How to Grow More Vegetables in Same Garden Space

Organic vegetable growing compost stocks are being replenished daily in garden centres and more people are growing their own vegetables in 2009 than ever before. In the UK, the National Vegetable Society continue to exhibit prize winning vegetables at this summer’s gardening shows including Gardening Scotland, the latest Spring 2009 newsletter of Gardening Scotland 2009 reports “GROW-your-own fever has gripped the country”. In the US, Michelle Obama has taken a lead on growing more edibles at the White House.

Organic Kitchen Garden South Lawn White House

Michelle Obama has created an organic “victory” garden at the White House, on the South Lawn, a 1,100-square foot organic kitchen garden, with the digging started off by Michelle Obama with 26 Washington schoolchildren. Megan Mulligan in the Guardian (March 20, 2009) writes that Michelle Obama said of the White House’s organic kitchen garden “my girls like vegetables more if they taste good, especially if they’re involved in planting it and picking it, they were willing to give it a try.”

Growing more veg in the same backyard is possible with planning and some intensive planting methods such as companion planting, succession planting and interplanting.

Companion Planting

Advocates of companion planting have local gardening know-how from trial and error of pairing vegetables and planting vegetables as companions to herbaceous plants, fruit and shrubs. Cameron Elliot, garden designer Primo Landscaping, will be planting vegetables among roses in his Show Garden at Gardening Scotland 2009.

Studying horticultural books on growing-your-own veggies is research for what could work in a kitchen garden to grow more vegetables in raised bed. Raised beds have many advantages including higher yield and better disease plus pest control so more vegetables are produced.

Vegetable companion planting suggested by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh education courses includes planting carrots and the culinary herb fennel in a high sided raised bed. Growing carrots in a raised bed allows management of carrot fly plus companion planting with fennel will disguise the smell of growing carrots to pests.

Successive Sowing and Planting

Sowing peas and planting out seedlings of Pisum varieties in succession is accepted gardening practice for growing more peas by extending their season. Low wastage means economical growing. Janeen R. Adil suggests a variation to produce more veg in the same raised bed, in Accessible Gardening for People with Physical Disabilities (Woodbine House, 1994), “a crop can even be planted before the old one is done.. zucchini seeds can be planted right between the rows of still-producing peas, thus gaining several weeks’ growing time. In areas where growing seasons are short, this technique is particularly handy”.

Interplanting

Interplanting is different as a gardening practice; the vegetable plants are interdependent:

• Salad lettuce leaves are quick growing and readily scorched by full sun. Planting lettuce with taller growing leafy vegetables like calabrese or corn will give some shade to growing lettuce.
• Root vegetables can be interdependent plants growing in the same raised bed. Interplanting parsnips and radishes is beneficial as the early crops of radishes aerate the soil for slower growing parsnips, vegetable produce later in the season.

Companion planting, successive planting and interplanting in a raised bed system are intensive methods for a kitchen gardener to grow more veg from the same garden space.