Map your light, water, and slope in one afternoon
Sample video: in the live course this plays the full walkthrough.
The most expensive mistake in gardening is putting a bed in the wrong place and finding out three months later. Before you build anything, you're going to spend one afternoon reading your plot (light, water, and slope) so every bed lands where it'll actually thrive. No instruments, no jargon. Just you, a sketch, and a few times of day.
1. Light: the one that decides your crops
Sketch your plot roughly to scale on a single sheet. Then check it three times in one day: mid-morning, midday, and late afternoon. Each time, shade in what's actually in shadow: from fences, buildings, hedges, the big tree next door.
What you're left with un-shaded across all three checks is your full-sun ground: six or more hours of direct light. That's where fruiting crops go: tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash. Areas that catch only morning or only afternoon sun are your part-sun beds, perfect for leafy greens, herbs, and roots that actually prefer a break from the heat. Deep shade all day? That's a path, a shed, or a spot for the compost bay, not a bed.
2. Water: where it collects and where it runs
Wait for the next good rain, then go out while it's still wet and look. Where does water pool and sit? Where does the ground dry out first and fastest? Mark both on your sketch.
You want beds on ground that drains but doesn't bake. Avoid the puddle-prone low spot for anything but bog-loving crops: sitting water rots roots. And note where your nearest tap or water butt is: the farther a bed is from water, the less often you'll haul a can to it, and be honest with yourself about that.
The corner that looks tidy and convenient (right by the back door, tucked against the north fence) is very often the shadiest and wettest spot you have. Convenience is not the same as suitable. Let the light and water map decide, not the tidy-looking corner.
3. Slope: the free irrigation you already have
Stand back and find the direction your land falls, even gently. Water and cold air both run downhill. A slope that faces the midday sun warms up earliest in spring: your first-harvest ground. The bottom of any slope collects moisture and cold, so it's slower and frost-prone. You don't need to change your slope; you just need to know which way it runs so you can put the right crop on each part of it.
Finish your sketch with three overlays marked on it: full-sun ground, where water collects, and which way the land falls. Circle the one spot that's sunny, well-drained, and near water. That circle is where your first no-dig bed goes: which is exactly what you'll build in the next module.
Keep this map. You'll come back to it when you fill in your planting calendar later in the course: it's the foundation every other decision sits on.