There are many books and web sites available on "intensive gardening" or "square foot gardening" which is what you are looking at. Hopefully those phrases will get you started -- sometimes it's hard to search for info without the right words.

It hard to suggest particular varieties since performance is often very regional. Zone 7 in the Pacific NW is very different than Zone 7 in the steamy South. If you post your state or general location, that will help.

In general I would say:

- Grow up, not out. Lots of things can be trellised, including tomatoes.
- Prioritize your crops so you don't grow anything that you don't like, and if money is tight, give priority to crops which are expensive to buy.
- Look into 4-season gardening so you can extend your garden in time when you can't extend it in space. In zone 7, many cold-hardy crops should go in the ground now.

I completely agree with alabamanicole -- use vertical space as much as you can, and try to get multiple rounds of harvest out of the same garden.

Even in zone 6, I can get multiple harvests out of part of my garden. I put cool-weather crops in as soon as I can, knowing that they'll be gone before other things need to go in, or before those other things get very big and need the space. I haven't yet managed to get a handle on planting a Fall crop, but I know I could.

Some Winter squashes grow just fine on a trellis, which could save you some space. Less attractive, but perhaps just as effective, could be to plant them at the edge of your garden, and let the vines trail along the lawn.

I'm a huge fan of the book Small Space, Big Harvest. The author offers a lot of information about gardening intensively, and presents several types of layouts, some of which might appeal to you. Rather than the more uniform methods described in Square Foot Gardening, he has a plan that's a bit more haphazard, and allows you to squeeze plants in where they fit, taking advantage of gaps in between larger plants, and using the shade of larger plants to protect things that can't handle too much heat.

One thing you should remember is that if you're going to garden intensively, by any method, you need really good soil. Each of the authors I've mentioned have their own special soil mixes that they like to use, but whether you follow their recommendations exactly or not, it's very much true that you'll need to heavily amend the soil so that it can produce a large number of crops.

There is a square foot gardening forum on this board. I'm not a fan of the new edition of Mel's book, but that is the bible, surely available at the library.

Dan

IMHO,
Squash like a lot of space, I'm sure there's compact varieties, but there's also the fun and excitement of the squash vine borer to contend with. Come harvest time, both the summer and winter varieties are cheap and plentiful.

Tomatoes can be staked and pruned and don't take up that much horizontal space. "Bush" (has to be bush, not vining) beans can be wide row planted and you'll be surprised how many beans you get in a short row. Lettuce and similar things can be put in the 4' "patio planters" which are cheap and you can probably find space for.

Plan your garden to keep all the space productive, when the peas are finished, plant beans, etc. You know what your family likes and concentrate on that. Be suspicious of any crop which requires a long time to mature. The tomatoes mentioned previously will be in the garden all season long. Are they just for "slicing" or are you going to can, or otherwise save them for winter use? A lot of gardens are done in August, when in fact, you can then replant the early spring veggies as they'll mature in cooler fall weather.

Also be suspicious of things you've always wanted to plant. e.g. I spent a lot of years in New England and became enamored of N. E. Boiled Dinner, Corned Beef, Cabbage, Potatoes, Carrots, Parsnips, etc. I grew everything but the Parsnips so decided to grow them too. What a pain in the ..... Now the "parsnip police" will be after me...:-)

alabamanicole mentioned 4 season gardening, if you get into cloches and similar things you can really extend your season.

I also look at the prices of produce compared to the time and aggravation it would require in the garden. Tomatoes were mentioned earlier, when your crop is ready, they'll be dirt cheap at all the farmers markets, etc. around you. I grow two dozen San Marzano tomatoes for making sauce to freeze. Then there's only one slicing tomato plant and one cherry for immediate use. The San Marzanos are grown as they're not readily available locally, the others for convenience.

Ann obvious fact about raised beds is that the soil is, or should be, in much better condition and more fertile than "garden (pun intended) variety" soil and you'll get much more production per square foot. Yes, Google "square foot gardening" and look into that. The guy who came up with the idea made a zillion $$ and has returned from retirement at least once to make even more.

Just my two cents,

Ev

It's too early to start much seed where I am so to keep from going bonkers I have spent a lot of time cruising the gardening on the net. I found several sites on strawbale gardening. There was even information on gardenweb in the archives on it. If you have room to set several strawbales in a sunny location you can have more growing space wtihout having to work up soil. Check it out, just search for strawbale gardening. I think I will try some cukes and tomatoes just because they could drape down over the bales and not have to be trellised.

What are the dimensions of your raised beds?

I really like the book One Magic Square--she includes many garden plans. I also use the garden planner on Gardeners.com as a guide, but I give plants more space than one square foot usually.

I garden in 3x6 raised beds and you can definitely grow everything on your list with the possible exception of squash. Trellises! Last year I had lima beans sharing my tomato towers.

I am expanding my garden this year--primarily because I want to grow winter and summer squash. I will probably put three squash plants in the center of one of those beds and little else (maybe some lettuce, herbs, flowers at the edges). I am thinking of trying to grow the vining winter squash beneath okra, but not sure about that yet.

Forgot about the "three sisters" which were cultivated by the Native Americans, I think Cherokee, but don't quote me on that. Essentially, they planted corn, beans, and squash in a grouping and it thrived and was an important source of food for them.

Two years ago, I started with a fairly small garden area (12' x 3') and wanted to try a few veggies.

We have short summers, so everything gets planted together, more or less. I had peas in the back, with a tomato plant on each side. On the ends, I had obelisks with more peas (for peapods) and cucumbers.

In front of the tomatoes, I grew bush beans (they are wonderful) a few cabbage, some carrots, radishes, (lettuce/spinach were in another area) and tons of flowers, since this was in front of the porch. We had evening stock in front of the peas, some cosmos, marigolds, the taller, ruffled stock and white and lavender alyssum under everything. It was a very pretty garden and provided a surprising amount of food. It would have done even better, if my first frost had been about three weeks later! LOL

Last year I was putting in new gardens and started my veggie garden too late, it was too big, and it ended up being lots of weeds. This year, I am redoing it and going back to a smaller area (but bigger than in front of the porch) for the vegetables.

So, your small space can be very productive, easy to care for and quite attractive. Remember, many flowers attract beneficial insects, even if you just use a few around the edges...and alyssum is wonderful for shading out weeds...and it's much prettier than bare dirt! Hope this helps :)

Lay out your garden plan on paper, following the methods suggested above for best use of space while providing adequate growing space.

If you are like me, you will still not have room for everything you would like to grow. Be ruthless in trimming your list until you don't have to overcrowd anything and you have room to work around your plants. It's best to grow fewer things and grow them well.

Jim

Maybe you can extend your gardening space by using containers. There are compact varieties of many vegetables. Cucumbers and Bell Peppers grow nicely in containers. Containers work well if you have to "chase" the sun around in your yard as the season progresses. We have both raised garden beds, and also use containers because our large trees have reduced the space that gets full sun. Culinary herbs are also easy to grow in containers.

Depending on the length of your growing season, you can get two crops in the same space. Several things I grow as fall crops are sown in July or early August, replacing spring crops which are done by then. Examples are radishes (especially daikon). escarole and turnips.

Jim

Yes, yes, yes. All of this is great advice. I say a big amen to the idea of using pots and tubs to expand your gardening space. Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplants do extremely well in large pots. If your soil is plagued with blights, they may do even better in pots than in the ground. You don't say how much food you need.

In my southern zone 7B, I do not try to do much, if any, canning and freezing. We eat seasonally. Whatever is growing in the garden on any particular day is what we eat. I can harvest three, sometimes four crops from each of my raised beds each year. The point is, you don't need to plant so much at once if you are simply supplying the table. Two tomato plants, one sweet pepper, and one eggplant are plenty for the three I feed. One 8'x3.5' bed produces plenty of beans or southern peas, or butter beans for table use. You'll be amazed at how much food small beds can produce, as long as you carefully tend their soil fertility, and learn to recognize when a crop is done. You pull it out, add compost, and immediately plant another crop. Another advantage to this is you don't get sick of eating the same thing. I grow different varieties of beans, squash, etc. throughout the growing season.

BTW, I recommend the Cucumber called Spacemaster. Its vines are no more than 3' long and it is very easy to keep it in the bounds of a raised bed. Two vines will produce PLENTY of slicing cucumbers for a family of 4.

Winter squash is a huge space hog. Do you have a compost pile? Plant the squash on top of it and let it run all over the pile. This will preserve your precious bed space for other things.

There's no law that says all the veggies have to be planted in the same "veggie" garden. You could plant okra as strong vertical accents in a flower bed. Some of the large summer squashes that don't run much would make lovely hosta substitutes in flower beds. And why not put purple podded snap beans on a trellis in the flower bed rather than morning glories? They're just as attractive and will free up space in the vegetable garden.