Grow a Small-Space Vegetable Garden

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A simple 10-by-20 foot garden produced plenty of salad vegetables for the editorial staff of Home Garden magazine.
A simple 10-by-20 foot garden produced plenty of salad vegetables for the editorial staff of Home Garden magazine.
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When you are planning your garden, be careful to keep track of how much space each plant variety will need to grow.
When you are planning your garden, be careful to keep track of how much space each plant variety will need to grow.
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For a home food garden, much of the preparation can be done by hand, and often by a single person.
For a home food garden, much of the preparation can be done by hand, and often by a single person.
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Using clear markers to identify rows helps keep a small-scale garden neat and simple.  
Using clear markers to identify rows helps keep a small-scale garden neat and simple.  
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The Home Garden magazine food garden produced a variety of lettuces, onions, cabbages, cucumbers, radishes and zucchini.
The Home Garden magazine food garden produced a variety of lettuces, onions, cabbages, cucumbers, radishes and zucchini.
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Cucumber plants can be trained to a trellis to prevent them sprawling in a small space.
Cucumber plants can be trained to a trellis to prevent them sprawling in a small space.

No, you don’t need a couple of acres — or a small fortune in seeds, plants and tools — to grow your own vegetables in a healthy home food garden. Back in 1970, the staff of Home Garden magazine set out to demonstrate that fact . . . and here’s their recipe for good summer eating out of your own vegetable garden, with all prices brought up to date for the spring of 1974.

Reprinted by permission from Home Garden magazine, Vol. 58, No. 2, February 1971, Copyright 1971, Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp.

Last year about this time the question came up in Home Garden‘s editorial department: “Why can’t we do a story on a vegetable garden small enough to fit in any yard, yet big enough to give a harvest that will make the effort worthwhile?”

After considerable thought, we decided to grow this small-space garden so that we could talk from practical experience.

So, during the 1970 growing season the Home Garden Vegetable Mini-Garden was actually grown . . . and proof that it did produce bountiful crops is shown in the photograph above. All the vegetables in the photograph actually came from our small-space garden . . . picked by Editor Bill Meachem and his son last September.

  • Published on May 1, 1974
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