French intensive gardening dates back to the market gardens of 16 the-century France. They supplied urban residents with fresh, healthy vegetables in the region around Paris and other French cities.
French extensive gardening rose to its high point in the latter part of the 1800s and into the early 1900s, at which time it was also a reality in England. It was brought to the United States by the English gardener Alan Chadwick who started a French-intensive garden at the University of California Santa Cruz in 1967.
Critical Principles of French Intensive Gardening
The principles used in French intense gardening have become used in gardening practices, mainly when creating an outdoor garden in small urban areas. It is unnecessary to incorporate all of the elements in French-intensive gardening simultaneously. You can select and apply the features that are appropriate for your site. But, soil preparation is the primary factor to consider when it comes to French intensive gardens.
Deep Digging for Soil Improvement
French intensive gardening utilizes deep digging using a hand to obtain fertile, well-aerated, well-drained, and easily friable soil. It could be single digging up to 12-15 inches or double digging to a depth of 2 feet by breaking the top layer of soil before replacing them with amended soil fine and well-matured compost. While physically laborious, the idea is to break down the ground profoundly and allow roots to grow vertically and not compete with other plants for nutrients. Following the initial year (with plenty of hard work digging), Worms and other insects take over the job by moving through the dirt, breaking it into pieces, and letting it remain loose.
Raised Beds
For extensive French gardening, the prevention of soil compaction is one of the primary goals behind the garden. The majority of French intensive gardening employs raised beds without any bottoms. It goes directly into the soil, aiming-sted space and making makers “off-limits to walking.”
However, raised beds must be tall enough to reach the necessary depth for extensive plantation, which allows roots to develop vertically. The alternative is to design gardens that aren’t too large to ensure that the gardener can access the center of the beds without stepping on the bed, making the soil compact. Most mattresses are more than 4 feet wide, allowing access to the middle of the bed to plant or weeding and harvesting without stepping on the soil. The distance between beds is often highly close to help conserve the space, usually 6 inches or 1 foot.
Close Spacing
Planting crops is up to five times more tightly than traditional vegetable gardens, and there is next to no soil. For example, onions, generally placed 6-8 inches apart in each direction, are placed by 3 inches. This results in higher yields, however, only when the soil is well amended by compost before planting, and the root of plants can be grown vertically rather than horizontally. Otherwise, the plants of neighboring species will limit one another. Vertical root growth is allowed if the deeper soil layers aren’t waterproof and challenging, so digging deep is necessary.
Close spacing can also mean that weeds won’t have much chance to develop, and similar to mulch also reduces losses of moisture in soil via the process of evaporation. Close spacing can also help keep the ground soft, as the leaves touch each other when the plants begin to grow, thereby shielding the earth from exposure to the sun and other elements that can be harsh to the ground.
Sun Exposure
As with other gardening techniques, French intensive gardening is typically oriented to garden beds from north to south for sunlight to hit all the plants during the daytime. Planting together plants that require the same exposure to sunlight is crucial. For instance, plants requiring full sunlight must be cultivated together to ensure watering and sun exposure are easily met.
Companion Planting
What is commonly called “companion planting” in the present is intercropping French intense gardening. Plants that are happy to coexist since they do not hinder the growth of each other are interplanted in tandem.
The most successful matches are usually opposites, like
SSlow and rapid-growing plants such as lettuce and radishes
Both shallow and deep-rooted plants, such as parsnips and Arugula
Light and heavy feeders such as peas and broccoli
Tall and short plants such as lettuce and beans
