Finding the sunniest spot
→ Choose the spot for a first bed by checking how much sun it gets
Plants make their food from sunlight, and vegetables are hungry plants. Before you buy a single seed, the most useful thing you can do is find out where the sun really falls in your garden — it decides almost everything that follows.
Sun comes first
Vegetables that give you fruit, pods or roots — tomatoes, courgettes, beans, carrots — need at least six hours of direct sun a day in summer, and do better with eight. Leafy crops such as lettuce, spinach and rocket manage with about four hours, and even like a little shade in hot weather. Direct sun means the sun itself on the leaves, not just daylight. Shadows move through the day and grow longer in spring and autumn, so a spot that is sunny at noon may sit in the shade of a fence or a tree by mid-afternoon.[1][5]
Water, shelter and drainage
Seedlings need watering often, so choose a place within easy reach of a tap or a water butt; carrying full cans across the garden gets old fast. Avoid spots under trees, whose roots drink the water and whose leaves block the light. A wall or hedge that breaks strong wind helps, as long as it does not shade the bed. Finally, look at the ground after heavy rain. If puddles sit there for a day, the soil drains badly and roots may rot; pick somewhere else, or plan to build the bed up higher.[1][2]
New words
- Direct sun
- Sunlight falling straight on a plant, not just daylight.
- Full sun
- A spot that gets at least six hours of direct sun a day in summer.
- Drainage
- How quickly water soaks away through the soil after rain.
Remember
Choose the spot with the most direct sun — six hours or more — close to water and away from trees.
Practice: Make a sun map
Check yourself
the answers given when this Lesson was finished- How much direct sun a day do fruiting crops like tomatoes need in summer?
✓ Correct. Crops that make fruit, pods or roots need six hours or more of direct sun; eight is even better.
- Why is the ground under a large tree a poor place for a bed?
✓ Correct. A tree's roots take the water and its leaves take the light, so the vegetables go short of both.
- Puddles stay on your chosen spot for a whole day after rain. What does that tell you?
✓ Correct. Water that sits on top is not soaking away: the soil drains badly, and roots there can rot.
Read next
RHS Gardening adviceRoyal Horticultural Society · siteA grow-your-own guide for every common vegetable, with sowing months, depths and spacing written for beginners.find it ↗
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