If you want to start growing vegetables this year, you don’t need a large garden area to start. All you do need is good soil, plenty of sunshine, a water source and maybe a fence. Limited space doesn't necessary need to be an obstacle for growing vegetables. If you plan well and organize your garden efficiently, you will have maximum vegetable yields even in minimum space. If your garden space is limited, use the land twice or try these intensive cropping techniques.

Space Saving Techniques in Small Vegetable Gardens

Succession planting - As soon as one vegetable crop stops bearing, plant another. After short-season crops such as spinach, lettuce, radishes and peas have stopped producing remove them and plant carrots, beets, Swiss chard, turnips or green beans for a later crop.

Companion crops - In small gardens, you can sow the seeds of a fast and slow growing vegetable together in the same row. Carrots and radishes are a great example. Radishes are a short-season (fast maturing) crop so you will harvest it long before carrots (slow maturing) need room to grow. Another method is to alternate rows of fast and slow maturing vegetables. An example would be a row of leaf lettuce between two rows of tomatoes.

Planting “bush” varieties. "Bush" refers to growing habit of some vegetables - these plants take up less space in the garden than standard varieties. Bush varieties of some vegetables, like tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, peppers and squash produce fruit on much shorter vines which saves space in your garden.

Interplanting - Is another great way to save space in the garden by growing two or more vegetables in one area. You can transplant slow starting, late-planted crops (such as tomatoes, peppers, bush squash, and cucumbers) between rows of peas, spinach, and other short-season crops. The short-seasoned vegetables will mature quickly, and you will harvest them before the late-planted crops need more space to grow.

Use vertical space by staking and trellising - Vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beans may be supported by stakes, trellises or fences and grown upright rather than on the ground. Use a trellis or fence to support pole beans, cucumbers, and squash; cage or stake tomatoes. Grown this way, veegetables will take much less room so you can grow more.

Square foot gardening - is the practice of planning small but intensively planted gardens. You mark off the garden into squares of space for crops rather than planting in straight rows. Different seeds are planted in each square, to ensure a rational amount of each type of crop is grown, and to conserve seeds instead of overplanting, crowding and thinning plants, depending on the space needs of the plant.

To learn more about growing vegetables, visit Laminated Garden Guides, your one-stop resource to learn how to start a vegetable garden with subjects like: Home Vegetable Gardens, Container and Raised Beds Gardening, Growing Tomatoes, Herb Gardening and many more. Visit Laminated Garden Guides to learn how to start a vegetable garden!