Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

Group:

Here is another question/answer by one of our "winners".

"Sometime ago I corresponded with you about Urban Agriculture in Clearwater, Florida. I believe that the "City" is now considering movement in that direction.

I make a distinction between Community Gardening and Urban Agriculture. Urban Agriculture is simply a much larger scale operation than Community Gardening and would probably more likely be operated by an individual or group of individuals than it would be by a community.

Larger scale operations similar to the one developed by Jacob Mittleider in Sopas, Papua New Guinea use beds with dimensions of 4 feet wide by 30 feet long that are designed for optimum control of water and fertilizer. And since then I've read about the beds with dimensions that are 18 inches wide by 30 feet long that are also designed for optimum control of water and fertilizer.

My question then is for larger scale gardening. Is there any advantage to using the 18 inch by 30 feet long dimension over the 4 feet by 30 feet long dimension?" Ronald Altic

Ronald & Group:

Narrow beds and boxes are almost always recommended for family gardening situations. Reasons include the fact that narrow beds are easier to care for, pruning is not as stringently ("Imposing rigorous standards of performance; severe") required, watering is most efficient since only the 10"-12"-wide root zone gets watered, and wide aisles surrounding every bed assure that no matter what crop is being grown all plants have ample space and light with minimal pruning.

Wide beds have the advantage of being able to grow 4 rows of most vegetables in only 8' widths (4'bed & 4' aisle), rather than the 10' required with narrow beds (vertical crops would only have 2 rows per 4'-wide bed or box). This can amount to a 25% increase in yields in the same space.

Wide beds work better for big growers than they do for the family gardener because large growing operations often devote large areas to growing a single crop of smaller plants, such as lettuce, cabbage, beets, etc. These are ideal for 4'-wide beds, as the 2' center "aisle" gives ample space for them to spread out without severe pruning.

And large operations have the experience, labor, and financial incentive to provide the extra pruning necessary with larger and vertical crops in wide beds with only 2' "aisles" between the rows of plants.

Jim Kennard

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