Crowded veggies thrive

If your new to gardening then you probably diligently read the seed package, and search info about your veggie plants.  I know I did.  I actually had a garden ruler I would use to space the veggies and seed.  This year I got a very late start for my area.  I didn't know if anything would even grow.  I decided to do a little mulch experiment.  This didn't happen, because I didn't find straw I felt was safe, and the wood chip beds were attacked by a gopher.  But I do have the 2  living mulch beds and they are amazing.  There is no way to know what is best considering, but I'm so amazed by the living mulch beds I wanted to share them with you.  I have raised beds.  4 are hugel beets dug into the ground 18 to 24 inches.  One has the layers of a hugel beet, but is on top of the ground.  2 are regular raised beds.  All but one bed have fresh organic compost, organic soil and organic composted chicken manure as the top 12 to 18 inches because I was redoing 2 beds and had my fence down and the chickens emptied all the beds.  I have been a fan of companion planting for a while now, so always plant several veggies and flowers in each bed.  In the living mulch bed I through that spacing chart out.  You will see by the pictures it is full to the point of being ridiculous.   This can't possibly produce any veggies!  Well my friends not only is it producing, it is producing better then I have ever had. Both beds happen to be just raised beds.  The wood one is 4X4  In it is a tomato, Japanese egg plant, 2 or 3 cucumber, radish marigolds, bachelor buttons, bell pepper, and salvia.  The tomato has tons of tomato's, there are tons of egg plant, the pepper is loaded with baby peppers, and the cucumber is growing beautifully. It was planted be seed in late May, so no cucumbers yet.  
The other is about 3X6 or 7 feet.  It has a tomato, cherry tomato (planted by seed and almost dead when I planted it) Lunch box pepper (that are twice as big as they should be) 2 zucchini (I pick a zucchini at least every other day) beans, cantaloupe, radish, nasturtiums, cosmos, zinnias, bachelor buttons, chives, and marigolds.  I don't have to water this bed as often as the ones that don't have mulch, and the production is off the hook.  This tomato plant has the most tomatoes of all the others.  This could just be a very productive plant, and have nothing to do with the crowded diversity, but most important to me is the crowd isn't keeping it from producing a mass of tomatoes.  Besides What was put into the bed before planting, and yanking a couple of weeds I have not done anything, or added anything to either of these beds but water.  I love this method of gardening.  I can't wait to see all the flowers start to bloom. It's so fun to move leaves aside and find a treasure of veggies.  My mother-in-law use to say the more the merrier,  apparently this extends to plants as well as people.  Happy gardening

Wow, congrats! Looks like the fertile soil makes the plants explode in growth!

Sadly this could not happen in my garden, Too dense of a planting invites all the slugs to make a party, and the further North you are gardening the more critical the shade gets which each plants throws on his neighbours.

I do have happy plant jungles for flowers (phlox, calendula, wildflowers) and certain veggies like swiss chard. For others it does not work in my climate.

My daughter was just telling me how much she loves my garden. She described it as full and wild, an adventure to look through.  It made my day.

What a fabulous experience! Can you tell us more about the "living mulch?" What are you growing in that mulch layer?

Jen,   If you ever get the desire and can get a hold of a copy of John Jeavon's book on "How to Grow More Vegetables that you Ever Imagined...." at your local library or by purchase I think you would find a lot of corroboration with your own set-up and results.  Since the work that went into his book was done mostly around Willits in N. California, it may be all the more relevant to your situation.  Great to hear of your success!   ... http://www.growbiointensive.org/#

It's probably untrue to say I have a "mulch layer", because I didn't plant any ground cover type plants. I just mass planted to the point no soil is exposed to the sun.
The 4X4 has a fence that runs through the middle, for when I plant peas. One half has a tomato on one side and a egg plant on the other. There's a basil in between, and lots of radish and marigolds.  Everything has grown so it's hard to tell where one plant starts and another ends.  The other side has 2 or 3 cucumber, bell pepper, bachelor buttons, and salvia, and some nasturtiums. This side isn't as crowded.

I will tell you about the other bed, it's my favorite, but I have to go to work.  By for now.

Usually spring is when the garden looks like most people's garden, neat, with lots of space between plants.  This year so much reseeded itself, a few of my beds already look like a jungle.

I love planting that densely too. I find it's very effective against pests and to reduce watering. Yes, I have lots of slugs but if I have 100's of lettuce plants scattered everywhere, they don't find them all and they seem to just take a bite out of one before moving on to another one, rather than devouring the whole plant.

The problems I have with it are finding some of the smaller delicate plants. They grow well but I have to remember where I planted them! Also not the best if I'm planting several new varieties that I'm unfamiliar with. Those have to be well labeled until I get good at identifying them

It's a great way to do a garden that you go out and gather what you are going to eat for that day. A little more unwieldily if you are gathering a bushel of the same crop for processing.