In a San Francisco Chronicle article published in July of 2004, two men described their nearly fully sustainable diet derived from their 6,000 sq. foot backyard garden in Berkeley, CA. The garden not only included vegetables and grains, but also ducks, rabbits, and goats (with a dairy operation!)

So I got out my calculator to see how much land that really was. An acre is about 43,560 square feet, roughly equivalent to 3/4's of a football field. So a 6,000 sq.ft. backyard is 500 sq. ft. larger than 1/8th of an acre of land, or said another way...it's about 10 yards of a regulation-width football field.

John Jeavons, the master of bio-intensive gardening, describes a food garden plan for a four-person family that could annually provide most of their food requirements in about 1,300 sq.ft of garden space ("How to Grow more Vegetables" by John Jeavons, pp138-141) including calorie crops and fruit trees, but not grains. That would leave about 4,700 sq.ft., almost two-thirds of the land, for animal husbandry.

Another concept that people don't frequently think about is growing vertically instead of horizontally. Cucumbers, squash, and other vine-style vegetables can be trained onto vertical vines, savings lots of ground area. Fruit trees can be pruned into espalier forms, or trained onto raised trellises that cover seating areas or tool storage.

What other ideas are there that promote good yields but that save space in a garden?