The Garden Shed

If you live on an acreage, or a large lot in town, or even a medium sized lot in town, you need a shed.  Sure, you could store all of your stuff – mower, tools, seed, mulch, lawn art, pots, wood, etc. – in your garage or basement, but depending on where you put it, caring for the landscape is likely to be much more convenient outside if the shed is near the lawn, garden and fence.  As humans, we tend to follow the convenient path; if all of the garden supplies are stored where it’s inconvenient to use them, we don’t use them.  If we don’t use them, then the important cultural practices don’t get accomplished, or at least not on a regular basis.

Now that we’ve established the need, the question arises – how do I get one?  Hopefully, the previous owner of the property also saw the need and built or bought one.  But, if not, it’s certainly achievable.  After all, it’s just a part of acreage living.  Farm and acreage supply stores are one source of pre-finished sheds.  Building one is another approach.  A quick Google search that I recently did pulled up several good sets of plans available from various land grant universities:

Miscellaneous Building Plans – North Dakota State University

Garden Sheds – University of Georgia

General Barn and Utility Shed Plans – University of Tennessee

Storing Your Tools – Garden Solutions – University of Florida

In addition to the buying or building of the shed, the other component is “the look”.  An ugly shed in the middle of the yard may be functional and get the job done, but comes up way short in terms of enhancing property value and how you might feel about using it.  Integrating it into the overall landscape should be the overall, more sustainable goal.