5 Tips to Maximize Your Garden Growing Space When You Have a Small Yard
Use Beds, Not Rows
In bigger yards, you usually see gardening done in rows. But for a smaller yard, rows take up too much space, preventing you from planting as much as you might want. This is why you should use gardening beds.
If you’re new to gardening, a gardening bed is a dirt area where you put various plants, such as vegetables and fruit. Often, it’s boxed in with short walls, the beds are slightly raised. Because they’re above ground, you can make sure that the soil in the bed is exactly what your plants need. You can garden to your heart’s content without worrying about accidentally destroying your crops. Just make sure that you can reach all the plants in the bed so that you can take proper care of them.
Garden Vertically
As funny as it sounds, the direction in which you plant does matter. When you’re in a small area, you want to garden vertically, not horizontally. Horizontal spacing takes up a lot of space and leaves you little room to plant other crops or move around your yard. Instead, place your garden in a vertical position to clear up space for more crops. This can be done in a lot of different ways, so it’s easy to find a style of vertical gardening that fits your yard.
If you have plants that vine, trellises, arbors, and other supporting structures can encourage your plants to grow up rather than growing down and spreading out. You want to ensure that your support doesn’t rot or rust, so consider using steel products to build it.
You can also create a hanging garden, with plant containers hanging from the ceiling, the fence, the wall, or wherever else you can find. You have a lot of flexibility with this one, as these work both indoors and outdoors. You can use regular plant pots, fabric, tin cans, and even wood frames for these gardens.
Combine Crops
If you’re looking to plant a lot despite the small space, you’re going to love this piece of advice. Certain crops can be planted together with others. This is known as interplanting or intercropping.
When you’re combining crops, you want to ensure that the different plants will grow well together. Neither should be hogging the nutrients, water, or sunshine that the other plant needs. This requires some careful planning, but you can do it. Consider planting tall plants amongst shorter plants that like shade or fast-growing plants with plants that take a little more time. Not only does this free up much needed space, it allows you to add diversity to your small garden.
Container Gardening
Nothing can help you maximize growing space in your garden than a gardening pot. Gardening pots are usually the go-to option when you’re trying to garden in a small area. Most pots are small, so you can easily transport them to another area. Some pots are even small enough to fit on the edge of your windowsill, which is a great place for them to soak in the sun.
Bigger pots are great for growing vegetables or flowers that like to spread out a bit. It’s a little easier to grow plants in bigger pots, but those pots are more difficult to move once everything is planted. Remember that all containers need to have drainage holes.
Use Plant Cages
Plant cages are something that people use to control the growth of a certain plant. While they can vary in size, the average cage is about the size of a traditional gardening pot. You mainly see people use plant cages for things like tomatoes or grapes, but you can use them for other crops as well.
Having a small yard can make it seem like gardening is impossible, but that’s not true. While you may not have a full greenhouse, that doesn’t mean you can’t garden. This information is for you to use when you want to indulge your green thumb.
Anita is a freelance writer from Denver, CO. She studied at Colorado State University and now enjoys writing about health, business, and family. A mother of two wonderful children, she loves traveling with her family whenever she isn’t writing. You can find her on Twitter @anitaginsburg.