I've actually used this method this year using your Migardener seeds . I'm in zone 6 and I have harvested 3 lbs so far and haven't put a dent in the plants. Good video. I watched all winter the older videos and planned, plotted ,and schemed . You are an inspiration and this method is serving me quite well.✌🌞

My grandmother was born in Europe in the late 1800's. In her late teens she went to a school that taught her how to garden and how to take different plants and graft them together. She moved to the US in her early 20's. She always had a wonderful vegetable garden and her roses planted along the side of her house were beautiful. This is the way she taught me to plant lettuce. To just scatter the seeds on the ground, not in rows. And to pick off the outer leaves as the plant grows. I have always had an abundance of lettuce! It's nice to know grandma was right!

I want you to know that as the daughter of a large-scale farmer, it really makes me happy knowing people are working on better ways to grow food for our future population!

I would love a list of what all you did high intensity and what didn't work in high intensity!

My family has been growing leaf style greens for many, many years. Coming from Italy, we plant not only in rows but, with leaf lettuces, we plant a carpet of seeds like you would with lawn grass. In that way, you have a large area that you can continuously harvest your leaves and they produce continuously until the winter time. Over what you have just shown, one will get a higher concentration of leaves and allows it more protection from the elements and drought conditions. The major upside is that one maximises the ground on which it is planted. Rows, we reserve for plants that need more space i.e(tomatoes, peppers eggplants, etc.). Harvesting is very simple with scissors or a small paring knife leaving enough stem not to harm the plant allowing for it to regrow quickly. When the time is right you can allow a few plants to bolt and produce seeds for the following year without any discernible lessening of production for the table. We find that those 'home grown' seeds are actually better producers in the subsequent years. Try it, you'll be very pleased.

HI, I plant tomatoes in high density planting the plants about 6-8 inches apart. I make my own cages so the plants grows up instead of out I use wooden stakes and then pvc pipes to keep the tomatoes to grow up. my capacity of tomatoes in an area of 20X30 foot area last year was over 1300 pounds.

Just stumbled upon this video and this is the way my dad's been doing it this way for years. With lettuce, he would do exactly how you do it, he'd just sprinkle the seeds into rows and he and my mom would pick the leaves and not the whole plant. They yield is amazing because that same plant just regrows the leaves that are harvested and you can get an entire seasons worth of lettuce from them. We're in southern New York, the garden is roughly 20x16 and once the lettuce starts growing we can go all the way to the end of October harvesting it. In the fall, my dad has this grass seed for a colder weather lettuce that as long as the ground isn't frozen it can grow and some years we can go to December harvesting that. The amount of money we save each year for a few packs of seed is unbelievable.

been doing this for about forty years now. Green beans work well too. Have a massive carpet of them every year for canning.

it's funny how I've been gardening like this my whole life. because this is how my father taught me how to garden when I was a kid. so I just thought this was how you garden. I didn't know this was called high intensity gardening. I just thought it was called gardening.

I am forced to do this on a patio in California- so I've developed my own method and thought I was the only one- this is great info. My method relied on starting plants indoors and then planting them into very rich fertilized soil and keeping everything fed and watered well. I run compost buckets with worms constantly and feed in rich inputs like seaweed and coffee grounds.

One thing worth noting is dense plantings require better soil/more water. This is part of why our large scale agriculture doesn't adopt these methods, because they don't care about soil health, they just apply chemicals to dead soils; and they can't water enough on that scale, but they would need to, because there's almost no organic matter left to hold water.

Hey could you give a longer list of what vegetables and herbs are pro high density and ones that aren’t? That’d be sweet!

You can do intensive intercropping methods like growing radishes such as De 18 Jour in between your lettuce rows using it as both a trap crop for aphids, or flea beetles. When you harvest the radishes it aerates the soil and allows water to seep in deeper down to the lettuce roots without having to heavily soak the areas.

Safe yourself a ton of time here. Bottom line ..... make a row, put a ton of seeds in it and let it grow. That is if you live in a climate that allows you to

Will you please make a playlist for these Intensive Gardening videos? Thanks!

Thanks for the information, Luke! I tired this with my lettuce when I saw this video, and I have harvested tons of baby leaf lettuce since then! And it grows back so fast!

I tell all my friends to grow like this. I will share this video often. Great job.

this is one of your great videos!

You are by far the most informative and educational gardener on KZfaq. You give good explanation on the do's and don'ts of gardening and why. This is my third year container gardening and I love it. Keep up the good work. ❤

Last year I was able to do 4x10 tomatoes with 18 inch spacing. That's about as high intensity as you do. 4 is deep as you can go but you likely make it any length. You really have to manage the bottom branches early on so keep disease down. Keeping down suckers early on and allowing branching higher up helped a ton. Planting them deeper along with making mounds at the base after they established really helps with root production. I built a sort lattice grid framework out of 1inch strips of wood and brad nails. The tomatoes grew up through it and ended sitting up at the top. I only had it about 3 feet high but I could've made it higher but it was just an experiment to test dense planting. I think this year I am going to do 4 rows with Florida weaves.

i planted my lettuce and spinach like this out of laziness actually haha. At least i now know its wont be a total disaster.

Can't wait to see the high intensity cucumbers! I need to can I tensely this year. I'm out of pickles!

Yo Luke I've been getting into growing veggies the past couple seasons and have been using these videos to help me maximize my space (I got a little 15x15 veggie garden). I got into gardening 10 years ago growing pot for financial reasons but I'm branching out now as a hobby... I'm trying to pack as many healthy vegetable plants into my garden space as I can. Videos like this one have given me a lot of guidance, I think between you and Gary Pilarchik's channel I've figured a lot out. Cheers bro and thanks for the work you put into making content, hope you have a good harvest this year 🤙.

I really enjoyed this! I knew nothing about High Intensity Gardening. I’m starting my first outdoor garden this week and I’m so excited! Your videos will definitely help me out! 🙏🏽

Great advice Luke ! Lettuce is very tolerant to over crowding ! Keep harvesting it, it will keep regrowing new shoots !

As someone who loves to get the most bang for my buck - this is an epic discovery as a beginner.

Ive only just started with High intensity fruit trees by accident. Your videos are fantastic, concise and very informative. Thanks and Ill now have to go through and watch all your videos.

Thanks Luke, I never thought of it as high intensity gardening because I have always grown my brassicas this way, but this made total sense. I never thin until late in the season (more so of when Im tired of harvesting, everyone in my community has had there fill, and my freezers are full) I had no idea we could do this with the squash family though and will be trying it. While I have zukes out already as transplants, being a gardener, I will just have to make some room elsewhere. Thanks for a great channel, long time subscriber.

I was thinking of trying this method and you convinced me. Thank you

Wow! I planted both my lettuce and kale varieties just like this, intending to harvest leaves instead of the entire plants at once. I was sure I'd messed up because they are growing just as dense as in your patch, but now I think it was a good idea. I subscribed and am looking forward to more!

Thanks Luke! I'm so glad that I've come across this video again! It worked for me, I'm trying to convince my mom! Now I am going to share it straight from you!

Thank you so much for adressing this issue! As a gardener, the biggest limiting factor I have is the amount of space available. My backyard is sooo tiny, it can be measured in inches. so i really need some kind of high intensity system to grow a lot of veggies in a very very small area.

I've used this method of growing and harvesting all my life. I learned it from my grandparents.

Yayy great mate. Normal farms are wasteful and harvest once and are monoculture Bringing crop rotation in and cover crops Flowers on edges No chemicals i hope 💚💪

Love the videos especially the informative ones. Just bought a lot of seeds from you and want to thank you for all the great varieties and hope to have great success growing from your seeds. Thank you for all that you do! 💚

It is great to know I can cram more into my backyard garden. Last year, my first, I followed packet directions.

Luke, I’m so glad that I watched this video about spacing! I only had three zucchini plants in my 32 square ft garden bed! I was definitely measuring wrong and I thank you! Rhode Island Gardener.

Makes sense, I’ve been watching my 5 or 6 lettuce plants grow all spaced out for a few months and they’re still tiny. I’m going to give your method a try. Thanks.

1st year growing and I did it this way following the instructions on the seed packs, Thanks for confirming that I'm doing something right for once. Glad I found your page.

we had a bit of a cold spell, and i planted my onions in my first hill culture raised bed! i have a seedling house that is packed waiting to get large enough to withstand the rains. your tips have been very helpful. i have grown flowers and tomato's for decades, i am going all out this year! after all, if one can grow flowers, one can grow food!

This is an incredibly interesting concept. Thanks so much for sharing Luke! Would you mind listing the food plants you're able to do this with?

I ate fresh greens and cherry tomatoes all winter long using high intensity gardening. Great vitamin C!

This is so liberating! I can't wait to try this approach rather than stressing about space. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you. I’ve just formed for beds measuring 32 feet long by 6 feet wide and I’m gathering up every bit of information I can get on planting my vegetables so I will be following you now that I found you and I appreciate your teachings. Thank you keep up the good work

Thank you for sharing your excellent gardening information. I live in a basement apartment. You just gave me the idea that I can grow some veg's in flower pots. I love gardening and I will have some fresh vegetables thanks to you. I have watched many of your videos and hope to watch them all. I am one of your subscribers. God bless and thank you. Donna Peers.

This is going to change my life! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! Off to watch your lettuce container video!

I'll definitely try this out! My workplace is thinking of creating a community garden, and this kind of method would be amazing to try! Thanks for the info and I look forward to your other high intensity projects.

Talk about re-thinking inside the box. I love the idea and it's what I was doing because I was too impatient to space out the tiny seeds. Thank-you for quantifying how well it works.

Thank-you! New gardener and accidentally planted all my lettuce like this... they are growing like crazy and I thought there is no way I can thin these plants.

Seems like spacing is traditionally intended not only for light, but to reduce disease and pests. When plants are crowded, foliage stays damp, air exchange is reduced, and plants can choke on the stale air at the stoma. Do you find you have more pests/disease with high intensity? I think this method sounds great, but want to understand the things to watch for if it all starts to go wrong.

Coming here at the start of 2021 and I am so thankful for all of these videos!!

I'm REALLY excited about this series!!! Bring it on!

I'm VERY new to growing your own, and so I'm really interested in this series, (now that I've found it). Because I live in a flat (apartment) and I have a shared garden, so I've started growing plants in tubs and containers in my small part of the shared garden, and I really want to get the most out of the very small space that I have. But, as I was always told that you had to leave X amount of space between each plant, to get a good yield, I haven't really been optimising what I have to work with space-wise. But this video has given me the confidence to give this more intensive method a try, and, as I also live on very limited budget (0 hour contract...BOOOOOO) seeds are actually a lot cheaper to purchase, than plants and plugs, (but up until now I have gone with the plants and plugs option) but now that I know, I'll be using a lot more seeds instead. SO THANKS GUYS !!! =D

This is gonna be a fun series to watch, can't wait to see the hi intensity zucchini

This is how my parents taught me to plant lettuce when I was a kid! I am excited to finally try this for myself in my first raised beds this spring! I just recieved my Ruby Red Leaf Lettuce from you today!

Good info and great tips! Thank you!

Thats right high intensity produce as much as possible. You'll have to wrap your vegetable beds with berry bushes as well, I just ordered PIXIE grapes you gotta get them... 3ft dwarf everbearing grapes that produce the first year!!!! look them up.

I love gardening videos, but when they are in real time, they are really frustrating. I wish I could see the lettuce grow and be harvested in the same video :(

I love your channel!! I just bought 15 leaf lettuce plants but did not plant them yet. Thankfully I stumbled upon your video tonight as I will be returning them for seeds tomorrow and then able to use your method. Its still April here in NH and at the beginning of the growing season. THANK YOU!!

I tend to plant radishes between the rows of lettuce. They are so quick growing that you harvest before most lettuce are half grown. I also have planted EARLY spring lettuce and rows of carrots by the time the lettuce is done carrots take over growing space. Works for seeded kale too.

I grew my lettuce seeds from you, just like that and it's working great! Also using lettuce and spinach as borders around other stuff.

I have always done that with my lettuce. Including in containers.

This is awesome! I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!

U inspired me! I went directly to the seed store, bought 3 containers, Sol, steer gro and have them all fully planted with Arugula, spinach, and Tokyo onions! Wall to wall seeds...

Excellent

I was just about to thin my lettuce that looks exactly like that, now I won't .

I just love lettuce! It grows readily even out here in India, with the climate so hot and dry, provided you plant it at the right time of the year and give it a really well-thought-out environment. I've grown Lollo Rossa, Iceberg, Romaine and more. All of 'em are my favourites!

New at the game last year, I sprouted most of my plants last year in a window, then went outside with them. With the lettuces, I grew them from seed outside using the method you mention (just because I didn't know any other way to do lettuces). By August, I realized everything was a bust except for the lettuces! I will be using this method again this year. From my experience in a dry, windy climate, I'd say you're correct!

Is there a list somewhere of the vegetables that can be grown in high intensity gardens?

Please show how to grow high intensity zucchini, broccoli, and kale!!

Ok. I'm trying this today. Can't wait to see the results. Beautiful garden u have and ty for sharing!

Home Gardening Movement ? That's news to me. My Parents gardened every year, so did many of our neighbors in their neighborhood, in Westland, a suburb of Detroit. My husband and I have had a home garden every year since 1987, in another Detroit suburb.

good info. I used this method last weekend. spilled 400 turnips seeds in a 2 foot square space of damp soil. good germination rate today as I have a nice green carpet patch. will be thinning and eating the baby greens. don't be surprised when I order more seeds from MIgardener for a fall harvest with a plan on being a bit more careful. can't wait for the rest of our veg to take off - claytonia, mache, Tigger melon and Amish paste tomatoes to date.

I might have gotten carried away this year with high intensity planting. lol One 4x4 bed has 5 zucchini plants and 4 melon plants in it (the melons are growing up a trellis). The other beds are just as crowded.

I'm going to try it out the high intensity method on some rail planters I have. I'm excited! Thanks for sharing! Love your channel!

This has been extremely helpful,for years my sisters,mom andI have been thinning and transplanting Kelly earth an various other vegetables .Thank you.

Another video well done. I learn so much when watching them. I just got the seeds and trifecta fertilizer and am anxious to get started. It has finally stopped raining here so hope to get out tomorrow! I am not sure I understand how you are harvesting your lettuce. Instead of picking the whole head, are you cutting off the tops of your lettuce leaves or picking individual leaves from the outside of the lettuce plants?

Oh man. I want to put in some planters in the backyard now. Anyone know the best fence to keep dogs out and how am I going to keep away the bunnies/squirrels?

Excellent, I particularly like the ongoing harvest. I have grown mesclun and arugula in containers, does very well. Love the smaller greens mixed with various lettuces for salads! Yum! Thanks again.

Thank you so much for posting this video.This is my first year of growing begetables in ground and I am going to grow lettuce ,spinach and raddish exactly as per your method shown here in this video.And yes I have subscribed your channel

The way math works, You _EITHER_ get *Five times* MORE vegerables in the *SAME* space _OR_ You get *SAME* amount of vegetables in 500% *LESS* Space. _If_ you get 500% *MORE* vegetables *IN* 5 times *LESS* Space, _Then_ you are getting *25 times* vegetables for the *same space*.

Can you show how you harvest high intensity lettuce? I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly.

I loved this and am very inspired and curious to try this and will have to now!! Thanks so much for thinking outside the box and coming up with this :)

You are really enthusiastic gardener, weldone..keep on growing...I'm a big fan of your channel 👍

I planted lettuce in a solid patch about 3x4 and it kept all the weeds down next to my cucumbers.

I'm starting 4 beds. But I'm in Las Vegas... (Covid-19 has changed life.) Any tips would help. Thank you and good luck

The most informative video on this subject so far , keep it up

Wow another amazing super great video info and analysis from absolutely the best channel on utube you hit this one out of the park again thank you and keep up the good work

Im new to the channel.. I find your tips very helpful so far.. i saw the video on the 87 year old seeds and the tomato plant that sprouted.. how did it end up doing? .

video starts at 3:11 the guy talks in circles about "high intensity" before that

My first year to garden...this makes me super excited to try. I also subscribed! Thank you so much!!👍😀

Great video! I am pretty new to gardening and just winging it, lol I didn't know what I was doing and just sprinkled kale seeds in my garden bed and it came in so dense. I had Kale all winter and I Just pulled them out because they went to seed. I like this method especially if you don't have much space. Love your videos and your beautiful family :) Thank you!

Great point about looking away from traditional agricultural methods. Their reasoning has a lot to do with machines being able to fit.

Hey Luke! Quick question: I am growing my leafy greens that way (MIGardener seeds of course :D), and I was wondering if i could harvest the lettuce, then thin them out to get the seeds?

Can't wait!!! LIVE, LOVE, LOVE this concept.

This is a great idea Luke. Can't wait to see more in this 'high intensity' series.

I’m in love with this guy. He’s so handsome.

Just wondering if you've ever done testing to see if how much the nutrition goes down with each harvest, and if so, what you do to prevent that?

*SWEEEEEET* As I apparently lost complete track of seasonal time this winter for some reason, I've been doing a sort-of amended Winter Sow this week in No. Colorado Zone 5b. Last week we had 65-77 F' but this weekend it snowed & down to 31. Planted arugula, spinach, a nice Mesclun mix, HL Rouge lettuce, Green Envy Zinnia & 2 Marigold varieties all in a large planter box ~ L: 2.5' x W: 12"'. I intentionally overseeded it because I always thin & relocate these kinds of seedlings very successfully. But after watching this, believe I'm just gonna let them be for the most part (unless I see just ridiculously successful germination!) I'm headed to the garden beds tomorrow to start H.I. lettuce sowing there as well. LOVE this! THX for sharing as always! :)

Thanks for this . Given the virus and the fact that we are on lockdown here in Louisiana, we need to grow food quickly. Put in a bed this morning with irrigation. Going to plant lettuce, onions, and cucumbers tomorrow. Will try this intensity gardening.