The Garden Evolves

The evolution of gardening makes sense when you consider the corresponding changes in communities and lifestyle. Based on my own experience dating back to the 1960’s, here’s an edited version of the past 50 years….

Single-row gardening

The French intensive gardening method gained favor over single-row planting as a logical response to the observation that in single row planting, the plantings occupied less space than the pathways. Planting a wide swath of seed instead of a single row grows more food without much more work or space requirements. This change was motivated by increases in productivity.

With the development of suburbs came square foot gardening. This method uses planning based on an understanding of plant habits. Garden design accommodates scale and the proportion of plantings in relationship to surrounding plants and optimizes the use of space. The focus here is an efficient use of the garden area.

Raised bed gardening

Then came raised-bed gardening, giving structural definition to the designated garden plot. This style of gardening focuses on control of the soil.
More recently, there are discussions focused on trellising with even less square footage allocated to the garden and looking vertically to expand the growing opportunities. This method innovates on earlier systems.

Currently, the conversations have moved to container gardening. This makes perfect sense with the postage stamp locations presented by urban life and a synthesis of the gardening knowledge to date. We don’t have time for tending gardens, nor the space for tools and equipment, nor do we need to garden for the same reasons. The modern gardener wants convenience.
Given where we are today, the Vee Garden accommodates the urban gardener perfectly….drawing upon the best practices of the past and injecting some new, creative ideas.

Vee Garden