Yes, every garden needs a little gingham! You know I love gingham, right?

My yard is pretty small and the amount of space I have to grow vegetables is not very large. This keeps me on the lookout for more spots to grow food and start gardening. Maximizing growing space in a small yard takes a bit of creativity and a keen eye. If you’re on the lookout for more areas to start a garden so that you can grow more of your own food, these 5 spots are ready to be discovered.

5 Spots to Start a Garden

Look up: “Sky gardening” as I like to call it. Green beans love to climb and a ladder may be necessary for harvesting. You don’t need much ground space but climbers like to go up. Staking the plants is key so find a source for inexpensive materials. Ask a neighbor who has bamboo growing in their yard when harvest time is!
South side and sunny: Any spot that faces south and gets afternoon sun is a good location. Look for walkways or driveways where you can line up pots. Pots can be inexpensive or free plastic ones. My neighbor gave me his plastic ones when he planted small trees.
Replace hedges with vegetables or fruit trees: Slowly replacing non-edible plants with edible ones is my gardening goal and this keeps the project easy. By not taking on too much – I’m ripping out the entire laurel hedge today! – it’s more a manageable job and it can be a process.
Raised beds: Adding raised beds to a grassy area takes a morning of work but results in a summer of fresh vegetables. Make sure to use non-pressure treated wood (no chemical leaching) for your building project.
Flowers need greens: Add a spinach plant to your flower pots! Every pot of flowers needs a little greenery. Add spinach or arugula and those pretty pots of flowers can have something edible in them, too.

A tour of my garden with additional space…

This a walkway along a porch that faces south. Plastic pots were given to me by my neighbors and would have otherwise been recycled.

Garden space (5)

And by the end of summer they filled in nicely. It was a great spot for peppers and tomatoes.

By the end of summer, this walkway was productive growing space.

“Sky gardening” works for green beans in this spot that used to be a hedge.

Pole beans grow up and salad greens “mesclun mix” get planted below in this very small space.

By the end of the season, my husband had to use a ladder to pick the green beans.

Hubby on ladder picking green beans for dinner!

This was an unused spot on the south side of our house.

South side and next to the house – tomatoes love to grow here!

It produced so many tomatoes last year that my regular staking methods tipped over and I ended up with a tangled – but delicious – tomato mess! Start saving your eggshells for planting with your tomatoes, too.

Tomatoes gone wild – they even grew underneath the wood siding!

All of my flower pots get a little greenery. Lettuce and flowers look pretty together.

Every pot of flowers gets lettuce, spinach or other green. Eat those veggies!

Whether your yard is large or small, look around for places to maximize your vegetable growing space. It takes a bit of creativity and a keen eye but if your goal is to grow more food, be on the lookout! These 5 spots to start a garden are probably in your yard. Go look! You’ll be eating fresh vegetables from your “farm” this summer.