Space—when it comes to gardening, there's never enough of it. In the twenty or so years that I’ve been gardening, I don’t suppose there’s been a single season where I wasn’t trying to sneak in one more tomato plant or squeeze in an extra row of peas or greens. I’ll do just about anything to avoid thinning down my variety list.
But as tempting as it is to swing the tiller out a little wider or claim just a bit more yard, there are two things I’ve learned the hard way:
- A well-managed, reasonably sized garden will always outyield a sloppy oversized one
- And there are far more ways to increase production than simply adding more space
Once you start thinking differently—using height, timing, and plant relationships—you can turn even a small plot into a surprisingly productive garden.
Let’s walk through the strategies that make the biggest difference.
With some planning and the right strategies, even small gardens can produce big harvests. Here, trellised peas maximize yield while minimizing space.
Grow Up: The Power of Vertical Gardening
Trellising is often the first trick small-space gardeners discover—and for good reason. It allows you to turn unused vertical space into productive growing area.
Some of the best candidates for trellising include:
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Pole beans – far higher yields per square foot than bush types
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Peas – varieties like Champion of England and Sugar Snap will outproduce dwarfs many times over
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Cucumbers – perhaps one of the easiest crops to trellis
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Melons and smaller watermelons – stick with small-fruited types
- Squash – especially delicata, acorn, butternut, and the ever-popular Tromboncino
There are endless ways to trellis—bamboo poles, cattle panels, even corn stalks. I’ve used all of them, and they all work.
One key tip:
Trellised plants—especially cucurbits—need more consistent watering. When grown along the ground, they naturally root along the vine. When you lift them up, you remove that backup system. Just plan to compensate, and they’ll do fine.
Likewise, potatoes can be grown vertically. Last year I visited a local farmer to interview her about using rabbit manure in the garden and was amazed by her gorgeous potato plants that were growing in tall, plastic laundry baskets. What a great idea!
Planting compatible plants together provides numerous benefits. Here, potatoes, beans, and basil are growing harmoniously in the same space.
Companion Planting: Let Plants Share the Space
Companion planting is one of the simplest ways to grow more in less space.
Instead of giving each crop its own dedicated area, you can tuck plants together based on how they grow and what they need. I’ve tucked parsley among potatoes, cilantro between beans, and just about everything else anywhere it fits.
When done thoughtfully, companion planting can:
- Help reduce pest pressure
- Improve airflow and microclimates
- And most importantly—let you grow more in the same footprint
A classic example is letting taller crops like tomatoes cast a bit of afternoon shade for herbs like cilantro, slowing bolting and extending your harvest.
Whereas companion planting is about relationships, interplanting is about timing. In this example, French Breakfast radishes are nearing maturity just as the carrot seeds (which were planted on the same day) are germinating. It's a veritable two-fer in terms of yield!
Interplanting: Use Time as Your Secret Weapon
If companion planting is about relationships, interplanting is about timing.
And frankly, I wish someone would come up with a better name for it.
Interplanting is often confused with companion planting, but they’re not the same. Companion planting focuses on how plants interact. Interplanting focuses on how they share space over time.
The textbook example:
Carrots are slow to germinate—often taking up to three weeks while battling crusted soil, pounding rain, and weeds.
Radishes, on the other hand, pop up in just a few days. They act like little umbrellas, shading and protecting the emerging carrot seedlings. By the time the carrots are established, the radishes are ready to harvest and gone.
It’s a perfect handoff.
Other Interplanting Ideas:
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Lettuce between young tomatoes (harvest before tomatoes take over)
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Spinach under peppers (gone before summer heat hits)
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Green onions tucked between just about anything
- Arugula before cucumbers or squash spread
And don't forget about flowers. We've even planted trailing nasturtium between our melon hills in the spring. They chug along slowly and then take off just as the melon season ends, turning an ugly mess of dying vines into a beautiful green oasis.
Come fall, those same nasturtium act as a trap crop for cabbage moth caterpillars, drawing them away from our fall broccoli.
Zucchini is known for being an over-zealous producer, but you need not fall into its trap. Try interplanting just one or two zucchini with compatible squash of the same family. Pictured: Grey Zucchini
Mix Your Varieties (and Save Yourself from Zucchini Overload)
This is one of those tricks that doesn’t get talked about enough. My gardening mentor used to joke that she wished she could plant “half a hill” of zucchini. Anyone who’s grown zucchini knows exactly why.
But here’s the workaround:
Instead of planting multiple zucchini plants, try mixing compatible squash types:
- One zucchini
- One summer squash or patty pan squash
- One delicata or bush acorn squash
They’ll pollinate each other just fine (all belong to Cucurbita pepo)—and you’ll get variety without being buried in more zucchini than you can give away.
Cold-tolerant and fast to mature, radishes like Sparkler White Tip are the perfect crop to kick off a succession of veggies. You can follow them with beans, tomatoes, or any other crop that is planted around the last frost date.
Succession Planting: Don’t Leave Soil Sitting Idle
One of the biggest missed opportunities in small gardens is time.
Why let valuable space sit empty while you’re waiting to plant your main crops?
That patch where your melons will go? It could produce an entire early crop before the melons even hit the ground.
Simple Succession Ideas:
- Early radishes → followed by beans
- Spinach → followed by peppers or tomatoes
- Lettuce → followed by cucumbers
- Peas → followed by fall carrots or beets
Fall is the Secret Season: Why Growing Beets in Autumn Leads to the Best Harvest
Think of your garden as a relay race—one crop hands off to the next.
One of the best ways to get more out of the garden is to lengthen the gardening season. Plant cold-tolerant greens like Red Russian kale, arugula, spinach, and mustard which won't be bothered by the occasional frost.
Season Extension: Stretch the Calendar
Season extension goes hand-in-hand with succession planting.
There are plenty of crops that can be planted shockingly early—sometimes even into cold soil or light snow.
Some of the best include:
Some of the most beautiful spinach I’ve ever grown went into the ground just before a snowfall. No fuss, no perfect soil prep—and it thrived.
You can take this even further with simple tools:
- Floating row cover (reemay)
- Low tunnels
- Cold frames (mine is an old casement window)
These inexpensive additions can easily add weeks—or months—to your growing season.
The first time I started using raised beds, it was like a light switched on—I could grow so much more while working so much less. Here, onions and potatoes are being grown in 3-foot-wide raised beds.
Reduce Walkways, Not Growing Space
One of the simplest ways to get more out of a small garden has nothing to do with what you plant—and everything to do with where you walk.
Every footstep in your garden is space that isn’t growing anything.
Instead of wide paths and narrow rows, flip the equation. Create reasonably wide planting areas that you don’t walk on, and keep your walkways as narrow as is practical.
This is essentially the idea behind raised beds—not necessarily the framed, boxed-in kind, but simply defined growing areas where the soil stays loose and undisturbed.
In my own garden, I plant space-efficient crops like radishes, carrots, mustard, and onions in rows just a little wider apart than a hoe blade. I orient those rows perpendicular to the walkway so I can comfortably hoe them while standing with my feet shoulder-width apart in the path.
It’s a small adjustment, but it adds up quickly. More of your garden is producing food, less of it is being compacted underfoot—and everything becomes easier to manage.
If you want a deeper dive into this approach, I’ve written more about it in my raised bed gardening guide.
When every square foot counts, opt for varieties that stay bushy rather than sprawling. Here Table Queen Bush Acorn Squash are growing in a nice, compact clump.
Choose Varieties That Work with Your Space
If you take only one thing from this post, let it be this:
Variety selection matters more than almost anything else.
There’s no sense letting one sprawling winter squash plant take over an entire raised bed—no matter how good the pie is.
Instead, look for:
Compact or Bush Varieties
- Designed for smaller spaces
- Easier to manage
- Often surprisingly productive
Dual-Purpose Crops
Get more from each plant:
- Beets → roots and greens
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Turnips → same story
- Beans (like Cherokee Trail of Tears) → green beans and dry beans
Continuous Harvest Varieties
Skip the “one-and-done” crops when possible:
- Cut-and-come-again leaf lettuce instead of heading types
- Broccoli that produces side shoots instead of a single head
By choosing varieties that suit your space—and make the most of their time there—you'll ensure that your garden is operating at maximum productivity.
I've turned away from growing leafy fillers like coleus and dusty miller. Dark beet greens, oakleaf lettuce and intricately laced mustard leaves—just as beautiful. Plus, I can eat them all season long. Here bronzy-leaved McGregor beets grow beside beautiful Alaska nasturtium which, by the way, is also edible.
Use Containers and “Borrow” Space from Your Landscape
Your garden doesn’t have to stop at the edge of your garden bed.
Containers are one of the easiest ways to expand your growing space—without expanding your garden.
In fact, I see very little reason to use valuable garden real estate for things that grow just as well (or better) in pots.
Great Candidates for Containers
- Herbs – parsley, sage, oregano, chives
- Root crops – carrots and beets
- Leafy greens – kale, lettuce
- Bushy cucurbits – use large containers
Last year I grew Mr. McGregor’s Favorite beets in my flower pots alongside some Alaska nasturtium (also edible). The bronzy leaves blended right in with my other ornamentals—and the rabbits left them alone.
Kale? Honestly, it’s ornamental if you ask me. And lettuce—especially oakleaf types—can be downright beautiful tucked among flowers.
You can even grow:
- Cucumbers (use bush variety and a barrel)
- Peppers (easy in a 2+ gallon container)
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Eggplants (ditto above)
- Tomatoes (stick with dwarf or determinate types)
The only things I wouldn't grow in containers would be full-sized melons and cucurbits, tall corn and okra. Everything else is on the table, especially when space runs thin.
A healthy garden begins with healthy soil. And when you're working with a small space, you have more time and resources to pour into maximizing soil health.
Feed the Soil, Feed the Garden
One major advantage of a small garden is focus.
Instead of spreading your effort thin, you can pour nutrients and care into every square foot. Worm castings? You'd go broke fertilizing a large garden with them—but in a small garden, definitely worth it. Likewise with well-made compost.
Improving soil fertility—through compost, amendments, and good management—can dramatically increase your yields in a limited space.
It doesn't get any better than fresh sweet corn—unless you're working with limited space, then it absolutely does. In the same space it takes to produce this one ear, you could grow a bushel of healthy greens and root veggies.
What Not to Do in a Small Garden
Sometimes what you don’t do matters just as much.
Don’t overcrowd plants
There’s a point where “intensive planting” becomes counterproductive. Plants still need airflow, light, and nutrients.
Don’t plant more than you’ll use
It’s easy to overdo it (looking at you, zucchini).
Don’t grow things you don’t eat
Or at least—don’t grow much of them. You can grow more once you've acquired the taste for it.
Don’t waste space on low-return crops
This one might be controversial, but here it is:
I love sweet corn as much as the next Iowa girl—but if space is limited, I wouldn’t grow it.
- One corn plant = ~1 square foot for most of the season
- Yield = often a single ear
In that same space, you could grow:
- Multiple cuttings of arugula
- Several bunches of radishes
- A pound of carrots
- Fall beets
Same goes for cauliflower—one plant, one head, lots of space.
Better alternatives?
- Broccoli (with side shoots)
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Kohlrabi (similar flavor, faster and more productive)
Since we tend to eat our cauliflower raw, these Cole crop alternatives swap out almost without notice, offering similar flavor with better yield.
Efficiency matters, but the joy of gardening matters more. Grow what you love and have fun doing it. Still, kohlrabi is a tasty and underrated vegetable that even kids love.
Final Thought: Grow What You Love
All that said—rules are made to be bent.
If you love corn, grow corn. If nothing beats homegrown cauliflower for you, make room for it.
That’s the whole point of gardening.
Just be intentional. Choose varieties wisely. Stack your strategies.
And you might be surprised just how much food you can grow in a very small space.
Ready to get started? Check out our full selection of space-saving vegetable seeds, specially curated for small gardens and raised beds.
