Many would-be gardeners live in dwellings with limited gardening space. Suburban sprawl, smaller lot sizes and spreading trees that shade much of the property have made the typical garden smaller over the past few decades.
Apartment or townhome dwellers may only have a balcony, and garden homes often have little to no room for a garden! If you would like to garden but think you don’t have the space, take heart! There are several ways to make the most of your limited space to grow more groceries. Here are six ideas to increase your gardening productivity.
SPACE-SAVING PLANTS
Some vegetable species take up more space than others. Yet even among the sprawlers there are often cultivars that are much more compact.
When space is limited, look for vining vegetables in “bush” form. Mail-order seed catalogs offer several bush cucumbers whose two-foot vines can be kept in a small area. Other crops with more compact cultivars include sweet potatoes, watermelons, pumpkins, butternut and spaghetti squash.
Tomatoes that are determinate reach a confined size and mature their crop. There are even some very short-statured cultivars that are in the 12- to 24-inch range. Peppers and eggplant also come in short-statured cultivars.
SPEEDY SPECIES, CULTIVARS
Some vegetables take up garden space for months on end, while others are in and out in a fraction of the time. While many factors (including soil, nutrients and temperature) will greatly affect the time it takes for a crop to mature, the days-to-harvest number is a good way to compare one cultivar or species to another.
Choosing species and cultivars that have lower days-to-harvest intervals means that over the course of a season you can have more harvests in a given amount of space. For example, some leaf lettuce cultivars reach their harvest size in around 45 days while some types of head lettuce may take over 70 days to fully form. You can grow and eat a lot more lettuce per square foot of garden space with a succession of fast-maturing leaf lettuces. This is true for other crops, as well.
As an added factor, here in Texas our summer heat shuts down many of our warm-season fruiting vegetables and the lengthening days of late winter and early spring cause quite a few cool-season vegetables to bolt (send up a flower stalk), which causes quality to drop drastically. Choosing cultivars with fast days to harvest makes sense because our seasonal changes are not kind to slowpoke cultivars!
Species vary in their days-to-harvest intervals also. Radishes are among the fastest species from seeding out in the garden to harvesting, with some reaching the finish line in around 24 days! On the other hand, Brussels sprouts take more than 100 days to get there. While we all have vegetables we enjoy eating and others we’d prefer to avoid, the days-to-harvest consideration is a factor in planning your limited-space garden. It may be a factor in deciding which crops to grow and which ones to purchase from the grocery store.
Growing conditions will affect a plant’s development in significant ways. If the goal is to get a crop in and out so another can take its place, it makes sense to provide the best soil conditions by adding organic matter and in most cases by building raised beds. Plants benefit from optimum nutrition; so pre-plant nutrient additions and supplemental fertilizing will help your vegetables perform their best. Watering is obviously important, but we can often neglect to maintain moist soil conditions for a few days here and there to the detriment of plant growth and productivity.
A HEAD START
There is another way to get more from less space. You can shorten the time it takes to get a plant to harvest by planting larger, more mature plants. Rather than letting a plant take up garden space for the entire span from seed or small transplant to harvest, grow it as a transplant for a longer time, moving it to progressively larger transplant containers, so that when it is planted into the garden harvest time is not that far away.
This will mean moving the plants from a “six-pack” type transplant tray to a 4-inch pot and, in the case of some species (such as tomatoes, eggplant and peppers), even to a 6” or gallon pot. I like to start tomato transplants in December and move them up to larger containers as they fill each pot size. By the time I plant them, there are blooms and even small fruit on the plants. They are weeks ahead of plants being set into the garden from the small six-pack tray.
This means you will need to have a spot where some transplants can be growing while they wait for their big debut. Think of it as the “on deck circle” of baseball. This can be an indoor location with bright light or supplemental lighting, where plants will be protected from the cold of late winter, or a spot outdoors with bright shade for plants in mid- to late summer.
The goal is to move the transplants-in-waiting into their garden spot at the first opportunity when the weather allows or when another crop is pulled out. You’ll need to plan accordingly so that your plants are at the desired size or age when the space becomes available.
Squash, peppers, eggplant and cole crops can also be given a head start. It is less advantageous to try the head-start technique with fast-growing crops, although even with fast-moving species (like lettuce) you can gain a little time this way.
Don’t leave plants in a container too long before moving them to the next larger pot size or they will become root-bound, resulting in stress and stunting. Root crops such as carrots and beets are not suited to this technique as it will result in deformed roots.
Another way to get a head start is to plant a fast-maturing plant such as radish, lettuce or green beans alongside a slower-maturing plant such as tomatoes, cabbage or Brussels sprouts. Sometimes it helps to plant the fast-maturing plant first, and as it nears harvest start the slower maturing plant to take over when the fast crop is done.
PORTABLE GARDEN SPOTS
The space available to put in an in-ground garden may be limited, but you can always spread your garden around the property with portable gardens — containers that can be moved to wherever there is adequate sunlight. This means a patio, porch, driveway, sidewalk or balcony can support a few vegetables growing in a medium- to large-size container.
I like containers because they can be moved to where the sun is. Start them in an out-of-the-way location and move them to their selected spot once established and growing well. When they are done, they can be wheeled to the garden work area for replanting to start the process over.
Whatever kind of container you use, ensure it is large enough to support the plants you are growing. Most small greens and root crops will do fine in a container that holds at least 2-1/2 gallons of potting mix. Larger plants like tomatoes and cole crops prefer at least 5 gallons. Larger containers require less frequent watering and are great for mixed plantings.
A hand truck or dolly works well to move a large container around. Slip the dolly lip under the container, wrap a strap or rope around it that is attached to the dolly and off you go with very little strain and effort.
I have two wheelbarrows that are seasonal gardens of vegetables and flowers. They stop traffic when I put them out in the front yard. That spot out in the lawn where I could never put a garden becomes a garden spot when I park the wheelbarrow there. We have a homeowner’s association that…well…I’m sure they are well meaning. So I start my wheelbarrow gardens out back until they are pretty enough to move out front. I also move them around a bit to rearrange things and so I can mow the grass beneath them.
STRETCH THE SEASON
We’ve discussed starting plants ahead of time and choosing plants that reach harvest quickly so we can squeeze more crop cycles into a given year. There is another scheme to get more from your limited space. That is to stretch the seasons.
Just because a frost hits doesn’t mean that a warm-season crop has to end right then or that we can’t start warm-season crops a little earlier in the spring. Summer heat can cause most gardeners to delay planting cool-season crops for a long time while our hot summer weather drags on into fall.
Rowcover fabrics can protect a plant against a light frost. A plastic cover can be placed over a support structure made of gray PVC pipe to form a mini greenhouse. Add a source of just a little heat, such as some incandescent light bulbs, and you can make a world of difference in holding some plants longer in fall or starting them earlier in the spring.
Shade cloth stretched above the row will lower soil temperatures to help fall-planted seeds or transplants get off to a good early start. Pre-germinating seeds or starting transplants indoors in summer to move outside once they are sprouted and growing are two more techniques for stretching the fall season earlier than the hot outdoor weather of summer would otherwise allow.
Lettuce and other greens in a cool-season mix will bolt in the longer days of mid-spring but you can start them inside and then plant them out beneath a light shade cover and harvest while they are still young and prior to bolting. Then start another batch a couple of weeks later to stretch their season on into warmer weather.
SPILLING OVER
Growing vegetables vertically is a great way to grow more in less space. Patty Leander has a great article on page 14 of this issue that discusses vertical gardening in detail; so I won’t go into it here. However, I will mention the upside down version. If you live in a townhome or apartment and would like to grow sweet potatoes, you can plant them in a large container and allow their long trailing vines to spill over the sides of a balcony.
Hanging baskets and plastic containers are another way to grow a crop where you don’t have space. A large hanging container can grow crops of small greens or host a vining plant (such as tomatoes or cucumbers) spilling over the sides.
So if you wish you could grow more in your limited gardening space, take heart! Give some of these ideas a try and you’ll grow more fresh produce for tasty, healthy eating.