French Intensive Gardeningintensive gardening  French intensive gardening is another name for biodynamic gardening. Its a method to maximize the soil usage and reap the most crop from the smallest space. The practice allows you to raise as much as 30 times the normal yield. Of course, that number is on the high end and normally you will get about six times the yield for that area you have to plant. How to Do French Intensive Gardening There are two principals for this garden that differ greatly from normal gardening. First, you don�t plant in straight rows but scatter plants on a hillside. You also plant these close together. This does two things for your garden. It increases the yield and also uses the leaves of the crop you plant to shade out any annoying weeds that find their way to the soil. French intensive gardening is completed with hand tools rather than machinery. It is sometimes backbreaking work if you have heavy clay soil. You use a lot of organic material in the soil. If your soil is clay like, mix additional wood chips, leaves, masons sand or vermiculite. If you decide to purchase vermiculite to amend clay or excessively sandy soil, make sure you get it from the home supply area. Besides helping your garden soil, its an insulation. When you use the bags of insulation for the garden, the price drops so you can get almost 20 times the amount of vermiculite for the same money that it would cost in the garden area.
Preparation of the Soil The garden is mounded rather than grown on flat soil. Its rich in organic material and nutrients so it supports more plants. In order to achieve this, you double dig the soil. First you remove between 10 inches to a foot of soil and pile it to the side of the bed. Throw a an equal amount of compost on top of the soil and mix it. Your compost should have been prepared so that it cooked for at least three warm months. If you donot have compost ready this year, mix equal parts of mushroom fertilizer, some sawdust and peat. The idea is to create a loose soil rich in nutrients. If you use sawdust or other filler, make sure that it does NOT come from treated wood. This creates toxins in your garden. Once the soil you turned is mixed, dig in the area another 10 inches to a foot. Break up the soil with a spading fork and mix a little compost with it. Once its loose and well worked mix back in the soil you removed. You will have more soil because of the compost so mound it.  Planting Plant closer together than you normally would. You will have the plants sloping down the hillside. Make sure that when they mature the leaves almost touch to crowd out the weeds. Use companion planting such as basil with tomatoes or marigolds with almost anything to keep out bugs and create more space. You will yield more vegetables than you ever dreamed possible with french intensive gardening. It creates an interesting look to your garden with sloping small hillsides covered in vegetation. Best of all, you will find that even a tiny yard can feed your family.
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