How to Garden With Paths

Diagram how you intend to lay out each garden bed and path. For vegetable and fruit gardening, you want to ensure that you keep beds between 3 and 4 feet wide for easy access to the middle of the beds. Choosing the garden crop and bed sizes allows you to better diagram the placement of paths.

Determine a size for garden pathways to aid in diagramming and excavating the path locations. You may need to consider wider paths for community and handicap accessible gardens. To allow for wheelchairs to pass, you need paths to measure at least 5 feet wide. For home gardens, paths should measure at least 2 to 3 feet wide to allow for the use of wheelbarrows and other wheeled gardening devices.

Install edging, short walls or other barriers along the perimeter of paths. This allows a definite border between paths and gardens to prevent accidental damage to plants. To install these borders you may need to dig additional trenches on the outer edges of the paths or place edging materials on the soil surface.

Surface paths through your garden space using any preferred methods. You may choose to pour concrete, for guaranteed weed proofing. For a more permeable surface -- allowing rain and other water to penetrate the soil beneath -- pave paths with brick or stone on a gravel and sand base, or lay down 3 to 4 inches of pea gravel, wood chips or other cover. You can also grow grass or other ground cover, or leave your paths as bare dirt.

Prepare the soil inside fixed beds each year for the upcoming growing season. To prepare the soil, till in compost or aged manure to add nutrients and aerate the soil. This is necessary in fixed gardens, as soils compact and lose nutrients each time a garden is grown in the beds.