In respect to its food producing purpose, gardening is distinguished from farming chiefly by scale and intent. Farming occurs on a larger scale, and with the production of saleable goods as a major motivation. Gardening is done on a smaller scale, primarily for pleasure and to produce goods for the gardener's own family or community. In part because of labor intensity and aesthetic motivations, gardening is very often much more productive per unit of land than farming.

Vegetable farming has traditionally been done in long rows. This allows machinery to cultivate the fields, increasing efficiency and output. For the average gardener however, other techniques are often much more effective.

Over the past 100 years a new technique has emerged--raised bed gardening, which has increased yields from small plots of soil without the need for commercial, energy intensive fertilizers. Modern hydroponic farming yields very high yields in greenhouses without using any soil, but expends much more energy.

Wherever there is adequate sunlight, plants may be made to grow. For vegtable gardening however, full sunlight for most of the day is usually required for good results.

Raised Bed Gardening

In raised bed gardening, the soil is formed in 3-4 foot (1.0-1.2m) wide beds, which can be of any length. The soil is about 0.5-1 foot (15-30cm) above the surrounding soil, sometimes enclosed by a frame generally made of wood or concrete blocks, and enriched with compost made from leaves and grass clippings. The vegetable plants are spaced in geometric patterns, much closer together than conventional row gardening. The spacing is such that when the vegetables are fully grown, their leaves just barely touch each other, creating a microclimate in which moisture is conserved and weed growth suppressed. Since the gardener does not walk on the raised beds, the soil is not compacted and the roots have an easier time growing. The close plant spacing and the use of compost generally result in higher yields with raised beds in comparison to conventional row gardening.

Raised beds lend themselves to the development of complex agriculture systems that utilize many of the principles and methods of Permaculture. They can be used effectively to control erosion and recycle and conserve water and nutrients by building them along contour lines on slopes. This also makes more space available for intensive crop production. They can be created over large areas with the use of several commonly available tractor-drawn implements and efficiently maintained, planted and harvested using hand tools.

Sage Advice

I have most assiduously extracted this advice from various worthy but, happily, long-forgotten authors.

"Happiness is a quality of a person, not of a plant or a garden"

and the anticipation of joy in the writing of a book may be the reason why so many books on garden-making have been written. But even the fact that all books pass into oblivion does not deter another hand from making still another venture.

Cite: WikiBooks