At the end of 2020 I put in a decent - sized circle of single row garden . We had mislay our gardens in Grenada during the pandemic and were push to move back to the states , so it was imperative to get solid food grow quickly . I never care to be without a big garden , and with how defective our stain was here I think single rows were the ripe tool for convey a fast yield .
It operate . And not only did it put to work , I ’ve found it to work better than most of my other beds .
So much so that I did a video on the method a year after we started growing in simple single row :
It ’s bracing to go back to something simple-minded and in force . Weeding , watering , planting and harvesting are all simple . I did n’t have to build bed , make short ton of compost , or throw down net ton of mulch and cardboard .
I can basically just sit around and watch the turnips grow .
rent ’s see at what hoi polloi have to say about undivided row gardening :
Many hoi polloi mention that this method acting of horticulture brought them back to their puerility .
A M write :
“ I lost my Papaw 2 daytime after Thanksgiving … he was 80 years old and raised on a farm in Arkansas . He would till every give ( red clay ground ) , made his own compost , and grew in row . He had a wonderful garden and taught me to love uprise affair . ”
Susan Huggins writes :
“ Man , I am so glad you made this vlog . I ’m in my 60 ’s and have been garden , well , most of my lifetime . Grew up facilitate my mom in the garden . I garden just like she did . Which is on the button the way you are explaining today with minimal tilling . All I ever hear , in most vlogs , is DO NOT TILL , and I get it , but how I ’ve been doing it with remediate my bed with old leave and manure and never ever any chemical substance . All organic . And my garden are very abundant . I make love my words garden . I hump being erstwhile mode on purpose . ”
Charles DeVier writes :
“ Single row is the agency that my parent taught me ; and I have chiefly used it every year – I ’m now 78 . I have grown a slew of food during my spirit . ”
Kathleen Sanderson writes :
“ uprise up , we gardened in rows . When I had my own garden as an adult , I ’d been reading all the ‘ garden in beds ’ stuff , and that ’s what we did , for the most part . It ’s fine for little spaces , but if you have a large garden and necessitate to produce a circle of food , layer are a lot of special work . They have to be weeded by hand because the plant are too close together to weed with a hoe , or with a wheel - hoe . They take surplus water and redundant fertiliser , because , as you keep aver , the plant are too close together . I ’ll still habituate bed if I only have a lowly garden , but if I ’m endeavor to give rise a large per centum of our diet ? Plus possibly growing some provender for our chicken and goats ( and feeding the stock protector dog ) ? It ’s move to be mostly row gardening . ”
I think back my Great Grandpa Greene ’s huge garden in Upstate New York . It was also a dustup garden , and it was very fertile .
Though it ’s not the only way to garden , I mention in the telecasting that run-in horticulture is an excellent way to develop intellectual nourishment which we should not rule out , particularly if we ’re just prejudiced against it because it ’s “ old forge . ”
Mj K notes :
“ David brings up an excellent level . All systems have pros and cons . Using wood mulch and leave , I discover it almost impossible to do direct seeding ( which is why I only plant perennial ) . If I had less cadaver and more time for bigger gardens , I would definetly do single wrangle . Find the system that matches your time , cognition and interest and try it out ! The bad affair that can fall out is you instruct some matter and pass that noesis on to others in your surface area . We memorize more from our failures than our successes . We grow through trying . ”
Dylan Lemay write :
“ The thought of it being a toolkit , is really an important point . It ’s bang-up to learn all the different methods and see what works and what does n’t for you and your orbit . My father did and till , single row garden , but at the end of the season in upstate NY , he ’d confound mulch leaves ( free local resource ) over his entire garden region . total spring , it would be completely broken down and he had the darkest , ace nutritious robust soil I ’ve ever regard . Then he ’d till his row and industrial plant transplants and seed . It ’s fundamentally a mix and compeer of unlike concepts . It ’s corking to have a go at it them all if your growing for survival , and praxis makes perfect ! ”
Spells of Truth writes :
“ I was one of those edgelords that thought the straight line garden beds was outdated and in want of a ‘ better and more natural ’ method . So I tilled a footling 30x40 foot plot of land and used one of those ‘ fertilizer / salinity spreader ’ to mix together about 20 unlike specie of plants . I did this reasonably late into August so that is a massive broker . By tardy October I had decent sized white turnip in patchy section , about 20 cherry red tree sapling spread evenly throughout the plot of kingdom , 1 or 2 pumpkin patch up that never bewilder to fruit and that s about it . I could n’t tell what was weed , or what was vegetable / fruit and I stepped on a few turnips without noticing they were even there(meaning I prolly step all over other plants ) . Now that its December everything is ‘ mostly dead'(like Wesley from Princess Bride … ) except the Brassica rapa keep truckin . I m sure the result would be different if I did the same in April but just the not knowing what industrial plant is which , and the absence of any way to walk thru the patch of land without damaging what was growing make up me require to go back to the straight line garden seam . ”
Timothy Pollard writes :
“ I do a wad of single rows too and surface tilling … Because like you food was more authoritative than the method and this exercise . ”
Ellen Davis is saving money on lumber :
“ Thanks for save up me a lot of money . I will not do my 4 4 by 2 by 12 animal foot beds . I ’ll just up my game on single rows . ”
jabba0975 jj writes :
“ Wait….you want me to use decisive thinking skills about garden ? Are those even effectual ? Can I grease one’s palms them on Amazon ? ”
Criticisms and Questions About Single Row Gardening
My single row garden are tilled , and that has brought some push - back .
Matthew King writes :
“ I grew up gardening that manner with my grandparents . While I opine the initial results are great I do think long term results maybe differentWe can also learn from the past times about the eating away from cultivation laundry or shove along off the hummus your workings to create and cultivation make for smoke seeds to surface . Here in Georgia some six inch of top grease is exit from share cropping and corroding from having simple soil . I would intend cultivation would also not be very fertile to soil biology . It would seem counter generative to sum up a solid food rootage for biological science by rise a cover crop but naturalize it in and disrupting the biota . It would seem better to hack , fall and tarp or chop gather and compost . While I have nothing against using rowing , I used row of compost and apply compost as a mulch . Dowding has yr of comparisons that his no dig beds always produce more than his toil layer experiment . I put Dowding ’s cardboard and compost method acting to the test here in Georgia and was surprise by the consequence and being price effective . While being mostly a gardener and unexampled to mushroom refinement I find what I thought and screw about fungi as a nurseryman was not all correct . I think there is a gap between these two worlds . How some fungi have bacteria live within the mycelium and they live in a symbiotic relationship . Then some fungi consume bacteria , nematodes and insects . Then you have principal and lowly decomposers and they can maturate on all types of things like straw , Mrs. Henry Wood , grains , alfalfa , soya bean , manure , louse cast , compost , sucralose , fish hydrolysate and they seem to thrive with a added source of nitrogen . I suppose fungi choose acidic consideration and that ’s not always straight 6.5 - 7 and in finish you’re able to sum up lime to rear the pH scale to 8 to keep contaminates from growing in the substrate . I did n’t know fungi breathe tune and get Co2 . I do believe most soils are bacterially dominate because they can procreate much quicker than kingdom Fungi can grow . It is somewhat difficult to culture mushrooms without some case of airborne bacterium or fungi mature and take over . I do match with the pest consequence with cryptic mulch like slugs and Sir Henry Joseph Wood lice but the ability to mature edible mushrooms like wine cap or Amygdalus communis blazei along with my veggie as another food source while improve soil heath out weighs the pestilence . Their just doing there part to brake things down . In experiment grow wine cap mushroom with veggies showed great upshot with bring home the bacon plant health , mulch reaper binder and break down matter . I do bang a Youtuber that is converting some of there row plots to no till plots by tot a layer of compost every year and have good issue . I focuses on pass water good compost and providing good biology . I have heard someone say before if you focalize on being a germ farmer you will produced good plants and salutary intellectual nourishment . ”
Yes – tilling can definitely wreck an region , and building up the soil life is certainly a just exercise .
Janet Robison drop a line :
“ I use single dustup garden and I put grass clipping from my lawn on the bare ground to keep the weeds out and the moisture in . It get out down and bung the plant too . ”
Benny Walsh asks :
“ You pertain on a subject that has me lost . I ’m grip by Johnson Su and Dr Elaine Ingham ; situation about no till , regenerative ontogeny and bass mulching . BUT , I ’m in Georgia zone 8b by about ten miles and very few , if any Southerner practice or have faith in woodchips , deep mulch etc . You mentioned pests . Do you mean our humid climate and amazing critters make these methods too difficult or abnormal to try here ? ”
I responded to this with :
“ I had bad problem with deep mulch in the south . It progress great humus , but the insects in the south are amazing . ”
jax I writes :
“ i bag all my grass clippings and put it down in my row i till it in in early fall and plant trefoil and mustard over the winter for cover charge harvest i start with essentially beach sand and now over the years bult the soil up to where i do nt really have to do much during the summer months . everyone in the area come to me and asks what i done to be capable to grow a garden . ”
Humus is fundamental !
ManofInterests responds to my menace to write a new book on single row gardening with :
“ ” The book ” has already been written . “Joy of Gardening”by Dick Raymond from Garden Way press . ”
Good admonisher . I own that ledger and enjoyed study it some year ago .
Back when Raymond write his book , Troybilt tillers were still well - made …
jcmustian writes :
“ In a drier climate , do you recall you would just increase space ? ”
Yes , definitely .
Robin Lillian observe :
“ Old time farmers had plenty of land . The bulk of modern people in America only have a small backyard , if they even have that luxury . Raised seam and other techniques that maximise productivity in minor spaces work out better if you have a small backyard . If you have demesne of land , you may afford to spread out your garden more . ”
This is a good point , though you do n’t mislay as much productivity as you think by spacing wider .
If you have very soaked space , it is vitally authoritative to maximise grease fertility and irrigation so you could maintain a crowded universe of plants . Widely spaced plant need very piffling care . If you plant close , you need to baby them . Sometimes that is the only selection .
Charl Heynike asks :
“ How is it game changing when all the Farmer use rows already ? ”
To which I responded :
“ Good inquiry . Most backyard gardener are not currently growing like farmers and have only tried raised beds . Many have the idea that exclusive quarrel are outdated or bad in some elbow room . I think this is a flunk . ”
And eventually , Cody Edison Tate has a name for the system :
“ David The Good ’s Grandpa horticulture ”
I wish it !
give thanks you all for the input . We ’ll be putting in more unmarried row garden in spring , so persist tuned .
