VEGETABLE GARDEN: INTENSIVE GARDENING METHODS

[Bill who putters]

Perhaps some tidbits of value. Now all i need is more light. ;))

Right now a balmy 83 F. with a dew point of 73 F. Yuck and the chiggers are about so my little toe on my left foot reminds me often.

[Billy]

And here it is presently 54F, and we are on our way to 80F (27C).

The article on intensive gardening looks good, but last year I tried to do intensive inter-planting with summer squash (low), and tomatoes (high). It was a disaster. I suggest not to make radical changes in your gardening. Try a small plot first, and then if it works, ramp it up. This year would have been great, if we weren't running 10F below our 30 year average, and at least 2 weeks late.

[Bill who putters]

I'd hazard a guess that it much better to grow plants with less intensive design as our mistakes would be spread about a larger area.

Currently have beans and tomatos along with malabar and dill and a few other herbs one called Self Heal looking happy but water seems to be too much. Just had 55 MPH wind last week and rain so I'll hope things dry a bit and hope the Atlantic remains calm.

[Balvenieman]

Yes, a pretty comprehensive overview for casual readers but one that smacks of having been written by someone who does more writing about than actual gardening, LOL. Some of the recommendations, though they seem "reasonable", actually will be discovered to be counterproductive by gardeners who take them on face value without further consideration. Experience makes me question some of the recommendations about plant spacing, "relay" planting (known by me as "succession" planting for all these years; who knew?), and interplanting. My introduction to what then was called "French" Intensive Gardening would have been in the mid-to-late 1970's in the pages of the "real" TMEN. Intensive gardening, of course, evolves into raised-bed gardening (with or without frames) which seems naturally, in my view, to support wide-row or block planting which makes that weed control thing, that moisture control thing and that "microclimate" thing, in general, purely zydeco. I found these sites among my bookmarks; I guess that at some time I must have found some information therein useful. Perhaps others will, too. The first is a commercial site but among the articles, at least, the commercialization is low-key.