"I'd love to have a garden, but my yard is too small." So say many people who want to grow their own food but think it's hopeless. Yes, yards these days are tiny and often so shady that only the moss is happy. But if you have any sun at all -- no excuses! Here are 10 ways to make the most of the garden space you've got. It's the Smart Car garden: small size, great mileage. Choose crops that yield big, but have a small footprint.
A carrot needs only four square inches to grow, which translates to two inches apart in the row, two inches between rows. Other low-rent, high-volume vegetables include beets, turnips, onions, scallions, radishes and greens.
Don't even consider pumpkins. Grow a zucchini plant. One zucchini plant. That's all you need. Grow cut-and-come-again crops, such as lettuce, mesclun mixes, spinach, Swiss chard and kale. Keep picking them, and they'll regrow. Look for words like "compact," "bush," "dwarf," "mini" and "baby" (applied to the plants, not their fruits) when researching varieties. Go vertical. Vining crops such as cucumbers, climbing beans or cherry tomatoes, grown on poles, trellises, arbors or fences, occupy the air above the garden.
Plant successions. Whenever an early crop, such as peas, comes out, plant a midsummer one such as paste tomatoes. Follow those with a late one such as kale. Practice interplanting. When you set out your Brussels sprout or broccoli plants in spring, there's room between them for scallions or lettuce. Those will be harvested before the larger plants shade them.
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