Garden Shape
How you shape your garden can make a big difference when it’s time to maintain it. If your garden site will be tilled and cultivated every year, then you’ll want a rectangular garden. A longer garden is great because you don’t need to turn and re-align your tiller.
If you’ll only be using hand tools, then you can choose a square shape garden.
Double Digging
For new gardens, you may want to double dig your garden. This is good for heavier loam or clay soils, but not recommended for sandy soils. Instead, you’ll want to add organic materials to sandier soils to help keep moisture in the soil.
Double digging is a process where you dig a trench about 8-10 inches deep at one end of the garden. The top soil from this trench would be placed at the opposite end and would be used later to fill in the last trench.
Loosen the soil in this first trench 8-10 inches deep while adding organic matter and compost into this new trench. Next to this, dig a second trench and place the top soil into the first. Repeat this until you get to the last trench, of which you have top soil from the first trench to fill up.
