Boy, last night was great. The sun went down and took the humidity with it. In its place was a slight nip in the air. Not quite enough to send you looking for a sweater, but enough to warrant a long-sleeve shirt over your t-shirt. All the bugs of summertime were just singing away.

Pretty soon, we’ll be enjoying cool nights around a fire in the backyard with a mug of something delicious in our hands. We’re big fans of hot mulled cider with a healthy splash of rum.

Right now, that will have to wait as I’m busy canning and freezing and dehydrating all the wonderful veg our garden is producing. I think that’s why I love winter so much. It’s a chance to be still, slow down, rest, and eat all the wonderful things you’ve put up for the year. 
 

As we worked in our large garden, I got to thinking about the raised bed trend that is so popular here in the states these days and our propensity for growing things vertically.

I do not have raised beds, and to be perfectly honest, I’m not a huge fan of them. I even wrote an article about why you shouldn’t start a raised bed. I understand that for many, they make sense and are the only gardening option available to them.

But today, I want to make a case for the big, old-fashioned vegetable garden that our grandparents used to have.  

I like walking through my garden gate into a lush world of green, where I have to step around the nasturtiums reaching into the path, and my zucchini has become its own continent off in the back corner of the garden.

I don’t want to prune everything back to the bare minimum and grow it straight up in the air on a stick. We’ve become so good at cramming lots of vining vegetables into tiny spaces and finagling trellises and hangers to train things to grow upward. Naturally, most of these same vegetables sprawl on the ground.

I love looking out across the small green mountain ranges that are the rows of my garden and watching the progression of these vining plants throughout the season.

When I part the canopy of my pepper plants and reach deep inside this mini-rainforest in search of shishitos or jalapenos, I’m always amazed at how pristine the soil is at their base. It’s dark and loamy, and there isn’t a weed in sight, while up above, it’s just a mass of green leaves.
 

Green signifies many positive things – freshness, hope, renewal, energy, vibrancy, peace, serenity and growth.

I often feel, as gardeners, that we get so focused on the end goal of gardening – food – that we forget to utilize one of the most important benefits of keeping a garden – being in it.

What if part of our garden planning involved creating a space that we want to spend time in? Not just for weeding, picking, pruning and pest control, but to enjoy being in it.

I can’t tell you how many times I head into the garden to walk around and look at the plants. (Of course, once I’m inside, I’ll pick a few tomatoes, sample a bean or two, and check on the carrots.) But as much as my garden is for food, it’s for my peace of mind in this crazy, stressful world.

And the thing is, since we switched to no-dig gardening and went back to a big spread rather than packing everything into raised beds and growing it up in the air, we’ve seen an increase in our yields. 
 

The concept is flawed, though. By growing vertically, you can grow more plants in a smaller area, thereby increasing your yield. You won’t get a bigger yield from a single plant grown this way.

Whereas if you grow something on the ground, a zucchini plant, for example, you get roughly the same amount (or more in some studies) from a single plant than you would from several plants that have been staked, pruned and trained to grow vertically.

Sure, having a large garden that allows plants to creep and spread eats up more lawn. But what are you doing with it anyway? We’re obsessed with keeping these huge, green lawns in front of and behind our homes. 

And most of the time, when you drive around a neighborhood, they’re empty. There are no kids playing tag and no barbecue with neighbors gathered around.  

You bet. As I said, for many gardeners with space issues, this is the only option they have. And we’re all about making sure everyone has the opportunity to improve their lives by growing some of their own food here at Rural Sprout.

But I would encourage anyone with a little extra space to give up the raised beds and return to a big vegetable patch, especially if you go no-dig.