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What is going on, everyone? This is the first time I am sharing my quick gardening tips podcast here on dsound - and I'm glad to be here!

Click on the image above to listen to the podcast, or you can read the transcript if you're more of a words person!

~ Kevin

Today, we're gonna talk about biointensive planting, specifically for greens in a raised bed, and so this is a question that I have for myself, because I have a bed out in my front yard right now that's all arugula. I love arugula. It's one of my favorite greens, and I absolutely love it when I mix it with a little olive oil, a little Parmesan cheese just to cut down on that spiciness, but recipes are for another episode ;)

What we're gonna talk about is, how do I get the most out of my bed, right?

Let's imagine that I've got a four-foot by four-foot bed and I'm growing arugula, or any sort of green that has a standard size when it's an adult. You might be tempted to follow what's on the back of the seed packet, but that might not be the best approach when it comes to squeezing the most out of your garden.

What I noticed for myself is the first time I ever planted arugula I spaced it as per the seed packet. And what that did is it made it so that when an arugula plant was next to another arugula plant, at an adult size, the leaves, the very end of each leaf of each plant were touching each other, but just barely. So there was quite a bit of open space in between those two plants.

What I realized is I could drastically decrease that amount of space while not losing a lot of the upsides of that spacing. What I did is, let's say you have a four-foot by four-foot bed. First of all, one of the things that people will do is they'll plant too far in on the edges. They'll plant a little bit too far in on their edges because ... I don't know what it is, it's maybe some psychological thing where we wanna not plant too close to the edge?

Well, your roots are gonna be fine. It's okay that there's that vertical barrier on the wall, so I plant very close to the edge because I treat that edge as unlimited free space on that side where the raised bed ends. So, I'll plant about an inch in from the edge of my raised bed, and so already I'm gaining some space.

Imagine if you were planting four, five inches, six inches from the edge in your raised bed, well, you just sacrificed a foot of a four-foot bed, if you consider that spacing on both sides. Whereas if you plant maybe an inch in, give yourself a little bit of room on that side, well, you just saved five inches per side or 10 inches, which, when we get into the spacing between plants, is an entirely new row. So, that's another four-foot row of greens that you could be growing!

So, here are a couple of things to think about. Number one, the idea of a living mulch. This is what happens in a forest. The forest creates a canopy, right? And the canopy has its own properties. The canopy is blocking light. It is retaining humidity. It is keeping a microclimate that is much different below the canopy that is above the canopy. So, think about your garden and especially in this example your raised bed greens garden as a miniature forest.

Let's go back to arugula. You've got your arugula, right? Let's say you have a two-row bed of arugula. Well, the closer you put those together, the easier it is for those leaves to create that canopy between the row.

Of course, you can plant too close. The ultimate example of planting too close is literally planting seeds in the same spot, but what you're trying to do here is figure out the spacing that is going to give you a nice little canopy so you're not gonna need to mulch, you're not gonna need to water as often. Weeds are gonna be kept down because they're gonna be getting less light, so they're not gonna germinate as readily.

Another thing to think about is, a lot of the times when we're growing something like a greens, it's a cut and come again green where you're chopping around for the most mature leaves and then letting that plant continue to grow. So, what you can do is you can plant quite close together.

I'm planting my arugula anywhere from three to four to maybe five inches apart and I'm getting a absolutely incredible yield. Because, it's one of my favorite greens. It's because one of the greens I use in the kitchen all the time, right? So, what I do is I come out and I just trim the rows. Every five to six days I come out, I trim those rows, I get my salad greens, and then I give a little breathing room so I'm not absolutely crowding out the plants, and I let them grow back in.

And I think this is where a lot of people make a mistake if they're really trying to pump out as much yield as they can out of their garden, right? They're not really thinking about their spacing. I'll admit, I was one of the first people to break this rule myself. I didn't do that. I would have massive gaps in between the rows out of massive gaps on the edges and it looked nice. It looked very aesthetic, very clean, very orderly but you know what? So does a beautiful bed that's pumping full of greens that is quite biointensively planted.

So, that's a quick tip. I hope that's helpful. I'm really curious to hear what your guys' strategies are for planting spacing.

Thanks For Reading!

If this is your first time reading my writing, thank you! Please leave a comment so I can get to know you better.

My name is Kevin and I run Epic Gardening, a website, podcast, and YouTube channel. My goal is to teach 10,000,000 people how to grow their own food.

I'm a big believer in Steemit and decentralized platforms, so I'm going all in on Steemit, dtube, and dsound. Be sure to check me out there too! You'll find me writing about gardening, travel, health, and philosophy - I can't seem to stick to one topic :P

Thanks and happy Steeming,