandy, gummy, clay-y, etc.)
    ·  Drainage (does water pool there, or does it run off?)
    ·  Soil chemistry (acid or base)
    ·  Illumination (sunny, shady, or partial shade)
    ·  Lay of the land (horizontal or sloping)
    ·  Vulnerability to animal and human interlopers
And remember that you're likely to find patches of all these types of soils around your yard - developers, for example, often bury their "construction trash" under a few inches of imported topsoil.

Some of these factors you can just observe - like the lay of the land and drainage. For others, you can send some of your soil off to your ag. extension service to have analyzed - like chemistry. Others will require experimentation - run that multi-year agronomy lab experiment that is gardening. (For example, I've found an ideal place in my yard for growing potatoes; if only I didn't have to rotate my crops, I'd be doing great!)

Different crops require different conditions. (Duhh!) If you try, for example, to grow peppers - green/red or hot - in anything but full sun, the plants just won't "set fruit." If you try to grow tubers (like potatoes) in a place where the water pools instead of running off, your potatoes are likely to rot underground.

You learn some of this by reading the seed catalogs or seed envelopes in the store; that'll tell you about each specific crop. You can learn some more by asking your friendly local farmer; but be sure to talk to people who farm because they want to, not to some agribusiness megacorporation. [In Austin, I recommend Boggy Creek Farm.] Finally, some (most?) of it you can only learn by doing it.

My recommendation is that you set up a couple of small (maybe 4'x8') beds in the best location you have, and plant a variety of things that appeal to you, just to see what hapens. Then, each year you can expand your garden area as much as you have the energy and time to do, learning as you go.

OK, first, what is that "best location?" Find a place that gets lots of sun, that you can easily reach with a water hose, and that isn't in a "bowl," a place where water collects and doesn't drain or run off. If you can find places with good soil (a whole topic in itself), great; if you can't, you can still build raised beds and put soil you buy from a garden store into them.

If you have to do a raised bed, the best idea I've heard is to put a course of cinder blocks around it. That gives you a depth of about 6" for soil in which to plant, but it also gives you an array of little 4"-square mini-beds all around it - the holes in the cinder blocks. If you put vine plants (like some summer squash varieties) into the holes, you can let the vines grow out onto the land around the raised bed, which doubles the usable land you get from your raised bed without buying all that extra soil. The only problem with doing this is that unless you're very careful, the bermuda grass that's so pervasive around here will grow into those little holes, and choke out the food crops you planted in them.

Your Objectives:
What do you want to grow? Are you just trying to grow a few things to supplement what you buy at the store, or are you trying to become your own complete food supply, or somewhere in between? All these questions, and more besides, you need to answer before you're ready to dive in and decide what to plant.

Begin by planting a mix of staples (like potatoes, squashes, and beans), some things that are good to have, but not really necessary (like tomatoes and onions), and some just fun crops (like peppers - hot and sweet - and melons). See what works, and where, and try variations for the next couple of years, expanding your garden as you go - and remembering to rotate your crops.

A fundamental objective to decide on is how natural you want your garden to be. If at all possible, I recommend that you raise organic crops, free of poisons like herbi- and pesti-cides. This, of course, raises the question of how you get rid of weeds and pests without adding the "cides" to your food. In a yard-sized garden, hand weeding is not only possible, but also a good physical and spiritual exercise. If you can collect the rainwater that falls on your roof, and use that instead of city water, your plants will be the better for it.

The point of all this is that
        Planning and planting are continuous, intertwined processes.
If you're like me, it'll take you several years of learning by doing before you're ready to make serious plans; but don't let that stop you - those years will be extremely valuable towards figuring our how to do it right. {Not to mention that you'll get some really delicious food in the process!)