If you have a small garden in your backyard or you live in an urban or suburban area and you want to start growing your own food then intensive gardening is something which you should try in the space you have available. Intensive gardening methods and can help even small spaces grow a lot of food.
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This post is part of a new mini-training series! I’m passionate to help people grow organic food at home and have food security. You can join over 20,000 people who listen to the Homesteading & Gardening In The Suburbs Podcast and listen to this post by clicking play below or read on to learn more.
What are intensive gardening methods?
Growing an intensive garden is not a new gardening method. Reading through a post-World War II gardening and food production book heralds many techniques that we can use in our garden today! Intensive gardening was used in war-time victory gardens across the USA and Europe to supplement rationed food items for those on the home front. There are some common techniques used in the intensive gardening methods they include:
- Double digging and ridging of soil
- Close spacing of plants
- Open-pollinated plant seeds with no hybrids
- Compost produced in the garden or on-site, not brought in
- Covering the soil with cover crops
- Diverse planting
Intensive gardening methods can help you grow more food in the areas you have available.
Why you should consider intensive gardening methods
If you are short on space in the garden then the allure of growing more food and having bigger yields are certain factors that need to be considered for your homestead garden! But there are some other benefits to intensive gardening methods.
Reduce Fertilizer
Using cover crops is kind of like you are growing your own fertilizer. Cover crops help to reduce soil erosion and are composted in place when the plant is turned under (turned upside down) or cut to stop the growth and decompose in the garden bed. This releases the nutrients into the growing area for the next crop to use.
Reduce Water
Smaller plant spacings, mulch, and rich, nutritious soil reduce the amount of water your garden needs. Soils high in humus or decaying organic matter hold more water than those which do not. Have you ever put your hand into the soil in a woodland? What about sandy soils? Sand doesn’t have much humus, and water goes straight through it leaving the soil dry. A soil rich in humus stay moist for longer, like a wrung-out sponge.
Reduce Pesticides
Using a diverse mixture of plantings, pests can’t hone in on a crop. Intensive gardening methods often use integrated pest management. Crops are planted with beneficial plants that help to attract predating insects like Praying Mantis, ladybugs, and even certain wasps.
Wallet Impact
Adding less fertilizer, even organic ones, and less water can positively impact your wallet! You have less to buy and if your water usage is on a meter, less spend on water usage throughout the year too!
Other techniques used in intensive gardening methods include seed saving which means, yep, you’ve guessed it! Fewer seeds that you need to buy.
Climate Impact
Quite possibly one of the biggest impacts that intensive gardening has is on the climate. Expanding global populations, water becoming more scarce, soil fertility declining are just some of the topics which global leaders, scientists, and farmers are faced with tackling when it comes to sustainable food production. Changes in weather or the climate globally and even the economic climate will affect the elements of food security. Those elements are:
- availability of food
- stability of the supply chain
- use of food available
- access to the available food
Maybe you remember the shelves clearing out in the panic buying during the pandemic of 2020? It was an eye-opening moment for many people.
How intensive gardening methods impact the climate
Farmers on small subsistence or smallholder farms and even home gardeners like YOU are some of the most creative and innovative people! Whether it is getting creative with your compost bin or in the kitchen with the harvest that you have; it’s never too late to change how you grow. And every little change adds up!
These intensive gardening methods sequester or pull out carbon dioxide from the air. This small step reduces your carbon footprint in the miles of shipping too. Since the food is grown in your backyard or close to your home!
They also allow you to grow more food in the area as well as maintaining soil fertility. There are fewer inputs from the outside such as purchased compost, pesticides, and fertilizers.
Learn More
This post is part of a mini-training series. Click the links below to take you to the next training.
Double Digging and Soil Improvement
Training not live yet? Check out some related posts below:
- How Can You Help Keep Seeds Patent Free?
- 7 Tips To Start Your Garden Right In 2021
- Tips For A Thriving Seed Bank
- How To Make Compost Even Faster
- The Ultimate Guide To Choosing The Right Seeds To Grow In Your Garden
- How To Mulch: Types and Benefits of Mulch
What’s your favorite benefit to intensive gardening? Let me know in the comments or over in the Facebook Group!
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