Garden row orientation

[Epiphany]

I'm working my community garden plot and getting ready to plant soon. I've noticed though that my rows are east west and everyone else has their rows going north south. My thinking was to put the tall plants on the north side and move down in height. By going east/west I figured all the plants would get a good amount of sunlight without anything shading anything else. Am I doing it wrong?

What direction do your garden rows go and why?

[Epiphany]

I changed my search criteria and found some other threads on this subject. Seems most here plant east to west.

[Alyantavid]

I plant east/west too. My house is on the west side of my garden so it doesn't get alot of evening sun anyways.

[onthemove]

my garden is east/west too! 2 yrs ago we tried going north/south and the plants produced well but are back to east/west as it is easier to access the rows...

[Epiphany]

Thank you so much for replying Allyson and K! I've been feeling the peer pressure at the community garden site and keep second guessing my decision. No one says anything, but the pressure from my own head to conform to everyone else is strong. I think they may all just do it that way because thats the direction the area gets plowed, and also everything around the garden area is aligned north south. Personally I think most of them are being sheep and just going with the flow. hehe

[ktarsha]

My rows go more or less east-west, but I'm not really sure why I do it that way. It just seems to "feel" right.

[Theoretica]

Hmm. I plant in square foot garden boxes. No rows!

[serenetabbie]

Personally I think most of them are being sheep and just going with the flow.

! They are just in the groove I guess

[MacKinnon]

Ours will be North/South, but mostly because the shape of our land and time of sunlight dictated, long narrow terraced beds that run North South.

[Theoretica]

You know, this whole discussion of garden row orientation is just plain insensitive! I mean, a garden can be any orientation it wants. It can even be a YARD if it wasn't meant to be a garden in the first place! We're just here to nurture it into being the best it can possibly be for the short time we get to be a part of this growing season. Whether it's orientation is straight, or square, or just plain outside of the box, we need to accept our gardens for being themselves!

Harumph. :



Sorry...couldn't help myself. The thread title made me do it :

[serenetabbie]

[Epiphany]

Originally Posted by Theoretica

You know, this whole discussion of garden row orientation is just plain insensitive! I mean, a garden can be any orientation it wants. It can even be a YARD if it wasn't meant to be a garden in the first place! We're just here to nurture it into being the best it can possibly be for the short time we get to be a part of this growing season. Whether it's orientation is straight, or square, or just plain outside of the box, we need to accept our gardens for being themselves!

Harumph. :



Sorry...couldn't help myself. The thread title made me do it :

Oh my, I had no idea I was being insensitive to the orientation of my or anyone else's garden. And to be honest I never really did ask my garden if it would prefer to be a yard. I can't believe how terrible I've been. I think I am going to go organize a rally outside the community gardens and insist that all gardens have the right to be oriented any darn way they choose and/or were born/designed to be!!

Lets end garden row suppression!! : : (you crack me up )

[mamadelbosque]

We do raised beds, and have some of each. Most of my beds are now east/west, but I do have 5 that are north south, plus one other bed thats mostly in the shade (which I attempted to put herbs in last summer but that didn't work out... so we're just going to do more lettuces' and such in there again this year)