So what does Solomon's garden look like?  He makes raised beds nearly identical to my beds, only shallower (two to three inches high.)  When working up new land, first he tills or shovels to break up the sod.  Either way, he loosens the soil to a depth of twelve inches, marks out three to four foot wide beds, and scoops dirt out of the aisles to increase the beds' height.  (It's worth noting that Solomon recommends 20 to 24 inches for bed width instead in non-irrigated areas or for certain crops.)

This sounds a lot like an intensive garden, right?  Although he does like raised beds, Solomon differs markedly from intensive gardeners when it comes to fertilization, seed starting, and plant spacing.

Rather than enriching an entire bed, Solomon uses a modified Native American technique and plants cucurbits and tomatoes in what he calls hills --- shallow mounds about twelve to eighteen inches in diameter with lots of concentrated soil amendments inside.  The high fertility soil in the mound helps the plants get off to a fast start so that they can outcompete the weeds.  He uses a similar method in miniature to give transplants a quick boost and get them growing quickly.  With smaller plants, he will enrich an entire bed, but just rakes the amendments into the top inch of the soil to give the plants a similarly fast start.

That said, Solomon doesn't fiddle with transplants much.  He argues that (with the exception of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants), most vegetables will reach harvest nearly as quickly if you direct seed as if you begin seedlings indoors and transplant them.  These direct seeded vegetables also tend to be much healthier.  Not only do they never have to deal with transplant shock, they keep their taproots (often damaged during transplanting) and are more drought-resistant.

Up to this point in the book, I was nodding along happily.  Then Solomon started writing about plant spacing.  The table below shows a comparison of Solomon's recommended plant spacing for some common vegetables and the spacing recommended by intensive gardeners (and me.)  He recommends spacing plants even further apart if you don't plan to irrigate, so that the vegetables will be able to suck water out of the surrounding soil.

Crop	Intensive spacing (inches)	Solomon spacing (inches)
Beans, bush green	6X6	12X18
Broccoli	15X15	24X48
Cabbage, late	18X18	24X30
Carrots	3X3	1.5X18
Cucumber	12X12	36X48
Chard, Swiss	8X8	12X24
Collards	8X8	24X24
Kale	15X15	24X24
Lettuce, looseleaf	8.5X8.5	10X18
Melons	15X15	48X48
Okra	12X12	24X24
Onion, bulbing	4X4	3.5X18
Parsley	5X5	6X18
Peas, bush	3X3	2X18
Peppers	12X12	24X24
Potatoes	9X9	10X48
Squash, summer	18X18	48X48
Squash, winter	18X18	N/A
Sweet corn	15X15	N/A
Sweet potatoes	9X9	15X48
Tomatoes, indeterminate	24X24	48X48

Part of the goal of Solomon's wide spacing is to be able to fit a hoe between the plants even when they're mature.  I have to admit that I'm extraordinarily jealous of his estimate that he spends about an hour a week hoeing his 2,000 square foot garden --- my garden is maybe half again as big and it takes me more like 5 hours a week to weed.  Now I understand why his method takes half the work!

I can't wrap my mind around putting lettuce and greens so far apart since I prefer to harvest them in the baby stage, but I may take his advice with some of our larger plants this summer.  Maybe I should try out some test beds and compare the results of two different spacing methods?

This post is part of our Gardening When It Counts lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries: Gardening When It Counts Intensive and Solomon-style gardens How much land do I need to grow all my own vegetables? Steve Solomon's garden innovations Micronutrient deficiencies in the soil end up on the plate Complete organic fertilizer Perfect compost Disadvantages of mulch Watering scientifically Good seed companies

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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