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Growing your vegetables
in plots may be the best method for you if:
- You have plenty of land you want to plant
- You have considerable time to devote to the work
- You intend to sell, trade or barter the fruits of your labor
Plots require a great deal of work and labor, a great deal of time, and a
lot of resources (water, soil, compost, mulch, seeds or transplants). If you have
your plot cleared from earlier seasons then the exercise is as simple as adding compost,
manure, muck or humus and turning the soil weekly until planting time. If you are
just starting out, the work is more involved:
Choose the site for your plot, if possible not too wet, too dry or in
the shade.
Stake out the boundaries of the plot and begin clearing all weeds,
grass, etc.
Till the soil as deep as possible to remove roots, rocks, etc.
Add top or potting soil, mulch, compost, muck, humus, peat, manure, etc.
to give your soil body and fertility.
Turn the soil weekly and keep the soil evenly moist until planting time.
| Common Spacing
Techniques for High Yields: Wide Rows
Double Cropping
Square Foot Gardening
French Intensive
Geometric |
The goal of any garden is to get the highest yield possible per square foot of
garden. Various techniques have been discovered to achieve this goal.
Wide Rows -- Beds are made 2 to 4' wide and as long as needed.
Seeds of a single crop are sown over a section of the row to create the garden plot.
Seeds are sown more thickly than usual then thinned to normal spacing as the crops
grow. Because the plants are grown so close together they create a dense cover which
helps to shade out weeds, keeps the crop's root zone cooler and helps to slow evaporation
of water from the soil. Crops best suited for this technique are -- carrots,
turnips, mustards, beets, onions and radishes.
Double Cropping -- This technique requires that multiple rows of the
same or similar crops are planted in the space that normally would be devoted to a single
row. Each of the rows is spaced about 6" apart and the several rows are treated
as one. Crops best suited for this technique are -- carrots, lettuce, spinach,
beets, mustards, collards and turnips.
Square Foot Gardening -- This technique eliminates rows and each
square foot of garden bears a harvest from 1 or more plants to maximize production.
Vegetable spacings are as follows:
| PLANT |
PLANTS PER SQUARE FT. |
| Beans |
4 |
| Beets |
16 |
| Broccoli |
1 |
| Brussels Sprouts |
1 |
| Cabbage |
1 |
| Cantaloupe |
1 |
| Carrots |
50 |
| Cauliflower |
1 |
| Corn, dwarf |
2 |
| Cucumbers |
1 |
| Eggplant |
1 |
| Endive |
4 |
| Garlic |
6 |
| Kale |
4 |
| Kohlrabi |
4 |
|
|
| Leeks |
40 |
| Lettuce |
4 |
| Mustard Greens |
12 |
| Onions |
20 |
| Parsley |
4 |
| Peanuts |
1 |
| Peas |
4 |
| Peppers |
1 |
| Potatoes |
1 |
| Potatoes, sweet |
1 |
| Radishes |
50 |
| Rutabaga |
9 |
| Spinach |
16 |
| Summer Squash |
1 |
| Swiss Chard |
4 |
| Tomatoes |
1 |
| Turnips |
20 |
| Watermelon |
1 |
A site 4 feet by 4 feet will have 16 squares for
planting.
French Intensive -- This technique sets plants in hexagonal patterns
within wide rows. Plants are seeded or transplanted at recommended
spacing's in a 6
sided configuration, then an additional plant is placed in the center.
Geometric Gardening -- This technique has the gardener plant corners
of triangles, squares or rectangles, then adding plants in the middle. |
