Colin McCrate - High-Yield Vegetable Gardening: Grow More of What You Want in the Space You Have

This book is for people who are intent on getting as much food as possible out of their gardens no matter the size of their plot. There are many reasons why a gardener might take this approach. It may be that you simply want to feed your household from the garden year round. Perhaps youd like to set up a miniature farm stand by the mailbox for supplemental income, or sell a few vegetables at your local farmers market, or coordinate a community garden.

Drawing from our backgrounds in small- and large-acreage farming, as well as in backyard gardening, weve taken the systems and practices that successful, professional growers use every day and adapted them for use at the scale of a home garden. Using these techniques to manage your garden like a professional small farmer will dramatically increase its yields while maintaining soil fertility and your sanity. We call this approach high-yield vegetable gardening.

Understanding the basics of what makes a garden produce well is the first step toward creating a highly productive garden. Once youve identified these basics, you can then create systems to achieve maximum production. To get the most out of your garden, its important to do the following:

Select the best site and use it efficiently.Thinking ahead and placing annual and perennial crops in the most appropriate spaces is vital to getting the most from your garden. For most crops and climates, more sun is always better. Lay out your garden to maximize productive space, and find creative solutions for spaces outside of the main vegetable garden. Keeping a productive garden space requires using non-garden spaces in support roles.

Plan well and keep good records. Spend time before each season to make a thorough plan of the garden. Update the plan throughout the season as you make necessary revisions. Maintain an accurate record of these garden tasks, as well as what happens in the garden, and use this information to inform future plans.

Know your plants. To get the most out of your crops, you must develop a deep understanding of the physiology, genetics, and cultural needs of the plants. The more you know about your crops, the easier it will be for you to increase their yields.

Select the best crops. Choose crops and specific cultivars that perform well in your climate and are suited to a given season. Youll want to select varieties that are vigorous, produce well, and taste to your liking.

Grow for a purpose. Take the time to consider the goals of your project. Grow for the tastes you prefer and yields you can use. Make sure to have a use in mind for each crop before it goes in the ground.

Observe and respond. You are the best ongoing source of information about your own garden. Keep track of which varieties perform best and which pests show up. The insights you gain will enable you to customize your project to suit your specific conditions.

Maximize your time and energy. You save time and energy when you develop systems and use tools that maximize efficiency. Time is nearly always the most limited resource of the high-yield gardener, so be sure to make the most of it.

Maintain fertile soil. Successful growers say, Care for the soil, not the crops. Ongoing and meticulous care of the soil in your garden is essential. Soil amendment should happen several times every year.

Water well. Vegetable plants need consistent and adequate water. Carefully manage watering by the time you notice signs of water stress, the overall yield potential of your crops will have already been reduced.

Extend the seasons, but also expand them. Create spaces to extend planting and harvest dates earlier and later in the season. Stay organized with succession planting so that you can grow multiple crops in each space throughout the year.

Deal with pests, diseases, and weeds immediately. Closely and frequently monitor your garden for problems. Vigilance allows you to deal with them immediately.

Harvest and store crops smartly. Know the appropriate stage to harvest your crops and understand post-harvest care to ensure maximum quality and storage life.

In our experience, the most successful growers have a positive way of thinking about their gardens. Although intensive food production is challenging, these growers understand that they are most successful when they find joy in the process itself. They do not allow the inevitable struggles to tarnish their experiences. After all, intensive food production is hard work. It is at times exhausting and frustrating, and at times exhilarating and joyful. Crops will fail, seasons will be unexpectedly hot or cold, and more insects than you imagined possible will eventually cross your path.

To be successful and to improve their growing systems year after year, high-yield gardeners relish the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Likewise, they actively study the vagaries of nature. Like farmers, they understand that learning how their crops grow and how the plants respond to their care is vital to the success of their livelihood and well-being. It is embracing this interaction and the give-and-take with nature that makes food production so captivating and so rewarding. A successful grower recognizes that highs and lows are part of the agreement to work with nature.

While most everyone would prefer to spend less time weeding and more time harvesting crops that are free from insect damage, its essential to seek creative ways of overcoming the challenges that weeds, pests, and weather present, and to find joy in the simple pleasure of doing a little better each season.

You might say that production gardeners are a bit like artists; the soil is their canvas, plants are their medium, and each onion, apple, and head of lettuce is a work of art. Their work is a constant presence in everything they do.

Like artists, many growers find that their passion increases over time. As you become intimately familiar with your crops and your soil, your techniques will become second nature and you will truly get lost in your work. The most successful growers are those who continue to find new inspiration in their crops and systems. For some, experimenting with new varieties every year helps keep them engaged and motivated. For others, achieving a continual harvest of salad greens or breeding their own variety of winter squash feeds the passion.

Anyone can become an artist in their garden. No matter the size of your plot, youll find that as your knowledge and experience grow, so will your yields and your passion for food production.

To be successful and to improve their growing systems year after year, high-yield gardeners relish the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

This book is not a comprehensive encyclopedia of vegetable production. Rather, its a guide to help you maximize garden productivity at home. Although we provide useful information for growers at every skill level, we focus on techniques designed to increase yields for the production-minded gardener. We give you the systems, techniques, and knowledge used on small vegetable production farms every day. If you follow the processes detailed throughout the book, you can expect a more productive and educational gardening season.