Some might call ours a postage stamp garden, just 65 square feet of growing space in containers and raised stone wall beds and boxes. But size isn’t everything! We think it comes down to how much food value you can extract over the season from your growing space, however limited.

As a kid growing up on a mixed farm and ranch in Southern Alberta, my folks would cultivate a 1-acre garden space every spring. Pretty much the same soil mix, all fertilized with the same manure and plowed under. Really, no one ever talked about which crops needed special soil treatment. All seeds got planted. All got watered, some did great, others didn’t. But overall, with an acre of garden, we always had produce aplenty for the next winter.

The fun in small box and container growing is making the most of the flexibility you have to move the containers and boxes around to maximize sunlight, or to put up a patio umbrella to reduce afternoon sun scorch.

Here are a few examples of how we squeezed the most out of 65 square feet last season. We’re fine tuning it for this year and hope to improve even more.

• 8 square feet of raised bed produced English Cucumbers from June through late October. Virtually a non-stop supply of cucumbers for salads nearly 5 months with the last pick going into the fridge 3^rd week of October and edible until mid November.
• 12 square foot strip of soil along a shady rock wall bed grew endless amounts of salad greens from early May through late October as well. Never bought salad greens at a store until first week of November.
• 22 square feet of Tomato plantings provided plenty of variety from patio tomato’s to Beefsteak slicers to Roma’s. Again, fresh fruit from late June to late October with last harvesting taking place in the final days of October and window sill ripening in our kitchen through late November. We diced our last homegrown into salad the final week of November, still tasting very flavourful.
• Our final choice for non-stop production in limited space is green pepper. Last year in just 9 square feet, we produced fresh green peppers non-stop from mid May through late October. Last ones went into the fridge the final week of October and were consumed by mid November.

Now, when I say ‘non-stop’ production, that is no exaggeration. We did not purchase a single cucumber, tomato, pepper, or salad green over the entire season, and all from just 65 square feet of soil. A very modest investment in seeds and bedding out plants. We also started some greens in a mini hydroponic garden in our kitchen for an earlier start on oregano and sweet basil which we transplanted outdoors as they outgrew the hydroponic space.

Whatever space you have to work with, plan it out with a view to what you’d like to experience over the season. Of course, if you have that magical acre, there are no bounds to what you can try, but even in the most conservative of spaces, you can still generate abundance. And the best part? Low cost, great returns.

We have great success with West Coast Garden Seeds. Their varieties are selected for your specific growing region and you’ll find West Coast Garden Seed displays at most Nutters stores across Western Canada.