How to Grow a Large Amount of Vegetables in a Small Garden

More and more people are thinking about growing their own vegetables as a way to cut food bills, but one of the problems they face is how to do it in a suburb-sized lot. With the size of residential lots shrinking as developers try to make the most of their investment, many homeowners have only a small corner of the back yard to work with. In the past, that meant room for a tomato plant or two, but not much else.

Now, with new gardening techniques, it is possible to grow great amounts of vegetables in a small amount of space. One of the most important aspects of growing a lot of vegetables in a small amount of space is taking the best advantage of the space. It really is not necessary to plant in the row fashion that most people associate with vegetable gardening. In fact, it doesn't make good sense to do so in a small space, say 10 feet by 10 feet. What I would suggest is that people plant more in groupings, more like a flower bed, where you have several clumps of different types of plants. Gardeners once thought in terms of 20- by-50-foot plowed plots with long, straight rows. He says the advent of smaller lots and double-income families no longer give most people the room - or the time - to tend such a garden.

Luckily, today's gardens make more efficient use of space and time. Properly handled, a 100-square-foot garden can yield enough fresh vegetables during the growing season for a family of four. It is possible to grow large amounts of edibles in postage-stamp size plots. Even a 5-by-5-foot garden can yield a couple of hundred tomatoes, 100 or so carrots, 40 or 50 beets, all the leaf lettuce you can eat, and a lot more, if you know the right bedding techniques. The first step for small-space gardeners is to put the garden plan on paper, which allows them to allocate space accurately. One of the most important principles of small gardens is "dynamic plant groupings," or a small, semi-circular community of vegetables that grow well together. For example, a grouping could consist of one tomato (plant) combined with bush beans, peppers, onions, radishes and carrots. Planted together, these groupings create tiny vegetable communities that out produce most other gardens. Planting vegetables in close-together groupings reduces the need for watering and weeding, both time-saving measures. When plants are mature, the leaves will overlap, this creates a micro-climate below, shading the ground so water does not evaporate as quickly.

Sources:

Fine Gardening Editors Gardening in Small Spaces: Creative Ideas from America's Best Gardeners (Fine Gardening Design Guides) 2002

Kingsbury, Noel Natural Gardening in Small Spaces 2006

Ruppenthal, R.J. Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting 2008