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Food growing · What to plant, where and when · food-27

Map crops to garden zones and microclimates

Place each crop where its needs for sun, shelter, drainage and water are met and where you visit it as often as it needs. The same estate can have warm walls, frost pockets and wet hollows that suit very different crops.

How

  1. Start from the zone map (food-2) and the sun path, wind and microclimate maps from the site module. Mark full-sun areas, shaded areas, frost pockets, warm walls and wet spots.
  2. Put herbs, salads and anything picked daily in Zone 1; main vegetable beds and staples like potatoes and squash in Zone 2; orchards, cassava, date palms and field plots in Zone 3.
  3. Give vegetables at least 6 hours of direct sun (Texas A&M AgriLife) and apples at least 8 hours (Minnesota Extension). Blueberries need sun for at least half the day (UGA). Bananas tolerate some shade but crop less (UF).
  4. Avoid frost pockets for early-flowering fruit. Ohio State advises a high spot for peaches so cold air drains away at bloom, and the RHS advises planting tender crops later, or not at all, in frost pockets and valley bottoms.
  5. Use warm spots for tender crops: a south or east wall for figs in cooler areas (Texas A&M), and the warmest non-flooding spot for mango and banana (UF). Keep olives on hot, dry ground with no wet winter soil (UC).
  6. Match drainage: plant mango and banana on mounds and blueberries in raised beds where soils stay wet (UF, UGA).
  7. Keep thirsty crops close to water storage and the drip system (food-11); put drought-tolerant crops such as rosemary, pomegranate and olive further out.
  8. Record each crop's position on the plan so the rotation (food-6) and planting calendar (food-28) can follow it.

Do these first

Sources

  1. Planning a Garden (E-289). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, accessed 2026-11
  2. Growing apples in the home garden. University of Minnesota Extension, accessed 2026-11
  3. Home garden blueberries (C 946). University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, accessed 2026-11
  4. Banana growing in the Florida home landscape (MG040). University of Florida IFAS Extension, accessed 2026-11
  5. Mango growing in the Florida home landscape (MG216). University of Florida IFAS Extension, accessed 2026-11
  6. Growing peaches and nectarines in the home landscape. Ohio State University CFAES, accessed 2026-11
  7. When to plant out tender plants: avoiding late frosts. Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), accessed 2026-11
  8. Figs (home fruit production). Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, accessed 2026-11
  9. The California Backyard Orchard: Olive. University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, accessed 2026-11
  10. Introduction to Permaculture: Zones. Oregon State University (Open Oregon State), accessed 2026-11

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