There’s NOTHING better than growing and eating your own vegetables! No matter where you live, and no matter how little space you have, you can have a vegetable garden!
Whether you are a beginner, or a seasoned gardener who wants to add another garden to your repertoire, here are some tips from the folks at Grow Veg to help you decide on the BEST TYPE of garden for you:
The size of your site. If you have a large area and want to squeeze as much in as possible, you might want to grow vegetables in the conventional way. If your garden is medium or pocket-sized, or you want a low-maintenance garden, you could consider the other techniques listed below.
Growing conditions. The condition of your soil is a key factor in growing fruit and vegetables. Heavy clay can be as difficult to work with as thin, stony soil, and poor drainage will always mean that your crops fail to thrive. The traditional way to improve soil conditions is to dig your plot thoroughly and incorporate large quantities of organic matter such as compost or leafmold into it. Other methods to get around poor soil (such as using raised beds) are explained below.
The crops you want to grow. This will mostly depend on what you like to eat, but you should also consider the space available. In a tiny garden, for example, you could focus on growing herbs, a few high-value crops and a variety of salad vegetables.
Quantities and spacing. Producing enough for your household is an important consideration, but to be successful you must also pay attention to the planting instructions on seed packets to make sure that you leave sufficient space between plants for them to grow successfully.
The health of your crops. Whatever method of gardening you choose, it is important not to grow the same type of vegetables in the same place each year. This is known as crop rotation — I will tackle this in a future post.
A final important piece of advice for beginner’s from the experts at The Old Farmer’s Almanac: “... it’s better to be proud of a small garden than to be frustrated by a big one! One of the common errors for beginners is planting too much too soon and way more than anybody could eat or want. Unless you want to have zucchini taking up residence in your attic, plan carefully. Start small.”
Conventional Vegetable Garden
If you have enough space to have a traditional vegetable garden, the Farmer’s Almanac gives you these guidelines on the optimum garden plot size:
A good-size beginner vegetable garden is about 16×10 feet and features crops that are easy to grow. A plot this size, based on the vegetables suggested below, can feed a family of four for one summer, with a little extra for canning and freezing (or giving away).
Make your garden 11 rows wide, with each row 10 feet long. The rows should run north and south to take full advantage of the sun.
Remember to leave room for paths between the rows – they should be wide enough for a wheelbarrow.
Alternative Vegetable Gardens – 3 Basic Types
In this post, we will discuss the three main types of gardening in moderate to small spaces: no-dig beds, raised beds, and square-foot gardening. I will talk about vertical gardening and small container gardening in a future post.
First let’s consider the no-dig method. As explained by Grow Veg:
It’s easy to understand why people developed a no-dig method of gardening! The argument is that digging is hard work, can cause light soils to dry out rapidly and spreads weed seeds. However, the no-dig technique may not be suitable on soils that are heavily compacted.
For maximum success with this method it is advisable to create narrow beds between boards at least 15cm high, held in place with pegs hammered into the ground. Several layers of newspaper are spread over the soil and a mulch of straw, sawdust and grass clippings added. This needs to be watered well before spreading a layer of compost, finished off with about 6cm of soil, which is the layer into which you plant your seeds. The soil level will drop as the layers of mulch rot down, but your beds can be topped up with compost, as required.
Image Source: Wikimedia
Another method that is similar to the no-dig method is raised bed gardening. Earth Easy explains the advantages:
Raised garden beds, also called garden boxes, are great for growing small plots of veggies and flowers. They keep pathway weeds from your garden soil, prevent soil compaction, provide good drainage and serve as a barrier to pests such as slugs and snails. The sides of the beds keep your valuable garden soil from being eroded or washed away during heavy rains. In many regions, gardeners are able to plant earlier in the season because the soil is warmer and better drained when it is above ground level.
By raising the soil level, raised garden beds also reduce back strain when bending over to tend the bed. This is especially helpful to older gardeners or people with bad backs. And if the beds are built well, the gardener can sit on the edge of the bed while weeding, and for some gardeners this is the biggest benefit of all.
Raised beds are not the same as garden planters. Planters are elevated containers which have bottoms to prevent the soil from falling out. Planter bottoms usually are slatted, with some type of semi-permeable cloth barrier which permits drainage. Raised beds, however, do not have bottoms; they are open to the ground, which offers the benefit of permitting plant roots to go further into the ground for available nutrients.
Raised garden beds are available in a variety of different materials, such as boards, bricks, or crates. Go to Earth Easy to find out where you can to buy ready-made raised beds … or learn how to build your own raised beds out of cedar – they offer a step-by-step video tutorial.
Image Source: Local Food Initiative
Another method for gardening in small spaces is called “Square Foot Gardening”. As explained by Wikipedia:
… this is the practice of dividing the growing area into small square sections (typically 12″ on a side, hence the name). The aim is to assist the planning and creating of a small but intensively planted vegetable garden. It results in a simple and orderly gardening system, from which it draws much of its appeal …
To encourage a variety of different crops over time, each square would be used for a different kind of plant, the number of plants per square depending on an individual plant’s size. For example, a single tomato plant might take a full square, as might herbs such as oregano, basil or mint, while most strawberry plants could be planted four per square, and up to sixteen per square of plants such as radish.
Image Source: Wally Hartshorn- Flickr
If you Google “square foot gardening” guide, you will find some downloadable charts that summarize the number of plantings per square foot for the different types of vegetables.
Arcadia Farms also has a SFG Cheat Sheet with the optimal plant spacing/square foot – it is easy to read on a mobile device.
Image Source: Wikimedia
In the next few weeks, I will cover various gardening topics, including: tips for planting your garden, specialty gardening (permaculture, container gardening, vertical gardening, straw bale gardening), soil improvement, and crop rotation. Stay tuned!
Feature Image Source: Pauling County Area Foundation
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