Does anybody do biointensive? I’m curious if the 2-6 times greater harvest is true.
I do some of the biointensive and sq. foot gardening stuff.
I have around sixteen 3x4 ft beds, so not that much space, and I do plant everything as close together as I can. This helps to eliminate weeding, but if you get the plants too close together, the roots will invade each other’s space, and the crop will be impacted.
I don’t plant in flats, I use 3 or 5 oz. Dixie cups sitting in plastic lids(from deli cakes and cookies etc) to catch the water drainage. Peel off the paper cup and plant.
About half of my beds are too near a walnut tree, so I am limited in what can be planted, there. Plus, watering that area is difficult, so one summer crop and fall plantings for winter cover crops/compost material or mulch is what happens there.
My prime space is next to my patio and most of that has a retaining wall, and there is an electric receptacle there. As soon as a space opens up from harvest, I plant something else after giving it a good dose of compost and organic food. More or less using the sq. foot gardening method for distance between plants. These spaces get spring summer and fall plantings either transplants or direct planting. One or two are for the winter garden, the rest is fallow/compost heap of leaves and yard waste or cover crops.
In the fall, I plant my winter garden which is cold hardy lettuce, spinach, garlic, carrots - this will go under row covers, and additional protections as needed depending on the weather. I also grow winter rye, winter wheat, and vetch on a rotating basis. My corn is planted in the beds where I planted winter rye.
Sometimes I get a bit lazy, and don’t get it all done, but that means another compost bed for leaves etc.
Biointensive can quickly wear out your soil, unless you are attentive to replenishing it, which means a little more than half of your planting area is crops which have lots of compost value. Such as wheat, rye etc - lots of biomass/carbon.