Learn How to Grow More Food in Less Space!
Grow more in less space with interplanting, succession planting, and other techniques. Robin has five simple gardening tips for ensuring a bountiful harvest, even if you only have a small space to work with!
5 Tips for Small-Space Gardening
1. Use Raised Beds
Forget about growing plants single file in long, parallel rows. You can grow up to 10 times the amount of produce in the same space by using raised beds and square-foot gardening.
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In a raised garden bed, you keep outside weeds from your garden soil, prevent water runoff and soil compaction, and worry less about slugs, snails, and other garden pests. Also, garden boxes allow you to concentrate your energy in a small area, meaning you can work, water, weed, and fertilize as economically as possible. You can make the most of the entire growing season by using season-extending devices such as cold frames, cloches, row covers, and plastic tunnels, too.
Here’s how to build your own raised garden bed.
2. Keep Seedlings Coming
Succession planting keeps the garden in continual production. Whenever one crop is harvested, have seedlings ready to transplant in its place. For the best results, use quick-maturing vegetables such as radishes or salad greens to fit several crops into one season and spread out the harvest. See 5 fast-growing veggies to try.
3. Interplant (Intercrop)
“Interplanting” or “intercropping” is the practice of planting small crops in between bigger ones; the small, fast-growing crops will be ready before the big ones need the extra space. If you have a small area, this lets you use your space more efficiently and for longer.
To “interplant,” plants should be placed close enough so that their leaves will touch when they’re mature, shading the ground between them. This will keep weeds down and conserve moisture, reducing the need to mulch and weed.
As the plants begin to crowd out their neighbors, harvest the early-maturing ones, leaving room for the others to develop. For example, plant lettuce around longer-season vegetables such as broccoli, peppers, or tomatoes.
Check out our video to learn more about interplanting.
4. Plant Companions, Not Competitors
Some intercropping partners thrive if their roots occupy a different depth of soil. Pairing shallow-rooted vegetables, such as bush beans, with deeply rooted beets makes good use of space without creating root competition. Similarly, planting heavy feeders such as cabbage or cucumbers with light-feeding carrots or beans reduces the competition for soil nutrients. The best intercropping partners are companion plants that have different demands and complement each other, such as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. Refer to our vegetable companion planting chart for more recommended pairings.
5. Grow Up, Not Out
Lay out your garden plot with the fence, trellis, or wall at the north side. By planting the tallest plants there, you will avoid shading the smaller ones. Vining plants, if left to sprawl, take up valuable space in a small garden, so help them grow up.
- Cucumbers will eagerly climb a nylon net fence, with the subsequent bonus result that the dangling fruits grow straighter and are easier to pick.
- Tomatoes produce more fruit and ripen earlier if kept off the ground on a trellis or in a wire cage.
- Peas and pole beans naturally reach for the sky and will cover a wire fence or twine around a tripod of poles.
Some heavier plants, such as cantaloupes, watermelons, and winter squashes, may need help in climbing, so tie their vines to the structure to get them going in the right direction. Support the fruit with slings to keep them from tearing off the vine too soon.
Read more about the art of vertical gardening and fit more in less space!
Plot Out Your Garden
Good soil, adequate sunshine, and sufficient drainage are the key requirements for a successful vegetable garden, but planning your garden’s layout shouldn’t be a last-minute thought. Every garden—and every gardener—is different, so create a garden tailored to your space and needs.
For example, a 100-square-foot garden (10x10 feet) can easily yield a wide variety of veggies. Bisecting it with two narrow paths forms four beds that are easy to reach into and tend. (One square = one square foot.)
To plan out your own garden, use The Old Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner. You can try it free for 7 days—ample time to design your best garden yet!
Robin Sweetser
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will a raised garden keep ground hogs from digging under and into my garden? was thinking of putting in a solid bottom (untreated plywood?), and putting some kind of cover over the garden to keep critters out. I gave up last year, they ate almost everything! And then I have to find good dirt that hasnt been contaminated so garden still organic. thanks!! Linda
Linda, i have been using raided beds for years and also have a ground hog issue. I put either metal or plastic fencing on the bottom of the bed to keep them from burrowing under my veggies.
I use 4x4 raised garden beds and I always have beautiful squash and zucchini plants and they will begin to grow and suddenly shrivel up and rot. And that's even if I get 1 or 2 at all. My cucumbers turn into balls instead of long cucumbers. What am I doing wrong? I live in 27253.
What a disappointment! It sounds like blossom end rot, resulting from uneven moisture. See here for more information: https://www.almanac.com/plant/squash-and-zucchini This is often a result of improper pH levels. Get an inexpensive kit (more here https://www.almanac.com/blog/gardening/garden-journal/soil-testing-better-garden ) or contact your local cooperative extension about having a more thorough test; find you coop service here: https://www.almanac.com/search/site/cooperative%20extension
And there’s this: are you rotating the plants in the beds, not planting the same thing in the same soil every year? Change the place you plant every year. Here’s some advice on that: https://www.almanac.com/video/how-rotate-your-vegetable-crops
And it might not be a bad idea to mix in some fresh compost every spring. We hope this helps and the zukes are beautiful this year.
We built two 3 ft. X 12 ft. raised beds. The boards are 12 inches high. Is that deep enough for most vegetables? I'm assuming we will be filling the containers to at least 10 inches to leave a 2 inch space for watering and mulching at the top. Is there anything that cannot be grown in that space that needs more root room?
Twelve inches is ideal, but that doesn’t mean you will not have success with a LOT of vegetables. Did you break up and loosen the soil under? Remember plant roots will take advantage of that, too! Even if you have not you, you can do that if you haven’t yet filled the bed with soil. Here’s our general advice, which addresses these and other aspects: https://www.almanac.com/content/how-build-raised-garden-bed
We hope you harvest a heap!
I planted multiple varieties of "thornless" raspberries in a raised bed filled with commercial and home made well-composted soil. The first year my plants which were well established in pots prior to the raised bed produced a carpet of young plants for the next year and some berries. The next year very few new plants and little production. This year I planted two new plants from small pots but these were eaten by something almost over night. I have a 2-ft rabbit fence but something else is wiping out my new growth near the ground level. Any ideas?
We have no easy answer but a couple of ideas. It might be rabbits; you do not say what the fence is made of, and they can squeeze through very small places. The apparent almost-overnight disappearance is especially puzzling but we’ll take a stab at this: Is your soil too rich? That is, could the pH be off? is it holding water (is it too tick/rich/heavy to drain well) and drowning the roots? Compost is good but maybe, just maybe the mixture lacks essential nutrients. You could do a soil test. Cooperative extensions perform the most thorough tests; find the service nearest you here: https://www.almanac.com/content/raised-bed-gardens-and-small-plots#comment-85906
When you contact the service, ask them if they have any other ideas, based on your location.
We hope this helps!
I am planting my garden for the second year and I am curious if it makes a difference as to which direction I layout my rows i.e. is North to South better or would East to West better for sunlight?
