What are the essential elements to plan a garden or orchard?

Establishing a garden or orchard is different because the garden is a different term and the orchard is another different term. To plan a garden or orchard is not simple. The term ‘Garden’ is used to plant multiple flowers, shrubs just for aesthetic purposes and is called a botanical garden. While, the orchard is used to cultivate different commercial fruits like citrus, mango, guava, etc. Sometimes, a garden is called a combination of fruit, vegetables, and flowers. So, don’t worry here I will discuss that how to plan a garden (mean growing of commercial fruits especially) with different garden ideas. There are the following outlines under which the whole article will be discussed. 

• Frequently asked questions about garden
• Elements to plan a garden
• Practical implementation to plan a garden

What is in a garden?

A Garden is a place or a surrounding territory where different fruits and vegetables are cultivated and decorated with flowers and foliage beauty.

How do I organize my garden at home?

Well, this is a simple question that how I will decorate my flowers, shrubs, bushes, topiaries in the backyard of my house. So, it is not very complex but keeping the focus on basics, will help you to organize the plants. Let’s look at it. A wider area of land space is filled with common grass called “Khabal grass” known as a lawn area. Now, hedges or shrubs will be arranged at corners like ficus Benjamina. Then at the border bushes (wild roses or bush roses can be used), topiaries or flowers can be arranged. Now, here is one more thing to make the lawn more beautiful and attractive, make the path with rocks in a zigzag manner and palm plants can be set in the center of your lawn.

Now, there are following are essential elements to plan a garden or orchard,                                                                                          

 Locality

Locality means the grower should be aware of selecting a proper location to plan a garden. It is also important to mention that site should be good from a topographical point of view. Land leveling is very important before land preparation. So, it is suggested that it will be better to select the area near to market so that production could reach as early as possible in a market.

Climate and soil

In a simple way, the climate can be defined as changes in the atmosphere. Pakistan is a country that is categorized into three different regions which are subtropical, tropical, and temperate zone. As a grower, to plan a garden it is necessary to understand which zone is suitable to grow which fruit crop. The type of soil is very important. Soil should have the potential of nutrients organically. Well-drainage capacity is most suitable. Generally, sandy loam soil is best suitable for different varieties of fruits and vegetables.

Water supply

To plan a garden, it is necessary to understand the importance of the supply of quality water. Gardening is successful where quality water is available. It will be better if the garden is attached with canal water which is more suitable for horticultural crops. Otherwise, tube well water should be available foremost.

 Market availability

nt-size:18px">As it is mentioned earlier that to plan a garden, your garden or orchard should be available near to the market. So that perishable commodities could reach at a time in the market.   

Transportation requirements

There are many vehicles are available, but in Pakistan local transport is used mostly like rikshaw, trollies, etc. It is suggested that make the availability of the special type of loading convenience like storage trucks etc. for safety measures of horticultural commodities.

Availability of labor

In developing countries, where technology access is yet needed instead of labor. There are a lot of operations that are done based on manual work for different cultural practices. So, labor availability importance cannot be denied.

Now, how we can start preparing to plan a garden

Laying out of the garden

To plan a garden, laying out the orchard means where you will make the spaces for cultural practices, where the storage room will be, where the office will be, and how it will be reliable for transport to come inside for loading or unloading purposes. The most important step to plant a garden is means which planting layout system will be good for horticultural crops.

There are many planting systems like square system, quincunx system of planting is more common in plain areas and used widely for the establishment of fruit orchard like in citrus, mango square system is used with their plant to plant and line to line distance.

Note:  Now in the agricultural department, is making a new change and many progressive farmers adopted the new technique for planting density called high-density plantation in mango, citrus, guava, etc.

Land preparation

Land preparation is the first and foremost step. Land leveling or contour of land should be unique as in plain areas it is suggested that level your land if it is necessary. If this land was barren then it is necessary to clean out the residual of the previous crop in case using already otherwise make the necessary changes. It is suggested that apply the well-rotten farmyard manure and plowed the land and irrigate this will help to grow the weeds and then after their growth, plowed your land again followed by planking and then makes the holes 3ft wider and 3ft in depth.

Note: digging holes should be allowed to be exposed for sunlight for a week and then filled with sand, silt, and farmyard manure with 1:1:1 proportion.

Plant care

There are two types of fruit that are generally used to cultivate which are professionally demanded very well, are temperate and evergreen plants. When plants are brought from the nursery, it is suggested that take great care of the earth ball of the plant during transportation, storage, and filling inside the pit.

Cover the plant to avoid sunburn in hot summer and frost danger in cold winter for small plants.

Note: there are two main planting seasons, one is spring in February-March and another is monsoon season in August September. Temperate plants or deciduous plants can be planted only in the spring season whereas evergreen plants in around a year.   

I hope this article will be helpful to understand the orchard or garden establishment. Comment below regarding the topic and stay tuned!