I’ve had more success with the Intensive Garden than any of the other family sized gardens
that I'm trailing as part of this RED Gardens project.
With the exception of the Polytunnel Garden of course.
A big reason for this is I've been able to learn from the experiences of others, as variations
of this intensive methodology have been a core focus of small scale organic growing
for several decades. Much of this can be traced back to the work of John Jeavons,
and the Grow Biointensive method that he detailed in his book How to Grow More Vegetables.
More recently these methods have evolved,
especially within the urban agriculture movement, but the main focus remains how to get as much
food out of a limited area as possible.
I see this intensification as a process where
resources and work that would normally be used to grow vegetables in a wider area, are
instead focus within a significantly smaller garden.
The aim is to get more out of that limited space, and I've found that that concentration
of resources and effort has definite benefits, but is not without its problems.
One of the core methods advocated by Jeavons is to double dig fixed planting beds, but
it seems that many people have shifted to less invasive and easier methods to cultivate the soil.
A big part of this is a desire to limit the
damages to the soil biology, and to make the task of managing the gardens easier.
I think this shift has a lot of validity, but I have continued to double dig this Intensive
Garden, in part to better understand the effects that it would have in the long term.
I am also intrigued by the possibilities that looser and more friable soil can make it a
lot easier for plants to grow, and that digging compost deep into the bed can substantially
increase the depth of topsoil.
While digging, I come across a few worms, but not as many as I'd like given their vital
role in soil health. And fewer worms is probably a sign that there
is less of a wide range of other soil biology as well.
But I have came to realise that there is still vast numbers of worms and other soil organisms
actively working as part of this garden. Only they are concentrated in the compost
pile, where most of the decomposition of organic material takes place.
The plants may be missing out in some way by not being directly associated with the
biological diversity that is involved in this decomposition, nutrient cycling and formation of humus.
But hopefully most of the benefits of these
essential processes is passed into the garden soil with the finished compost, especially
with the huge volume that is added each year.
My experiences with the No-Dig Garden have shown that there are real benefits of not
cultivating the soil and enabling the decomposition of the organic matter on the garden beds.
But the Intensive garden also works really well, I think mainly because of the loose
and highly fertile soil, even if it is less biodiverse.
I have been able to grow great vegetable using both of these diametrically opposed methodologies,
and I find that really interesting.
I think that the negative impact of the digging
is far outweighed by the amount of compost that I can integrate.
In recent seasons I have added as much as 3000L of finished compost to this 100m2 garden,
or about 30 wheel barrow loads, producing a layer about 45mm deep if spread over all the fixed beds.
That is a lot amount of fertility and organic
matter, and way more than can be generated and decomposed within the garden itself, and
a lot more than would be normally added to a vegetable garden.
The other big part of the Intensive methodology is to take advantage of the increased soil
fertility and depth by spacing plants much closer together.
There is often double the density of plants compared with other gardens, and this has
generally worked out quite well. But it has been a problem with some plants,
especially larger brassica varieties which get really tall and fall over other beds,
and resulting in reduced yields and I have difficulty accessing parts of the garden.
There is this idea that close plant spacing shades out weeds, although I have found that
weed pressure tends to be greatest earlier in the season when many of the crops are just
too small to make a difference. But the close spacing of plants means that
weeding generally needs to be done by hand so ends up taking longer than with some other gardens.
Another proclaimed benefit of this plant density
is that more of the ground is shaded, reducing evaporation and keeping the soil cool.
But this isn't such a big issue in Ireland because we normally have more rain than we
need, and the soil is often too cool for ideal growth.
Another focus of this Intensive approach is to try to get a succession of crops growing
in most of the beds each season, but I have had difficulty with this for a number of reasons.
Succession cropping relies heavily on transplants, rather than on direct sown seeds, but I have
not been great at looking after seedlings or keeping them healthy.
I also don’t have enough experience or focus to consistently have seedlings ready to transplant
in the ground as soon as the previous crop is harvested.
This is often compounded by weather, which often seems to turn cold and windy just when
I want to move the tender plants out of the protection of the polytunnel.
This is especially the case when trying to plant earlier in the season, and I increasingly
need to use season extending fleece or other crop covers.
We also can’t rely on decent weather in the autumn, and many crops planted later have
trouble maturing before the harsh winter weather sets in.
All of this would really benefit from more extensive temporary protection at both ends of season.
While I am getting better at adapting methods
for growing different crops and keeping the beds full most of the time, I unfortunately
tend to run out of steam or loose focus later in the summer and don't always keep on top of everything.
All of this digging, the extra fertility, the close spacing of plants and the succession
of crops really does result in higher yields. I harvested almost 400kg of a wide range of
vegetables last year, and it looks like I could get more than 500kg from this 100m2
garden this season. This is a lot of food for a family and is
substantially more than I have been able to harvest from the Extensive or No-Dig gardens.
As one extreme example, a crop of parsnips last year was huge, both in terms of the size of each root
and the 20kg harvested from 1m2 of growing bed, about 4 times the yield from the other gardens
Of course it is more work, so while the yield
is higher, the yield per hour worked seems to be surprisingly similar to the other gardens.
I anticipate that this intensive gardening method with continue to be one of the most
productive methods I am trailing, but then again that is the main objective.
There are a few things I am looking at refining over the next few seasons.
I suspect that the soil in this garden would benefit from adding other amendments, in addition
to the general compost, but for this I would need to do another soil test.
I plan to experiment with different varieties of some vegetables which may be more appropriate
to the methods of this garden. I also need to get better at caring for transplants,
and to find ways to improve my timing for crop succession.
I am hoping to try out different types of cold frames and other forms of protection
to create better growing conditions at the beginning and at the end of the season.
The aim is to really push this Intensive Garden, more so than the other gardens, to see how much food
I can get out the limited space, while keeping an eye on the resources and effort that this would take.
And to figure out how this can be done without reducing the resilience of the garden,
too much, or compromising the quality of the vegetables that are produced.
This Intensive Garden is one of 7 family scale gardens that I am trailing as part
of the RED Gardens Project, which are the focus of many of the videos on this YouTube channel.
Up until now all of this work has been largely voluntary,
but I’m going to need to start getting some kind of funding if I'm going
to continue the development of these gardens and to produce many more videos like this one.
That is where my Patreon page comes in.
If you would like to support me in this exploration, please follow the link here
or in the description below to find out how to become a Patron.
Patreon pledges are a like compost,
the more I get, the more I'll be able to share from these gardens in the future.
But for now, thanks for watching.