Big Ideas for Small Gardens

If you have big garden dreams in spring, but only a tiny space for growing, you can still get amazing yields and beauty by using creative techniques and plant varieties bred specifically for space-challenged gardeners.

Mel Bartholomew, author of Square Foot Gardening, uses a set of raised beds divided into square-foot sections. He fills the beds with compost, aged manure, and organic matter to provide plants with an ideal soil mix that reduces the need for weeding or heavy tilling. Plants are arranged depending on space requirements and height, and since results are predictable, you plant only what you need.

Another space-saving technique is to plant fast-growing varieties such as radishes among slower ones such as broccoli or carrots. By the time the slower plants fill the space, the others will have been harvested.

Container planting also saves space, and you can easily move your plants around to display only what’s in bloom. If you don’t like the look of the pots, bury them and camouflage the tops with mulch. Vegetables can be grown in containers, too. For example, Pat Lanza, author of Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces, suggests growing potatoes in a trash can cut in half and filled with mulch.

Take advantage of vertical spaces also. Flowering vines on trellises, arbors, nets, and fences add a lot of beauty while only taking up a few inches of ground area. With proper support, it’s possible to grow many things vertically that normally sprawl along the ground. Bartholomew once grew a 30-pound pumpkin on a vertical support seven feet in the air. “I thought supports would be needed for the fruit,” he says, “but the plant just grew a stronger stem.”

With the introduction of dwarf varieties, it’s even possible to grow fruit bushes and trees in a small yard. There’s a blueberry bush, for example, bred especially for use in a container.

“Columnar apples in large containers or small spaces are truly wonderful,” Lanza says. “You don’t get a large harvest, but each apple is larger than usual.”

Pamela Kock is a freelance writer from southwest Ohio.

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