Bio-intensive Gardening

 

Bio-intensive gardening is a form of gardening that works well in cities, because space is at a minimum, and the desire for fresh vegetables is at a maximum.

John Jevons is the main writer on this approach. ("How to Grow More Vegetables" is a great book by Jeavons) The idea is to build the soil up by adding lots of compost and other organic fertilizers. You then are able to grow huge amounts of food in small spaces.

 

With this comes a lot of companion planting. This is when you grow plants close to one another because they have a mutually supportive relationship. A classic example of this is the three sisters: beans, corn, and squash. Corn grows tall and provides a space for climbing beans to grow up and squash grows out horizontally across the ground. By acting as a ground cover, the squash keeps down weeds and helps retain moisture in the soil. Corn takes a large amount of nutrient from the soil but beans add nitrogen back into the soil, balancing this out. They also taste good together.

 

Other ways that plants can help each other is by

 

• controlling pests, for instance planting basil in between the tomatoes plants keeps away insects that would eat tomatoes; 

• and by attracting beneficial insects, for instance pollinators like sage flours; and

• sharing different time and space, for instance a fast growing crop can be planted around a slow growing one and be harvest right when the slow one needs more space (radishes and cucumbers)

 

This approach encourages maximizing production by working with natural processes. It might be a very labor intensive approach, but it pays off incredibly.

 

Double digging the garden is another important technique used in the bio-intensive approach, whereby you loosen the soil, while still maintaining the structure of the soil. This is a good technique especially, for raised beds. (see the Jeavons books for descriptions and diagrams. This is an excellent opportunity to acquire a wealth of information on the most efficient gardening method we know. This information has been gathered from over thirty-five years of research, and is currently in use in over 130 countries around the world." This is an exert from his website.).