Right now, a lot of people are coming to gardening for the first time. They want to save money on produce. They want to switch to organic. They want to be more green. And among these folks, intensive gardening is often the rage. The reasoning makes sense: Why not pack in the plants and get as much produce as you can out of a small space?The trouble may be, however, that packing plants in might not lead to more produce. Here's a small example: Last spring, I planted Brussels sprouts. I planted two plants about a foot and a half apart. The others I planted half a foot apart. All were the same variety. The two that were planted the furthest apart grew almost triple the size of those planted close together. That means they also produced far more edible produce. My neighbor also planted Brussels sprouts (although I don't know what variety). She used a traditional Square Foot Garden raised bed, planting the vegetables quite close together. Her Brussels sprouts were tiny and produced very little food.
In Steve Solomon's little treatise, Gardening without Irrigation (available free in Kindle format or free as an HTML file or online page), he answers one of my life long questions: How did the pioneers manage to water their gardens? They had no water in pipes or hoses. Very few had gravity fed water. Did they really carry water in buckets to their garden? Solomon suggests the answer is they relied almost exclusively on rain...and when he tried to recreate this sort of irrigation in his own garden, he discovered something interesting. Giving individual plants more space not only meant they needed less watering, but they sometimes produced more food.
As a gardener with limited space, I am often tempted to cram plants together. And with some plants, intensive gardening works well. The trick is to know which plants need more leg room.
Very Good For Intensive Gardening:
Lettuce
Spinach
Good for Intensive Gardening:
Carrots (not mammoth ones)
Leeks
Pole beans
Vining cucumbers
Peas
Chives
Most herbs
Not Good for Intensive Gardening:
Tomatoes
Corn
Brussels sprouts
Zucchini
Other types of squash
Melons
Remember, too, that the more closely spaced your plants are, the more they will complete for water and nutrients. That means you'll need to water and fertilize more.
What are your experiences with intensive gardening? Where has the method failed you? Where has it excelled?
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I tried both methods a few years ago. I prefer spacing plants out. They were healthier and easier to tend. This year, however, I have very limited space, so I'm spacing things closer than I would normally like, and planning on watering and fertilizing often. We'll see how it works out I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhen you have limited space, the choice isn't always an easy one, Teek!
ReplyDeleteWell, I intensively garden and feed 4 families in the same amount of space that I used to feed just 1. Intensive gardening isn't just about plant spacing it is about soil preparation and maintenance. The beds are dug to a depth of two feet, then compost added, then rounded. The rounded beds allow the sides of the beds to be utilized for planting, the depth encourages roots to grow deep rather than spread out. Compost teas and other preparations are used throughout the growing season in an intensive garden. I highly encourage anyone interested in bio-intensive gardens to read Rudolph Steiner's work along with the work of John Jeavons. Intensive gardening works, but raised beds with plants squeezed in are not intensive gardening. As for watering more often, not in a true intensive garden since the roots of the plants are deeper they find water trapped deep in the soil. If you are watering often then you aren't watering deeply and your roots are too shallow, which is an issue in traditional gardening. Blessings and happy gardening, Kat
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experience, Kat!
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