Hi! I’ve only ever gardened in pots and hydroponic tower that I built out of PVC in the past, and I want to expand to doing raised bed gardening in my backyard as I just moved into a house. There are some pictures of my backyard and I was looking for some advice on an ideal set up that I won’t regret placement. I have about a quarter acre of land and although my backyard shape is a little odd I think it has a lot of potential. I’m in growing zone 4b, and bordering 5a zones. My backyard is south facing.

I heard that starting small was ideal, and so I’m interested in doing something like 4, 4x8 beds, that have a cattle fence arced into a sturdy trellis tunnel for vining things. I have quite a large list of things I wanted to try growing in garden beds, and would plan to add several more over time. One of my concerns with building straight across the entirety of the yard is I have a newborn on the way and I’m concerned that if I take up the entirety of the yard, they’ll have nowhere to run around and play so I was thinking to stick to the right side of the yard and push out towards the tree at the end of my yard. The grass part that’s a little greener seems to be a point where the water drains from my yard and the neighbors so as far as I can tell, that might be a no go zone? Very mushy there due to thaw and melting.

As I look out into my backyard, the spigot is on the right side so I found that to be the most ideal location to have the garden on the right half of the backyard as I can run waterlines there and implement drip irrigation. And I didn’t want the raised beds too close to the house because eventually I like to install a deck. I do have an irrigation system, so I have to be mindful of the sprinkler heads and I have yet to call about marking the gas lines and all the other utility lines.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on my game plan for starting a backyard garden as I’m brand new to this? I really like the idea of adjacent raised beds where cattle wire makes a walkable archway between each, but at some point I may have to do something weird design out towards the tree.

Thanks!

Backyard garden planning