Intensive Gardening - Tips on Getting the Most Out of the Space You Have
by John Yazo
Intensive gardening is becoming more common with the home gardener and limited space is not an uncommon problem for most, planning properly is important. With a few basic tips you can successfully grow a thriving crop throughout the entire growing season.
Band planting, inter-cropping, inter-planting, mini-gardens, planting short rows, succession planting and vertical gardening are all very useful techniques that can be incorporated into your intensive garden and can be very beneficial when planned out properly.
Band planting, a method of planting your crops in double or even triple rows. This is a good method for the home gardener where mechanical equipment isn't used. This eliminates the wasted space of having to provide paths between each single row. Small crops work the best for this method, beets, carrots, radishes, spinach and lettuce are examples of the small crops that can be planted in close spacing.
Inter-Cropping, the planting of a slow growing crop along with a fast growing crop. Radishes and carrots are a good example for this method. Radishes are a crop that will mature faster than carrots and can be harvested to let the carrots grow and mature the balance of there growing season.
Inter-Planting, the planting of alternate rows with fast and slow growing crops. This allows for the additional space for the slower growing crops to have, that they need once the fast growing crops have been harvested. Planting green onions, radishes, lettuce or spinach between broccoli, cabbage or corn.
Mini-Gardens, planting your crops in containers, window boxes, small raised beds or in small areas of your landscape. Using any area that you can to plant even a few plants will add to the yields that you can grow.
Planting short rows, this is a part of gardening that is almost always overlooked. Keep your garden small, only plant what you need. Planting to much of one type of crop at one time will just take up space that you can be using to grow a productive crop that you can use.
Succession planting, a very important part of intensive gardening. Plant new crops as soon as another crop has matured and has been harvested. This is best done by the rotation of cool and warm weather crops, like lettuce, peas and spinach being replaced with beans or turnips.
Vertical Gardening, planting crops that will naturally clime, like beans, cucumbers, squash or tomatoes along an existing fence or a support structure that you build like cages, garden stakes, trellises or even wire fencing.
Planning and using the space you have to produce the highest yield from your crops as possible is what intensive gardening is all about.
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