Grow An Abundant Vegetable Garden With Limited Space

When I was growing up, I lived in a small row home in the city. Our tiny backyard was not large enough to have the vegetable garden my dad always wanted, but he knew how to take advantage of the limited space he had using a few techniques that I am going to share with you now. None of them were particularly crazy, just some practical, common-sense, easy to follow solutions.

One of the easiest things you can do right now is to pick plants that have high yields. By growing plants that grow more produce per plant, you will need to plant fewer of them. For instance, cherry tomato plants, peas, beans, zucchini, all have very high yields. So, simply planting just one or two could produce all that you need in a small space.

Do you companion plant? Companion planting is when lay out your vegetable garden so that plants with different needs are next to one another. It may mean that they have different nutritional needs and by planting them together, they do not fight for the same nutrients. Two plants may structurally support one another. For example you can plant Royal Burgundy Beans in between your corn and allow the beans to use the corn as a trellis. Or, it may mean that one plant provides needed shade for a smaller plant. I love planting lettuce under my tomatoes in the hot summer. The tomato?s shade keeps the lettuce from bolting.

You should rotate crops from season to season to prevent disease. You can also do an in-season crop rotation. To accomplish this, you plant your vegetables based on their temperature requirements. Plant cold tolerant plants in the early spring when temperatures are cool and then replace them (after they have been harvested) with summer varieties.

Learn how to grow vegetables vertically. You might be limited on the amount of space you have, but the sky is the limit, literally, when you grow your plants vertically. Vegetables such as cucumbers, beans and some squash are great candidates for vertical growing. If you let them grow out horizontally they can take up a tremendous amount of precious space. If they grow up a structure, strong enough to support them, you can use all that vertical space to your advantage. This will allow you to grow more varieties, too.

As you can see, these basic, common sense solutions can solve the real problem that many people face with limited garden space. Follow these suggestions and you will be well on your way to harvesting more vegetables from your garden this season.