Past Paradigms

Walk into a garden in the 1950s and you can guess the layout: rows. We can all imagine them. They’re the most salient feature of gardens from that era—and many through today. Seeing it in person or in our mind’s eye, we can even imagine the process: a gardener dragging the edge of the hoe in a straight line between two stakes, dropping seeds in, covering them up, and popping the packet on the end-stake for future reference. In fact, this layout is probably our most prominent cultural paradigm of gardening. From gardens depicted in children’s books, like Rabbit’s gardens in Winnie the Pooh, onwards, its primacy and ubiquity in our lives means it becomes and remains the archetype of a garden for most people. 

But those individual rows are probably the greatest impediment to our success (see sidebar). Individual rows lock us into needing walking paths right next to each row, and by walking on that soil, we’re severely compacting it, especially over the course of a season. We all know how compact this soil can get. All of our experiences illustrate it, but few do so more than weeding. Late in the season, the soil in our walking paths is so compacted we usually need two hands and a strong back or even to enlist the help of our favorite digging tool to burrow into the tough soil and pry the weeds out. Meanwhile, in our garden beds, weeds still come out with an easy two-fingered pull. If we were to, likewise, stick a spading fork both in our paths and beds late in the season, we know the path soil would be more akin to cement than it is to the still-loose and friable soil in our garden beds.

Sidebar: 21^st-Century Gardening
This paradigm is so prevalent and so limiting that the counter paradigm to it nearly became the title of this book. Arranging plants in beds is one of the most powerful actions a gardener can take and so simple. It’s as important as assuring plenty of direct sunlight, the right amount of water, and wonderful soil because it allows plants’ roots to continue to grow in loose soil that isn’t being constantly compacted by walking, continually expanding their access to water and nutrients.

Pair this appreciation with a realization of the depth and breadth of our garden plants’ roots. Most of our garden plants have root systems that are much bigger than we think. Some, like peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, and broccoli, extend in an area seven-to-nine feet in diameter and four-to-five feet deep or more.

If we have walking paths next to each row, we’re compacting the soil so it’s more akin to cement than garden soil right where our plants are attempting to grow their densest masses of roots. It’s no wonder our plants might struggle in this situation. We’re suffocating them by stepping on and compacting the soil into which they’re trying to grow—and procure food, water, and even air. It’s like standing on their mouths! By continuing this layout we’re strangling our plants, simultaneously suffocating and starving them, turning them into mere shells of their possible proud and prominent selves.

But how can you avoid this? 

Plant in wide beds with deeply loosened soil.