Planting with Drought in Mind

When I plant my vegetable garden, I follow a modified version of what is often called Intensive Spacing. Square Foot Gardening is one example of a garden method that relies on intensive garden spacing.  It does not use farm-style rows; instead, plants are set into the garden in a grid-pattern, and they often are placed very near to each other. (Note: The Square Foot Garden book has helped a lot of new-gardeners find success in growing food, and in many ways it is pretty awesome.)

My version is modified in that the spacing I use is a bit roomier than in some of the grid-style intensive planting schemes I have seen. There is more than one reason for my spacing plants a bit farther apart than is sometimes recommended.

The intensive planting guide that I started out with, John Jeavons' How to Grow More Vegetables , suggests starting bush beans at a 6-inch spacing, and that is what I tend to use, but for big varieties like 'Provider' bush beans I make the spacing bigger.  The Square Foot Gardening book I read (early edition, so it may be changed now) suggests a shorter distance - fitting as many as 9 bean plants into a square foot of garden. My version fits 4 (or fewer) plants into one square foot of space.

The theory supporting tighter spacing is that even though there may be fewer beans per plant, the overall productivity of the square foot of space will be higher. That makes total sense.

However, when the tops grow to maturity and are making beans galore, the dense tangle of leaves and stems make the beans hard to find. For me, the convenience vs. exasperation factor is a consideration.

This tangle of growth can be a problem for more plants than just the bush beans. Following the suggested spacing for many crops in intensive planting systems can result in a mess.

The second reason for wider spacing is related to drought and the time required to water a garden. When plants are spaced more closely together, their roots cross into each others' soil-space. The roots of several plants will all be pulling nutrients and water from the same chunk of soil.

In a drought, in hot weather, a mature garden with big plants will need a lot of water. If those plants are very close together, all trying to get moisture from the same little bit of soil, they may need to be watered every day. Plants in raised bed gardens (which dry out faster than in-ground gardens) may need to be watered twice a day. Do I have time for that? No.

Steven Solomon, whose book Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times, has a tip for growing food in drought conditions. The tip is to make the plant spacing even wider when rain is scarce.

If the original spacing was fairly close, and the rains have stopped indefinitely, he suggests pulling some of the plants out of the garden. The remaining plants will have less competition for water, and the gardener will need to water a little less often.

My sister in Louisiana plants her bush beans 9 inches apart. Since her area is hotter and drier than mine,  NW of Atlanta, this spacing makes sense for her garden. She doesn't have time to water every day, either.

For gardeners who need high productivity and who can get plenty of water out to the garden in a long, hot, dry spell, the closer spacing patterns will be a better choice.

For the rest of us, if our upcoming summer gets as hot and dry as the last one, and if watering the garden becomes a seemingly endless chore, you might consider pulling up a few plants to see if Steve Solomon is right.

System of (Garden) Intensification

Most of the world's farms are very small, on the scale of a few acres or less, and they are mostly in what we think of as less developed nations, so changes in methods/practices that increase their crop yields have the potential to do a lot of good in the world. These are the farmers and countries for which enhanced farming success can make a real dent in local hunger and poverty levels.

An article linked over at Resilience.org (used to be Energy Bulletin), titled "How Millions of Farmers are Advancing Agriculture for Themselves," tells about a farming method that has improved crop yields for a lot of these farmers.Yields per hectare have shot through the roof for these people when they use what is called the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). The system has been adapted to additional crops, but it started with rice.

According to the article, part of the advances made are from using huge amounts of organic material (mostly composted), part is from using a wider plant spacing, and part is from using healthy transplants at the right stage of growth. 

The different use of the word "intensive" was a little surprising for me. What I have come to know of as Intensive Gardens are usually planted with quite close plant spacings. However, one organization that I especially associate with intensive gardening, the Ecology Action group in California, recommends that each gardener find out for him or herself what the optimum spacing is for his or her own garden. The group has published at least one small booklet that teaches gardeners how to experiment to find the optimum plant-spacing for their own gardens. The teaching series that the group publishes is really, very useful for gardeners who want to improve their yields.

In my own garden, I have gone back to wider plant spacings than are generally recommended in the  better-known intensive methods, because it has seemed that my garden is more productive when the plants have a little more room. This may be because my garden isn't in full sun, causing shading to be a bigger factor than in other gardens, or it could have something to do with the humidity and heat in the Southeastern U.S.  There is no good way for me to know the exact "why" without running a bigger experiment than my yard has room for.

The "greater success when more compost is used" part of SRI  is the same across many styles/methods of gardening, especially for those used in areas where the soil is mostly clay, or sand, or rock. (Exceptions to the "needs more organic matter" rule can probably be found in places like the Eastern Shore of Virginia, where the topsoil is richly black, crumbly, and deep.) The article didn't say, though, where all that organic matter comes from for the SRI farmers.

The part of the SRI system that ends up being the biggest roadblock for some farmers is the transplanting part. Rice and other cereals that "tiller" are more likely to put out more tillers and to become more robust when the seedlings are set out at an earlier stage than is generally practiced. The SRI seedlings, being smaller and younger, require more care in the planting, and getting the spacing right also takes a bit more attention on the part of the planters. In other words, this whole step is very labor intensive.

However, even in non-grain gardens, the health of transplants (purchased or home-grown), their stage of growth, and the care with which they are set in the garden can be overlooked as factors in a garden's success. For my own grown-from-seed plants, I put a lot of effort into keeping them growing well, repotting when it seems they might be slowing down, and paying attention to the soil moisture and the lighting. When I've done a good job, I am rewarded with a productive garden!

I am less good at hardening-off the babies as it gets closer to time to plant them in the yard, but I do make an effort. When I don't phase them into the sunlight slowly enough, the little plants tell everyone who happens to glance their way about my lack of care by wilting.

For most of the SRI farmers, getting it right is crucial. And there are more and more people in this country for whom access to good food is getting tighter. Gardening, and getting it right, is looking like a pretty important endeavor.