[doesn't matter what you call it; I didn't invent anything here but rely on many useful techniques from others inc. Eliot Coleman, John Jeavons, and years of Rodale Press books & Organic Gardening]
Intensive beds can raise production with less work and cost per pound of production. For example, usually beets or spinach are planted 6 inches apart in a row with 18 inches between rows. Instead plant them 6 inches apart in a row with 6 inches between rows. Make this a permanent bed 3 or 4 feet wide with a 1-2 foot aisle to walk on, just leaving enough aisle to get through without stepping on the beds and the right width to reach the middle from both sides. This way you can more than double the number of plants in the same garden space. Do the math. Double the plants, double the production.
Beds do not always need to be raised or framed at all. Drainage problems or thin topsoil may call for raised beds. You can experiment with a couple beds over a year or two. But it's a simple matter to convert a large single row garden to permanent beds. Just stake corners for beds, string around each bed, mulch the beds and stop walking on them.
Larger plants or vining plants need more space to grow of course. With squashes for example you won't get more plants in the same garden area, but by growing them in permanent mulched beds you can still conserve water and cut down weeding and insect damage. So you can get better production from the same number of squash plants or whatever with less inputs.
Mulching beds conserves moisture and keeps the soil and roots cooler in hot summers. And you only water the beds, not the aisles. So even though twice the plants are growing in the same garden space, water requirements do not go up. This also helps to prevent plant stress and insect damage. The sun bakes bare soil and the feeder roots near the surface, and the resulting stress invites insect damage. Mulch pays for itself in productivity and time saved.
Without empty aisles between single rows, plants grow to shade the mulch and soil, further reducing soil temperature and evaporation, and reduce light to any weeds that make it through the mulch. Each beds becomes a microclimate.
Beds make more efficient use of mulch and soil amendments. To get the same production with single file rows, you'd need to at least double the size of the garden. To mulch twice the space would mean double the amount of mulch. Only the beds need mulch. It also keeps down weeds, and walking in the aisles compacts the ground and keeps down weeds in the aisles. This saves time and effort.
By not compacting the bed soil with your feet the soil under mulch stays looser which helps root growth and production. You can save labor since there's no need to till up the whole garden next year and keep bringing weed seeds to the surface to sprout. Leave beds and aisles where they are; just add amendments to the surface and remulch for the winter. That makes permanent beds. If you're using driplines just pull the mulch and lines aside to add amendments, then replace.
True, adding mulch once a year is some time or expense, but the cost of not mulching or trying to mulch twice the garden area is far greater. And with healthy soil and mulched beds you won't need to till and cultivate, and that's time and money saved. Once the beds have a healthy level of organic matter, it only takes yearly addition of compost and whatever amendments on the surface, under mulch, to maintain fertility. The secret to surface decomposition is constant mulch and regular moisture. If you ever noticed old fence posts rot and break off at the soil surface instead of down in the soil, that's nature's way. The best decomposition works at the interface between the surface and the detritus covering it.
Some say you have to loosen the beds every year with a tool called a U-bar. It costs over $200 so let's just keep it mulched and save the money. Let the earthworms do the work, since they're not being chewed up all the time with tillers.
Okay, you've just doubled production. Now double it again by double cropping. Grow early and late vegetables in the same beds. This can get a bit tricky and takes experimenting. This usually means starting transplants early spring and more transplants to be ready when a bed is finished with the early plants. Other season extension techniques can be used such as floating row covers, cloches, cold frames, or greenhouse. Identify cool weather plants for spring like spinach, and those that do well with fall frost like cabbage, and those that need all summer to mature like tomatoes and peppers. Some need to be staggered for continuous market production, like carrots and beets. Some need late fall planting like garlic, but they harvest here in June or July and free up the beds for later crops. Some crops can be interplanted, started in beds before the plants there are finished. Perennials like asparagus or sunchokes need areas all to themselves all year - if you have room. But even growing perennials in permanent mulched beds keeps them contained and happy.
Now that's four times the production from the same garden space. And four times the sales at the market. If twice the plants is too much work, just grow vegetables in half the garden and use the other half to grow legumes or compost crops or small livestock.
This can be done without the cost of machinery, and with free local organic amendments, without any fossil fuel inputs at all. Of course it's not suited to large farming operations. But with far more production per acre or per square foot, who needs big farms? It is suited however to small local production in a million communities across the country, and can provide healthy food for market or neighbors, and good income for those with a little room to grow (or work with someone who has room). More importantly, it's part of the solution to the problems of freshwater depletion, topsoil loss, peak oil, climate change, pollution, health care costs, and unemployment. We don’t need permission, votes, grants, or foundation funding to do it. It’s a grassroots thing.
~~ tradingpost paul
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