Optimizing space
Layout of the Garden
Maximizing growing space is a balancing act. While you need room to move around, wide paths around small beds whittle away growing space. Sketching out the plan on graph paper several ways will help you envision the garden and calculate the percentage that is usable growing bed. Once you have a plan, use stacks and string to set up the bed space. Walk around the garden and confirm that the layout will work, before doing any digging.
This fall I have reviewed my layout and reset each bed to be 4 ft. wide. Narrowing my paths and resetting the beds to be a full 4 feet wide had given me even more growing space than I had. I have also standardized my beds to prepare for installing drip irrigation, something that will make my garden more sustainable and efficient.
Giving roots room to stretch
Deep Bed Preparation
A key element of biointensive growing is to "double dig" beds so that roots can penetrate straight down. Without this preparation, roots struggle to penetrate, grow sideways and compete with their neighbors for space and nutrients.
Double digging a bed involves digging out the top foot of soil at one end of a bed, loosening the soil underneath 8-12" deep with a garden fork, and then replacing the top soil with the soil from the next section to be dug. At the end of the bed, the soil that was first removed fills in the last section. Compost or other amendments can be added to ready the bed for plants.
This deep prep allows transplants to go in very close together and have high yields without taking up lots of room. For the smallest growing spaces, using good potting mix, soil and compost in containers may be needed to use space that doesn't have soil to grow in. Using trellises and vertical spaces can extend limited space upward, wherever plants can grow.
Optimizing space
Grid Spacing
Another powerful way to optimize garden space is to space plants in a grid rather than rows. When the package says to plant each seed 6" apart but to space rows 18" apart, space for 2 more rows of plants is lost to the space in between rows. By offsetting each row so that plants are on 6" centers throughout a bed that is 3.5-4 feet across, many more plants can fit that the package said.