Growing a Small Garden: Benefits, Methods, and Tips

Think you have to start grow a huge garden to be self-sufficient? Think again! It’s amazing what a big difference growing a small garden can make in securing food independence and security!

By Cheryl Aker, Pasture Deficit Disorder 2020

updated by Homesteaders of America 2025

Growing a Thriving Small Garden

Don’t let the huge, flourishing, aesthetic Instagram gardens discourage you. Small gardens, when set up with sustainability in mind, can improve your food security without taking up much space. But how? Read on for my small garden story as well as benefits, methods, and tips for small space gardening. 

My Small Garden Story

My garden last year was an epic failure. I think it got too hot too soon and then the grass and weeds started growing with a vengeance. 

Why is it that grass in the yard dies without lots of water, but grass and weeds in the garden grow with wild abandon with no watering, no rain? 

It’s like the garden was determined to return to a state of native pasture. Ugh. While I was disappointed, I also have to say I didn’t miss standing out in 100+ degrees with 85% humidity last summer to keep the garden watered. 

I always have such a sense of wonder when something that started as a tiny little seed is now providing me with food to eat. But this spring, while I was reading about everyone planning their gardens and starting their seeds, I was doing exactly none of that. 

I was still so disappointed about last summer. But I also found myself missing the whole process – dreaming over the seed catalog all winter, starting little seeds, delighting when they sprouted, transplanting them, and eventually harvesting the fruits of my labors. 

And then, enter a global pandemic.

I started thinking, even if I was getting a late start, anything I could grow would be better than nothing. Garden Fever took hold once again.

Gardening doesn’t have to be all or nothing, go big or go home. You don’t have to plant a whole farm. You can grow a lot of food in containers, backyard gardens, and raised beds. 

At the beginning of the pandemic and all the grocery store hoarding, I was worried about the availability of fresh food. Mid-March is late to just be getting started in my area (central Texas, zone 8), but let’s face it, I rarely get my garden planted on time anyway. 😉

gardening table

Redeeming the Vegetable Garden

The garden was still a certifiable mess and it was already getting too hot for me to spend the serious time required to get it under control (I should have been doing that all winter). I usually grow bush beans – I really like Roma beans – but this year I decided to grow pole beans and let them climb the garden fence. 

I chopped and hacked about a foot-wide strip along the fence – just enough to get some bean seeds sown and I planted two rows of beans about twenty feet long.

Meanwhile, I put my beautiful potting bench that I built (all by myself) to work and started some zucchini, yellow squash, basil, cilantro, and jalapeno seeds. I didn’t have a plan for where to put all those yet, but I started them anyway. 

In the past, I tried using weed barrier in my garden, but last year the grass and weeds just grew right through and around it.  Now I can’t even rent a tiller to try and get the garden under control because where there is weed barrier it will get all tangled up in the tiller. Hard lesson learned. I’ll have to work on excavating that over the winter because it’s just not something I can do in the brutal Texas summer heat and humidity. 

seed containers

Switching to Raised Bed Gardening

I’ve been rethinking my garden strategy for a while now. I put a lot of thought into switching to raised bed gardens, but I just didn’t think I could pull it off this year.

On a day off from work in April, I went to buy some supplies for a raised bed. Using non-treated cedar decking boards, I built a 4 ft. x 8 ft. x 1 ft. raised bed all by myself while hubby was stuck at his computer for work. Yes! Unsupervised with the power tools. HA!

Even though I didn’t buy any new seeds this year I had plenty to choose from. (Hello, my name is Cheryl and I might have a seed-buying addiction). I planted several in each little starter pot, not knowing how successful the germination would be. Well, everything came up! Am I the only one that can’t bring themselves to pitch out a little seedling, even when I don’t need that many full-grown plants? I mean, that cute little seed went to all the trouble to sprout and grow a beautiful first set of leaves.  Who am I to deny it a chance to show its stuff? 

When most gardeners in my area were harvesting squash and beans, my plants were barely big enough to transplant. I just kept reminding myself that it’s better late than never, and a little bit is better than nothing. 

growing a small garden

Hubby surprised me by suggesting we put my newly built raised bed in the barnyard, the only other place around here besides the old garden that is safe from our dogs, chickens, and cows. We’ve already been transplanting a lot of our herbs that made it through the winter in the barnyard. We got my new raised bed filled with soil just in time to get things transplanted.

I also got six big heavy-duty empty cattle protein tubs from our neighbors to use for container gardening. I drilled holes in the bottom and filled them with soil. I planted all my tomatoes and cilantro in those containers and placed them on a bed of mulch along the fence.

But please do yourself a favor and whatever you’re using to stake the tomato plants, set it up early while the tomato plants are still small and don’t need to be staked yet. (Ask me how I know. Smacks forehead.) 

Along another fence, I planted most of the squash seedlings in the ground and planted another four squash in half of my raised bed. All the jalapenos are in the raised bed too. The basil went into several five-gallon pots. Anyone else have a problem with growing too much basil? I mean way too much basil. That’s not just me, right?

small garden harvest

Small Gardens Can Yield a Significant Harvest

My garden may be much smaller this year, but it is producing mightily.

I planted six zucchini and six yellow squash, a dozen tomatoes, and a dozen jalapeno peppers. I’ve given away over 20 pounds of squash. I’ve made dehydrated squash chips, zoodles (spiralized squash) for cooking fresh, zoodles for the freezer, grated up squash for cooking/baking fresh, and more for the freezer. I still have squash on every counter in the kitchen!

I have 11 pints of diced tomatoes in the freezer and I canned four pints of spaghetti/pizza sauce. There are lots more tomatoes right next to the squash on every counter. No really. Every. Counter.

I also have jalapenos waiting to be made into jalapeno poppers for the freezer and I’m going to try dehydrating some and making jalapeno powder. My favorite go-to summer meal is toast and tomatoes with crumbled goat cheese with a side of cheesy squash “breadsticks.” Mmmm mmm!

Oh, and those green beans? We pressure-canned green beans on three different occasions. Each batch was between 15 and 21 jars and now we have a total of 58 pints of green beans! Those little batches add up. For the two of us, eating about one pint of green beans per week – that will last us for a year. 

small garden raised bed

I’ve got all the materials to build another raised bed. I’d like to get it ready for a fall/winter garden. I have to remind myself throughout the brutal Texas summers that the reward is an almost year-round growing season. We have encountered some shortages of certain foods here and there throughout this pandemic. Have you thought about or read about our broken food system?

Ready to Grow Your Own Small Garden?

Do yourself a favor and grow your own food. Any little bit is better than nothing. Just get started and grow something. Anything. Not only are you less dependent on others to supply all your food, but you are also better prepared to endure tough times. 

You also have the opportunity to teach your children to garden and the value of understanding where food comes from. And it is a wonderful chance to create lasting memories while you do it.

I was talking to a dear friend of mine about gardening and she vividly remembers her mom’s huge garden when she was a kid. She realizes now that her mom was canning and putting up food to get them through lean financial times. But she also lovingly recalls some of her happiest childhood memories were times that they sat on the front porch snapping beans and shelling peas. She loved digging potatoes, onions, and carrots and couldn’t wait to see how big each one was – it was like a treasure hunt. 

I’ve always loved the sayings “when you garden you grow” and “playing in the soil is good for the soul.” Now go grow something! You’ll be so glad you did.

Getting Started Growing a Small Garden

Now that we have our mindset shifted from acres of land, tractors, and tillers, we can get into the details of how you can start your own garden in the small space that you have available.

Small garden seed starting

The Benefits of Growing a Small Garden for Food Production

  1. Small Gardens are More Manageable 

Growing a small space garden generally requires less weeding, watering, and overall maintenance. 

  1. Small Gardens Can Maximize Yield While Reducing Resources

A small garden uses less water, fertilizer, soil, space, and money, but it also allows for the growth of high-yield & fast-growing crops that can be maximized with vertical spaces and succession planting. 

  1. Small Gardens Can Be Grown Anywhere

Container gardens make growing food accessible to everyone. Even people who live in high-rise apartments can grow a small container garden on a balcony or patio. 

  1. Small Gardens Are Great for Families with Children

Kids can help plant, water, and harvest plants in containers and small gardens. Of course, they can help in larger gardens as well, but smaller spaces may be less overwhelming. You can even give the kids their own container to care for that is separate from your plants (if you are worried about them killing it).

  1. Small Gardens Require Less Start Up Cost & Time Committment

If you are just starting out and you want to experiment with gardening, this is the way to go! Growing a small garden is going to allow you to learn about plant requirements, pests, diseases, etc without pouring so much money and time into a large space.

  1. Small Gardens Allow You to Start Slow & Scale Up

I know, I know… We all want to jump in head first to any new project. We want the best and biggest we can get right at the beginning. But, that isn’t always feasible or wise. By growing a small garden first, you can gather knowledge and skills to scale up as you go. You can learn what works best for you and your family and make adjustments more easily. 

Small Space Garden Methods

Raised Bed Gardening

Growing in raised beds offers many benefits. More control over soil, better drainage, and easier access for people with limited mobility are just a few. This is a great option for people with poor soil quality and people who have trouble bending down consistently to care for plants directly in the ground.

Best for: Almost any plants work well in a raised bed garden. You may need to install a trellis for climbing plants, however.

Raised Bed Garden

Vertical Gardening

Vertical space is vital in a small garden. You can trellises, pallets, towers, stacking containers, wall-mounted planting boxes, etc to make sure the entire space is being utilized. Growing a vertical garden maximises space and yield potential. 

Best For: Climbing plants like cucumbers, peas, and pole beans are great on trellises. Other compact plants like strawberries, herbs, and small leafy greens work well in stacked containers and towers. 

Container Gardening

Growing plants in buckets, pots, and other containers is a great way to produce food with limited space or poor soil quality. This type of garden is portable so it can be moved to maximize sunlight and this provides a way to grow food even if you will be moving soon. Simply pick up the containers and take them with you!

Container garden

You can use 5-gallon buckets (my favorite), cinder blocks, planting pots, or any repurposed container that you have available. Just make sure it is large enough for the roots to grow and that there are drainage holes at the bottom.

Best For: Herbs, tomatoes, peppers, greens, bush beans. Dwarf & compact cultivars work best. I have also grown horseradish, turmeric, and garlic in containers.

Square Foot Gardening

Square foot gardening is a small-space method used within a raised bed system. Each bed gets divided into 1-foot squares for intensive planting. This method maximizes space, increases the harvest, and reduces weeding.

Best For: Lettuce, carrots, radishes, herbs, onions, broccoli, cabbage, bush beans, and more.

stacked garden tower

Window Box Gardening

Use window boxes to grow food without taking up any ground space at all! This is perfect for herbs, greens, and edible/medicinal flowers.

Best For: Herbs- basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc. Greens- lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, ect. Flowers- nasturtiums, calendula,etc.

Hanging Garden

Use hanging planters on your porch, patio, or carport to make use of otherwise unusable space. This method keeps the plants out of reach of many pests so it makes maintenance a little bit easier.

Best For: Strawberries, flowers, cherry tomatoes, herbs, and greens.

Plants that Grow Well in Small Gardens & Containers

  • Tomatoes (look for determinate and bush varieties)
  • Peppers
  • Herbs
  • Squahs
  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Bush Beans
  • Radishes & Carrots (these do well in deep containers like 5-gallon buckets)
  • Green Onions
  • Garlic

Tips for Growing a Small Space Garden

  1. Pay attention to sunlight. Sunmap to see how much sunlight your space receives each day. You want your plants to have at least 6-8 hours in the sun. If you are planting in containers, you can move them throughout the day to maximize sunlight. 
  2. Utilize companion planting. Plant complimentary crops with each other to improve growth rates, deter pests, and enhance flavor. For example, you can plant basil at the base of tomatoes. This also allows you to grow even more food in a small space. 
  3. Choose the Right Containers. Your containers should be large enough for roots to grow without being constricted. 5-Gallon buckets and grow bags are great for this. Herbs can grow in small containers. Also, make sure that you containers have adequate drainage. If you are using buckets, drill some holes at the bottom to allow water to flow out as needed.
  4. Extend the Growing Season. Place a row cover or pop-up greenhouse over your small garden or containers during cooler months to continue growing food longer.
  5. Choose high-yield compact crops. When you are growing in a small space, it is important to grow plants that will produce a lot of food without taking over the whole space. See the list above for some ideas. 
  6. Utilize vertical space. Use trellises, baskets, and stacking containers to grow food along vertical spaces. This saves ground space and maximizes your yield potential. 

Homestead Gardening Articles

Get ready for a great growing season with these articles to help you grow more in your homestead garden!

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