Space-Saving Veggies for Small Gardens
If you have a veggie garden on the small side, or if you're just starting out in the world of veggie gardening, there are certain crops you might hesitate to grow because they take up too much real estate. A single Pumpkin plant, for instance, can take up a whopping 200 square feet! And a big indeterminate Tomato can sprawl into its neighbors and turn into a impenetrable thicket if you take your eye off of it for a single day. Everyone has room for Carrots, Beets, Lettuce and Sweet Peppers. If you're itching for something new but feeling hemmed in by the constraints of your garden, try these smaller versions of normally-space-hogging veggies like Winter Squash, Zucchini, Cabbage, Melons and Cucumbers. They'll help you make the most of your garden's square footage, and make summertime dinners so much more interesting and delicious.
55 days. Low on space? Grow this compact, cascading, determinate Tomato in a patio pot or hanging basket! The plant grows only 6" tall but tumbles up to 3' over the side of a container. Despite its diminutive stature, it produces oodles and oodles of 1½" sweet red Tomatoes. This is an open-pollinated variety.
 
More small-space Tomatoes
Determinate Tomatoes tend to be less sprawly than their indeterminate cousins. They concentrate their harvest into a much smaller time window, too, which is useful for large-scale sauce-making. Marinara Plum Tomato is a highly disease-resistant, determinate hybrid variety that is compact and very productive.
 
Glacier Early Tomato is an extra-early determinate slicer that starts producing ripe Tomatoes just 55 days after transplanting. Green Zebra is a unique heirloom determinate variety whose ripe yellow-green fruits are striped with green, with tart-sweet green flesh. Orange Pixie is an adorable determinate variety with small golden orange fruits that grows up to just 18" in a container or 36" in the ground.
 
And finally, if making your own sun-dried Tomatoes sounds interesting, grow compact, indeterminate Principe Borghesi Sun-Drying Tomato. It's an Italian heirloom that was developed exclusively for sun-drying, though it's delicious fresh, too. 
 
This Cucumber won’t take over your veggie patch! The hybrid, disease-resistant plants are only about 3 feet in diameter but produce an abundance of burpless Cukes up to 8 inches long. With a small seed cavity, crisp flesh, smooth, dark green skin, and a refreshing, sweet, non-bitter flavor, this is the perfect slicer for small gardens and even containers. You can start harvesting Cucumbers at just 55 days.
 
More small-space Cucumbers
Small leaves and short vines make disease-resistant and high-yielding Iznik Mini Bush Cucumber ideal for growing in pots or raised beds. Use a trellis to train the vines upward and let the shiny, 3" to 4" long fruit hang down in easy reach. Self-pollinating blossoms produce extra-crispy, thin-skinned Cucumbers that are perfect for lunchbox snacks or crudites.
 
Want to try your hand at pickling but don't think you have enough room for more cucumbers? Try Bush Pickle Pickling Cucumber. The perfect pickling Cucumber for smaller gardens and containers, it's compact, growing to only 30” wide at most, but it's surprisingly disease-resistant and prolific, producing loads of Cukes that are best picked at 5” long or less for best flavor and crunch. Visit our Pickle Recipes Pinterest board for lots of pickle recipes.
 
We're beyond excited about this rare, adorable Zucchini that looks like a tiny Watermelon! Each tasty fruit is egg-shaped and deep green with high-contrast pale green stripes, best picked when just smaller than a tennis ball. Enjoy Piccolo cooked or raw, as their flesh is mild and sweet. The highly productive, spineless, compact bush-type plants are great for smaller gardens. 
 
For more traditional-looking Zucchinis in a small space, try Milano Black Zucchini. An extremely early variety to set fruit, Milano produces large quantities of swarthy Zucchini over a long season on vigorous dwarf bushes. And we mean vigorous: this variety grows quickly, so keep your eye on them as they mature. It is best picked no longer than 8" long, when it is shiny, sweet and most flavorful.
 
 
 
More great space-saving veggies for small gardens.... 
 

Watermelon: Sugar Baby

This heirloom produces round, 10-lb. Melons with super sweet, fine-textured flesh in a dark green rind. Compact, drought-tolerant and disease-resistant, Sugar Baby is a reliable easy grower.

 

Cabbage: Alcosa

Wrinkly, crinkly Alcosa is our pick for the prettiest of all Cabbages. It features dusky-blue outer leaves, a 6" lime-green head and a buttery yellow interior. An early spring planting yields heads in just 65 days, so you can be making coleslaw by July 4th. 

 

Winter Squash: Honey Nut Mini Butternut

A terrific Butternut for smaller gardens, Honey Nut's shorter, bushy, compact plants yield 1- to 1½-pound, pint-size cuties just 5" long. The fruit ripens to dark orange with wonderfully sweet flesh.

 

Pumpkin: Wee Be Little

The perfect variety for the children's garden, these petite, deliciously sweet Pumpkins weigh in at one half to one pound, produced on a bush, taking up less space than the big, rambling types.
 

Eggplant: The Bride

The Bride has purple skin with white stripes. Strong, well-branching yet small plants produce two to three 8" Eggplants per cluster. Their creamy, tender white flesh is perfect for stir-fries and grilling.