Design a Low Effort Food Garden that ACTUALLY Feeds You (Complete Guide)

Download My Free 30-page Garden Design Workbook here: https://benstrong.com.au/designforabundance

Want to grow more food with less effort? A garden design that works with nature and your lifestyle is key. In this video, I share the practical design methods and frameworks I’ve used to grow 90% of our fruit and vegetables, while working full-time. You’ll learn how to design a Functional Food Garden based on permaculture principles, suitable for a backyard garden, a homestead or a community garden.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro: How I Grow 90% of Our Food While Working Full-Time
1:12 Example Site Overview: Backyard Garden
1:58 Setting Goals for Your Functional Food Garden
2:43 Site Analysis: Work With Nature, Not Against It
3:30 How to Analyse Your Garden Site Step-by-Step
4:02 Site Observation: Key Features in the Backyard
5:29 How to Research Climate for Garden Design
6:32 Climate Summary: What It Means for the Garden
6:57 Creating a Scaled Basemap for Your Garden Design
7:32 Visualising the Sun Path
8:47 Mapping Shady and Sunny Areas of the Garden
9:53 Visualising Water Elements in Garden Planning
10:29 Mapping Prevailing Winds on the Basemap
10:36 Site Analysis Summary
11:06 Designing your Functional Food Garden
11:22 The Permaculture Design Process
12:17 Designing Your Water Strategy: Rainwater & Irrigation
13:49 Permaculture Zones: Placing Elements for Efficiency
14:38 Garden Bed Layout and Access Paths
15:43 Choosing Garden Bed Type: Raised Beds, In-ground Beds & more
16:17 Planning Structures: Compost, Propagation & More
17:15 Selecting & Arranging Diverse Plants for Food Production
18:05 Where to Place Fruit Trees, Herbs & Perennials
19:14 Warm Season Crop Layout: Annual Vegetables
20:41 Final Design Overview

[Music] For the last 5 years, I’ve grown 90% of our 
fruit and vegetables whilst working full-time and without burning out. And the key to my success has 
been getting my garden design right. A wellplanned garden design that works with nature sets you up 
for more food with less effort. And without it, even the most passionate gardener can face wasted 
effort, rising costs, and disappointing harvests. So whether you’re starting from scratch or 
improving an existing garden, this is your step-by-step guide to designing what I call 
a functional food garden, one that’s easy to manage and actually feeds you. In this video, I’ll 
share simple, proven frameworks that you can apply to any site, distilled from my 10 years of design 
experience in architecture and permaculture. This could be a suburban block, a homestead, or a 
community garden. Using this 100 m2 backyard as an example, you’ll learn how to analyze your site, 
plan efficient layouts, select the right plants, and avoid common and costly design mistakes. And 
because garden design often feels overwhelming and unclear, I’ve also created a free 30 page 
workbook to guide you with more detail. You’ll find the link in the description below. All right, 
let’s get into it. So, I found this property on realestate.com.au located in the northern suburbs 
of Melbourne. It’s a 550 m2 block with a single story brick house which is a little smaller than 
the median residential property size in Melbourne. The backyard is about 100 m2 and with the right 
design techniques I think you could comfortably grow several hundred kg of food in this backyard 
every year. Let’s imagine that the owners of this property are a young family whose goal is 
to improve their health, connect to nature, and make savings on their grocery bill. They 
want to grow a lot of food, so they’re willing to dedicate their whole backyard so long as it looks 
beautiful. But the parents work full-time, so they don’t want it to take up too much time. So, this 
brings me to the first step in the functional food garden journey, which is to set your goals. It’s a 
great idea to understand what you want to achieve in your garden before you start because your 
unique goals will shape every design decision you make. Say it again. Design. So consider things 
like your budget, how much time you can spend, and how much food that you’d like to grow. For 
example, if your garden is likely to only be a short-term project for immediate grocery savings, 
then it’s probably not going to be worth spending a ton of money on equipment and materials. On the 
other hand, when I started my food garden journey, I was committed to making a longer term lifestyle 
change, and so I saw the money I spent as more of an investment. So, take the time to set some 
clear goals because it’s going to make your garden journey much more focused and fulfilling. In the 
workbook, there’s an exercise to support you with your vision and some prompting questions. Okay, so 
you’ve done your goals and you’re ready to start designing. You want to sketch out your beds and 
paths, but hang on, not quite yet. Easy tiger. No. We know what you want, but it’s not all about 
you. We also need to know what your site wants. And by analyzing your site, you can design to 
work with the landscape rather than against it. The first mistake to avoid is this. Diving 
into your design without understanding your site first. If you skip this step, then you may end up 
replicating something you’ve seen online that’s just totally inappropriate for your site. So 
making the effort up front will result in a design that saves you time, energy, and resources in the 
long run. So how do we analyze our site? Well, the main elements that are crucial to understand 
are climate, plants and animals, sun path, water, access, soil, and pollution. I like to analyze 
these factors in three different ways. And that is to observe the site in person and interact 
with it, research climate and weather data, and visualize the impacts of these elements on 
the site using a scaled base map. Now, before we walk through the analysis of our example site, 
it’s worth noting that the workbook covers each of these elements with detailed actions, which aren’t 
included in this video because it would take ages to get through them all. So, here’s our backyard 
again. Let’s talk about what we can observe. Firstly, there’s a garden shed, which could be 
really useful for storage. This hill’s hoist is a quintessential element of the Australian 
backyard, but along with the concrete path, it’s posing as quite a large obstruction smack 
bang in the middle of the garden. The back door to the house is the main point of access. And there’s 
access from the driveway through here, which will be important for bringing in bulky materials and 
equipment. The building on the edge of the image here is the garage, which has about 50 m2 of roof 
draining into this downpipe here. And I’m thinking this could be a really good opportunity to harvest 
some rain water. Now, it’s difficult to do plant identification from these photos alone, but I can 
see that the vine growing on the shed is jasmine, and the tree in front of it is an umbrella tree. 
The lawn to me looks like kikuyu and there’s a mix of ornamental tree species running along the 
northern and western boundaries. There’s a palm there. There’s some yuccas. I hate yuccas. And 
a few cypress trees on the neighboring property. Ornamental trees can play a role in our food 
garden. And they can serve as a source of shade, mulch, or as a windbreak. But I think there’s 
an opportunity here to introduce some productive fruit or nut trees. Now, I can’t visit this site 
because, well, that would be trespassing. But if I was to visit this site, I’d be looking for 
any signs of wildlife to consider in the design, as well as the characteristics of the soil and 
any potential sources of pollution. There are instructions as well in the workbook for a 
simple soil test that you can do for free. It goes without saying that the climate you 
live in is going to have a fundamental impact on how you design a functional food garden. 
It’s going to determine what you can grow to a large extent and the techniques you use to 
create favorable conditions for your plants. So knowing your climate zone as per the Koppen 
classification system is a great place to start. Our example site is in a temperate oceanic 
climate which is characterized by mild winters and mild summers. But because of the urban heat 
island effect, temperatures in Melbourne are often 5° hotter than surrounding areas. And 
this means that the summers in Melbourne are actually quite hot and it rarely gets below 
freezing in winter. So we do have frosts, but they’re usually pretty infrequent and 
not very severe. In terms of rainfall, the northern suburbs of Melbourne receive about 
650 mm annually, which is spread fairly evenly across the year. From a wind perspective, as this 
wind rose demonstrates, Melbourne has prevailing winds from two main directions. The southwesterly 
winds are cold because they come off the ocean, whereas the northerly winds usually bring warmth 
as they come from inland. So, what does this mean for our garden design? Well, with some care, 
we can grow frost sensitive perennials. Food can be grown all year round without the need for 
a greenhouse or a grow tunnel. But the hot summers with relatively low rainfall mean that the garden 
may need a substantial amount of water over the warmer months. So, we’ll need to plan for that. 
And finally, I think the garden will also benefit from some protection from those southwesterly and 
northerly winds. In order to map our research and observations, it really helps to have a basemap. 
This is a to scale, bird’s eye view of our site. Now, you could draw this up from on-site 
measurements that you take yourself, or you could start from an aerial image. And I 
go through how to do this in the workbook step by step. And it’s worth spending the time to make 
sure this is accurate because it’s going to become the canvas for your garden design. I’ve hand drawn 
mine using property measurements taken from the property plans I found online, and I’ve captured 
the main physical elements, including the trees, structures, paths, and points of access. The first 
thing I want to visualize on my basemap is the sun path. Sunlight is one of the most important 
factors in garden design. And by identifying where the sun shines and where the shade falls, 
we can place each element where it functions best. So let’s imagine you’re standing in the middle 
of this garden and use this as the center point for our sun path. Regardless of your location, 
the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. And we want to understand the path that 
it takes in the sky between those two points. This depends on where you are in the world in 
relation to the equator and what time of year it is. There are some really comprehensive tools 
online available for free that you can use to get an accurate sense of where your sun path is. And I 
recommend exploring these tools, but don’t obsess about it. You don’t need 100% accuracy. You’re 
really just trying to get a rough sense of your sun path. And I go through how to do this based 
on your latitude in the workbook. Okay, back to our example. Based on Melbourne’s latitude, let’s 
map the sun’s path in winter and in summer because these are the times where it’ll be most different. 
The winter midday sun is low and to the north, so the sun will move through the sky and hit these 
points to form an arc. So that’s our winter sun path. The midday sun in summer is more directly 
overhead. So the path will look something like this. Because my sun paths are both in the north, 
I’m going to take an average to project the shade. But if your paths are really different, then I 
recommend doing this for both winter and summer. Let’s look at the morning shade first and use 
mid morning, say 9:30 a.m. as an average. The direction of the sun always shines towards our 
center point where we are standing. And we can project this angle across the whole site to see 
where our shadows fall. Take this shed here as an example. In the morning, it’ll block sunlight 
to the west and to the south. Now, let’s do the same thing for the afternoon sun at 3 p.m. If we 
look at the same area of the garden, this time the neighbor’s house will be casting a shadow towards 
the southeast. Now, where the shadows overlap, these areas will be in full shade. And here’s 
what that looks like across the whole site. It’s now clear which areas of the 
garden will receive morning shade, afternoon shade, full shade, and full sun. We’ll 
be referring back to this when we start designing. Water is another critical element that we need to 
visualize on our base map. We’ve already observed the downpipe and the garage on the property, 
and we’ve identified through our research that this garden will likely need a substantial 
amount of water over the warmer months. So, to reduce the cost of our garden, we want to 
capture rain water from the roof, which we’ll explore in a minute when we get into design. 
It’s worth mentioning that there are a bunch of other considerations in the workbook related 
to water analysis such as slope, soil erosion, waterlogging, and flooding. These elements 
aren’t particularly relevant for this site, so our water strategy is going to be pretty 
straightforward, but if you’d like me to dig into this topic on a larger property, 
then let me know in the comments. The last thing I’m going to put on my base map is the 
prevailing winds that we’ve previously discussed. So closing out our site analysis phase, there’s 
a few design decisions we can make based on our observations and research. Firstly, I’m going to 
remove the hills hoist so that we can maximize our growing area because it’s in a spot that gets 
a lot of sun and it’s going to limit what we can do in terms of access. Let’s remove the path step 
and balustrade. And finally, let’s remove half of the ornamental trees to make way for productive 
trees. The ones that we retain are going to serve as windbreaks on the western and northern 
boundaries to protect our vegetables. [Music] Now, it’s time to bring together our goals and 
our site analysis into a cohesive design for our functional food garden. And if you’ve 
been finding this video useful so far, let me know in the comments, give it a like and 
if you’re new here, don’t forget to subscribe. The design process that I’m going to walk you 
through is based on permaculture design methods and P.A. Yeomans’ Scale of Permanence. This 
design strategy tackles the most permanent landscape characteristics first and the easiest to 
change last. The five steps of our functional food garden design process are to establish a water 
strategy, map zones, lay out beds and access, plot systems and structures, and finally select 
and arrange plants. At the core of this process is design iteration. This means that as you 
incorporate elements into your design at each step, you’re likely to need to rearrange other 
elements that you’ve already placed. So don’t feel overwhelmed or disheartened. This is 
a normal and important part of the process. And until you get all the elements on the page, 
you’re not necessarily going to know how it all fits together. So while the design I’m going 
to show you looks very polished and finished, rest assured, I spent a lot of time behind 
the scenes trying to work it all out. The most important aspect of our design 
to resolve first is our water strategy. Harnessing the flow of water across your 
site may involve tanks and plumbing, dams, swales, diversion drains, or irrigation. These 
features really need to work in harmony with the landscape and they may require infrastructure 
or earthworks. Which brings me to the second mistake to avoid. Considering your water strategy 
as an after thought rather than as a central part of your design. Without a clear water strategy, 
you may end up with too much water or not enough water costing you time, money, and yields. 
So, we’ve already spoken about capturing rain water off this garage roof by connecting to this 
downpipe. We need to hold the water in some tanks, and the logical place for them is right 
next to the downpipe. For this size garden, I think 3,000 L or 800 gal of rain water storage 
will be enough. And a cost effective way to store that much water is with IBC tanks. They each 
hold 1,000 L and measure roughly 1 m cubed, so we’ll need three. These are tanks that are 
used for shipping liquids internationally. So, they’re readily available in many parts of the 
world and usually pretty cheap. The one downside is they’re pretty ugly. I have one of these in 
my garden in a prominent position which I clad with recycled timber pallets and I reckon it 
looks pretty good. So, let’s do that in this garden. We can connect these three tanks with 
some irrigation pipes so they fill evenly and connect the outlets to a central pump to easily 
distribute the water via a hose. You could also connect drip lines or sprinklers, but I’m 
not going to go through that in this video. Next, we’re going to map our zones. Permaculture 
zones are a way to think about positioning aspects of design based on their level of use or required 
attention. So, you want the things that you access the most, closest to where you spend the majority 
of your time, your house. These five standard zones are more relevant for larger properties, 
which we can cover in another video. But for this backyard, we can divide it into two zones. 
Zone one usually includes herbs and veg that are harvested frequently, whereas zone 2 includes 
more perennials and slower growing annual crops. The third mistake is designing without really 
considering where you spend most of your time. This can often result in placing high maintenance 
plants and systems too far from your daily path, ultimately leading to neglected crops, wasted 
time, and lower yields. It’s time to lay out our garden beds and access. Here we need to strike 
a balance between aesthetics and functionality whilst enabling effective movement around the 
garden. Around the garden. First, I’m locating the beds in the areas of full sun as per our site 
analysis, reserving the shadier areas for other functions. And next, I decide on the orientation 
of the beds. This backyard is pretty flat, so I’m running them north-south. And generally, 
orienting them in this direction is better than east-west, as the beds won’t overshadow each 
other as much. But if your site is on a slope, then prioritize running your beds across the hill 
as this will allow them to hold water and prevent erosion. Given this is a rectangular site, 
I think it lends itself to a grid layout, but if it suits your site, you can certainly use 
organic shapes. I’ve chosen mulched paths for this garden that will be 600 mm or 24 in wide. This is 
the minimum width that allows for foot traffic and wheelbarrow access. I’ll combine this with double 
reach beds that are 1200 mm or 48 in wide. Beds of this width allow you to reach the center 
from either side. The type of bed you choose, whether it’s inground, raised, sunken, or 
terraced, is going to depend on your soil, climate, and accessibility needs. And I touch on 
the pros and cons of each in the workbook. But here, I’m going to use slightly raised beds with 
200 mm high Cypress sleepers. This will look great and the beds will be easy to reach for both kids 
and adults. If we were to make these beds taller, then the paths would need to be widened to allow 
a wheelbarrow to pass through. And keeping them low also reduces the cost in materials required to 
frame and fill them. All right, our paths and beds are in. Now, let’s plot the structures and systems 
that underpin our functional food garden. So, we need to consider any permanent or semi-permanent 
structures that support our garden’s goals and functions. This could be things like tool storage, 
composting setup, trellises, a chicken coop, fencing, or even a patio. Here, I’m positioning 
a three-bay compost system in a central location with good access, which will be the engine room 
for the garden’s fertility. Given this is a shady spot, I’m also putting a propagation area for 
germinating seedlings and a tabletop cold frame. Next to the shed is, I think, a great spot for 
a table and chairs, which will receive afternoon shade and have a nice view of the garden. And 
finally, we already have a shed, but you can never have too much space for storage, especially a 
spot that’s concealed behind a screen to keep the garden looking beautiful and orderly. You’ll also 
see that I’ve added in some bricks and tiling, both for aesthetics and durability, because 
these will be highly trafficked areas. Here we are at our last step of the functional food 
garden design process where we select and arrange plants. We’ve got all of our infrastructure laid 
out. We’ve optimized our design for the site. Now, this is where the garden really comes to life. 
Depending on your goals and growing space, your garden ecosystem might contain a range of 
plants. But edible crops are not necessarily the only plants that you want to include in your 
food garden. You may also want to include plants for building and maintaining fertility, plants 
for windbreaks, for pollinators, or maybe just simply for beauty. In the workbook, there’s an 
exercise to help you research and brainstorm perennial and annual plant species. But for this 
example, I’m going to use the crops I provided in my 4-hour food garden video as the base for 
a high-yield, low effort food production. As I position each plant, I’ll consider a variety of 
factors such as shade vs sun, permaculture zones, aesthetics, wind, and vertical structures. First, 
I incorporate perennials into the design. Now perennials, particularly trees, deserve extra care 
in planning because they’re central to building a resilient long-term system. So, let’s place a 
pear, apple, apricot, fig, and lemon tree amongst the ornamentals to bolster that windbreak whilst 
giving us a diverse yield of delicious fruit. I’m also placing some trees in the centre of these 
beds to provide some summer shade. I’ve chosen plums because they lose their leaves much earlier 
than other deciduous trees in Melbourne’s climate, which lets through light in autumn for cool 
season crops to get established. The next perennials to locate are some herbs, specifically 
rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano. These will go in zone 1 in the bed next to the shed, nice and 
close to the house for easy picking. Then I’ll place a raspberry patch in zone 2 in the northwest 
corner because this will be visited infrequently and it’s shaded from the hot western sun. The last 
perennials to place are rhubarb and strawberries under the fruit trees as they’ll tolerate the 
lack of direct sunlight. The remainder of the bed space can be taken up by annuals, which will 
obviously change from season to season and should be rotated around, but here’s what a warm season 
crop layout could look like. Now, all the crops I locate in zone 1 are harvested frequently. This 
bed contains silverbeet closest to the house, kale and lettuce under the shade of the plum tree, 
and above that is rocket flanking a couple of cape gooseberries, and a row of strawberries. The next 
bed includes zucchinis and capsicums at one end and eggplants and cucumbers at the other. The 
cucumbers will grow up a simple trellis. Next to the perennial herbs, I’ll place some annual ones, 
namely dill, coriander, and basil. I’ll also stick some mint here in some pots so it doesn’t get out 
of control. In zone 2, in the bed, starting on the right, I’ve got a row of cherry tomatoes with 
a row of beets and spring onions next to them. The tomatoes will enjoy the warmth from the 
adjacent garage brick wall, and the beets will enjoy their shade. Next to that, I’ve included 
some more zucchini at the front, a couple of rows of turnips running the length of the bed, and 
some more capsicums at the back. These additional zucchini and capsicum plants will allow the 
family to be self-sufficient in these crops. Here we have another block of tomatoes. This 
time, a slicing variety with some potatoes behind. And finally, in the back corner, I’m including 
a small patch of butternut squash, which will only be harvested at the end of the season and 
enjoy protection from the hot afternoon sun. So, here it is, our functional food garden in a 100 
m2 suburban backyard. I’d love to know in the comments what you found useful in this video, and 
if there’s anything you’d like me to discuss in more detail. I’ve put a lot into it, so I hope it 
helps you take action with confidence and clarity.