(1) Healthy soil contains billions of microorganisms and sustains plant life. Composting and using organic matter replenishes soil nutrients and maintains a healthy ecosystem. (2) Planting in close hexagonal spacings with overlapping leaves creates a microclimate that reduces evaporation, retards weeds, retains carbon dioxide, and protects microorganisms. (3) Companion planting of mutually beneficial plants can repel pests, attract beneficial insects, fix nitrogen, and improve nutrient availability through symbiotic relationships in the soil.

1. Intensive Gardens Zone I Strategies

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6. Zone I

33. Sheet Mulch

42. Soil Cultivation

43. Double Dug Raised Beds

44. Double Dug down to at least 24 inches. Allows close spacing of plants and very deep roots. Allows deeper penetration of air, water, and nutrients. Plant roots can grow more freely

49. No Digging

61. Importing Soil

87. Soil Food Web

97. Aerobic Compost Tea

105. Living Mulch

111. Creates Microclimaté (1) Reduces evaporation. (2) Retards weeds. (3) Retains carbon dioxide. (4) Protects micro biota.

116. Plant Guilds

117. Companion planting. For reasons that are still not well understood but have been thoroughly validated, many plants complement one another and grow more abundantly together - say bush beans and strawberries. In other cases, companion plants may serve to repel garden pests of various kinds, or may attract beneficial insects. For instance, borage helps to control tomato worms and also attracts pollinators like bees.

119. Crop Rotation

125. Compaction and Acidity

126. Dock accumulates potassium and phosphorus and decompacts.

127. Calorie Farming Calorie farming. Here the emphasis is on growing the most efficient calorie-producers for human consumption. For instance, about 30% of all the crops that are grown on a small subsistence farm are high-calorie root crops, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips and others.

130. Food Exercise

132. 30% Root Crops

137. 10% Green Vegetables

138. Carbon Farming

139. "Growing soil" is the key to long term farm sustainability. Some 50-60% of all the crops grown on a modern biointensive farm are dual-purpose crops that provide both calories for humans and an abundance of material for building compost piles. These crops include many grains, corn, fava beans and sunflowers, among others.

142. Corn

143. Fava

144. Sunflowers

147. Open Pollinated Seed

156. Pollination

157. Winnowing

166. Whole Farming