Homegrown Produce: Need to Know Basics for any Kitchen Garden
Establishing your own kitchen garden requires a good understanding of two key concepts;
- crop rotation – the planned movement of crops annually to avoid soil depletion & pest pressure
- companion planting – grouping a variety of crops including flowers & vegetables together based on each crops ability to compliment the other for maximum benefit
For most people today the idea of a kitchen garden is little more than a rewarding hobby. Gardens of all types, however, have long been a symbol of resilience & plenty. Even as a hobby, a well maintained garden can play a considerable role in reducing our food bills.

Gardening for a Sense of Self Sufficiency
A kitchen garden keeps us healthy & well fed with nutrient dense fruits & vegetables. Homegrown produce is also substantially tastier than what is available in the grocer.
There is nothing quite like going out to your own yard, picking a fresh tomato or a cucumber & preparing it for dinner to instill a sense of accomplishment & independence.
Beyond the obvious reasons to keep a kitchen garden, it has the added benefit of improving our mental health & well-being. Gardening is also a low impact activity to stay fit and healthy without the gym membership.
History of the Kitchen Garden in Canada
In the early weeks of the Pandemic fears of cost & scarcity motivated many to try growing their own food; some for the first time. Novices & experienced gardeners alike took the task more seriously & mindfully.
This wasn’t the first time in Canadian history that gardening has enjoyed a resurgence. We are all familiar with the victory gardens of WWII, but periods of economic hardship such as the Oil Crisis of the 70’s & the runaway inflation of the 80’s were also strong motivators for many to reduce their reliance on imported produce.
What to Expect from Your First Growing Season
Keeping your expectations realistic is important. In the beginning it’s very likely that the investments you make in tools, seeds & equipment won’t balance out at the end of the season in savings. I consider that tuition. If you stick with it & press on through the inevitable discouraging lessons then you can have yourself a lovely little backyard plot. You just need to be patient & persistent.
How Much Space Does A Kitchen Garden Need to be Productive?
I have gardened in a plot as small as 8ftx8ft and as big as 100ftx100ft. If there is one takeaway I can impress on you it’s this. A well managed small plot can absolutely yield more than a poorly maintained larger plot.
One of the best decisions I have made in homesteading was to scale our garden down. We moved from a field garden that was difficult to handle to a smaller kitchen garden & have never looked back.
Likewise if you don’t own an acreage or a full scale farm there is still plenty of reason to consider the room in your own yard to be a worthwhile growing space. If you don’t have access to a yard at all – there is lots to be learned about balcony gardening but that’s a conversation for another day.
Our current garden is 24ftx48ft & yields enough to feed us year round for nearly all of our produce needs as a young family of four. The occasional navel oranges & lemons notwithstanding; of course.
Determine Your Site-Specific Context
The number one factor in a garden’s success rate is figuring out what works for you & your context. What I mean by that is find what method makes sense for your unique circumstance.
Regardless of the area or sun exposure in your yard there is no one-size-fits-all gardening formula to guarantee success. As many different gardeners as there are, you will find that many different approaches.
I’ll share whats worked for us happily if it helps a novice out. At the end of the day though, there is no replacing good old trial & error (& error, & error & error) to learn from.
Basic Principles for a Healthy Kitchen Garden
Two basic principles that will have a huge impact on the health of your garden & your long term success are:
- Crop Rotation
- Companion Planting
So what are they?
Crop Rotation
Simply put – crop rotation just means that you are moving your crops around year over year to minimize the effects of any imbalances in the soil and to discourage pest pressure that would otherwise accumulate if a crop was left to grow in the same spot continuously. You want to stay one step ahead of any pest in particular. When they return the following year looking for a free meal – they shouldn’t find it where they expect to.
Crop rotation’s other benefit relates to soil health and nutrient needs of each crop. Most vegetable crops are divided into categories of “heavy feeder” like tomatoes vs “light feeder” like carrots. Planting a light feeder in a heavily fertilized plot could result in poor yields just as easily as planting a heavy feeder in a plot without sufficient nutrients in place.
Keeping Crop Rotation Simple & Achievable
To keep this easy to remember I divided my entire garden into four quarters and I rotate my crops through these four quarters depending on their needs & mine. The crops are broken down into four groups, which won’t revisit the same quarter of the garden for another three years.
Make sense?
Put another way – I only amend the soil in one quarter of the garden at a time. Every fall after that year’s harvest is done I add my top layer of compost & any other amendment before the ground is covered in snow. The following spring I know that quarter of the garden is for my most hungry plants. The next fall I do the same for the next quarter – moving my hungry plants around in a rotation.
By the time my least hungry plants get to that quarter of the garden the heavy feeders have pulled what they needed from the compost and left behind a lighter soil perfect for more delicate crops.
Drawing a Crop Rotation Plan for your Garden
I like to think of my soils as ranging from hot to cold – hot being freshly composted & rich in nitrogen to cold being lowest in nitrogen & four years out from any compost amendments.
Here is a table of what my sixteen crop rotation looks like:
Year One | HOT Onions & Garlic Tomatoes Squash & Cucumbers Corn | WARM Beans & Peas Spinach Celery Lettuce | COOL Cabbages Brussel Sprouts Broccoli & Cauliflower Kohl-rabi | COLD Carrots Parsnips Beets Potatoes |
Year Two | WARM Beans & Peas Spinach Celery Lettuce | COOL Cabbages Brussel Sprouts Broccoli & Cauliflower Kohl-rabi | COLD Carrots Parsnips Beets Potatoes | HOT Onions & Garlic Tomatoes Squash & Cucumbers Corn |
Year Three | COOL Cabbages Brussel Sprouts Broccoli & Cauliflower Kohl-rabi | COLD Carrots Parsnips Beets Potatoes | HOT Onions & Garlic Tomatoes Squash & Cucumbers Corn | WARM Beans & Peas Spinach Celery Lettuce |
Year Four | COLD Carrots Parsnips Beets Potatoes | HOT Onions & Garlic Tomatoes Squash & Cucumbers Corn | WARM Beans & Peas Spinach Celery Lettuce | COOL Cabbages Brussel Sprouts Broccoli & Cauliflower Kohl-rabi |
Determining Your Highest Priority Crops
In case you are wondering… no, each of these blocks don’t require the same bed space as the next. I divide them equally though to keep things simple. My garden size is based on the spacial requirements for my biggest block – the cool loving root vegetables in block 4 of the first row.
My root veggies are doing the heavy lifting for our fresh vegetable consumption during the winter & they need plenty of room to meet our needs. If you aren’t planning on storing crops for winter use then maybe this won’t be as big of a deal for you.
On the other hand, if you do make your garden beds big enough to accommodate your largest block then you’ll be left with open bed-space in one or two of the other blocks, right?
This brings me to my next point:
Companion Planting
If crop rotation is about spacing the guest’s tables around the buffet, then companion planting is the seating plan of who should sit next to who so everyone has a good time.
The beneficial relationship between certain species of plants has been well documented both scientifically and anecdotally by growers for centuries.
Conversely, certain plants have what’s called an “allelopathic” effect on their neighbours – giving off toxic compounds and inhibiting growth and maturation of the surrounding plants.
Balancing Opposing Influences
The balance between these two concepts is important if you plan on inter-planting a diversity of crops within your garden. Some might argue that it is too much work & too complicated to remember who works well with who; but when you look to nature as the example that’s exactly how it looks – and nature seems to do it effortlessly.
Examples of companion planting include other vegetable crops, which could get pretty complicated if you let it & at first glance might even suggest that companion planting is in opposition to crop rotation but it doesn’t have to be.
Using Companion Plants to Fill in the Crop Rotation Blanks
Let’s take a second look at that chat from earlier, but add some room at the bottom of each cell to include some beneficial companion plants such as edible flowers or herbs. We can use these beneficial companion plants to fill out any gaps in our beds year over year when one particular bed or another doesn’t fill the whole block.
Vegetable | HOT Onions & Garlic Tomatoes Squash & Cucumbers Corn | WARM Beans & Peas Spinach Celery Lettuce | COOL Cabbages Brussel Sprouts Broccoli & Cauliflower Kohl-rabi | COLD Carrots Parsnips Beets Potatoes |
Companions | Marigolds Parsley Basil Sunflowers Nasturtiums | Marigolds Catnip Borage Chamomile | Marigolds Dill Nasturtiums Thyme Chamomile | Marigolds Parsley Violas Cornflower |
Another important aspect to companion planting is that certain plants repel the pests known to attack other plants. You might have noticed marigolds are appropriate companion plants throughout the crop rotation. This is because marigolds are doing some pretty heavy lifting as far as pest deterrent goes. Their roots release a compound that carrot-loving nematodes hate.
Other companion plants are sometimes known as ‘sacrificial crops’ because they are grown away from the desired crop but are known to attract the same pests.

Building on the Foundation of Crop Rotation & Companion Planting
Getting the hang of crop rotation or companion planting isn’t something that will happen in the beginning. As a new gardener, these two concepts will take a fair amount of your time & energy to perfect but will pay off soon enough as foundational building blocks.
It’s easy to expand on this foundation by incorporating other concepts like cover cropping, succession planting or including perennials but for now these 16 crops & their companion herbs & flowers will get you off to a great start and yield more produce than you likely know what to do with.
If you’re wondering where to reliably source seeds for starting – check out our suppliers at West Coast Seeds – we have been using them to great success for years. I prefer their wide variety of open pollinated and heirloom seed stock & the quality is really reliable. Their website is an amazing resource of information of both of these core concepts & I always learn something when I visit.
If you’re reading from the States – I have heard nothing but amazing things from Baker Creek Seeds. Their catalogue alone is a masterpiece!
If you’d like to learn how we use any of the additional concepts in our own kitchen garden stay tuned for part two!