Is there a place for traditional row gardening on the homestead?

[WayneH]

I keep thinking about how it's not good to have rows and rows of the same plants in your garden.  But how do you avoid it if you plan on canning a lot of food?  For example:

If you have ever canned carrots, you have learned that it takes a LOT of carrots to fill a quart jar.

How do you avoid rows when you have an acre of land, but you want to put up 10 quarts of diced tomatoes, 10 quarts of Juice, and  a dozen jars of spaghetti sauce?

Or my two cases of green beans?

[CortneyRae]

This is where I would say just get creative. What about still maintaining the row-garden layout but not having any one row completely devoted to one plant (this way you could still work in companion plantings). Or what about taking the idea of square foot gardening and amplifying it to a larger scale? I guess I figure you have to do what makes sense for you- whatever that may be. I'm really interested to see what the other folks have to say about this!

[Ethan]

Sure, why not? If it works, do it. There's a lot of good benefits from moving towards a sustaining permaculture system, but for many of us that's just not feasible given money and time considerations. Aside from the basic rules for nature such as plants needing water, sun and good soil, most everything else plays by the hard and fast rule book. If it doesn't work, stop doing it. If it does work, try and build on it and make it work even better. Personally, I'm tossing every idea I can think of into the back yard. Containers, raised beds, layered compost systems, might even do some Hugulkultur down the road. We tend to assign too much blame or credit for things, when in nature, so much relies on basics concepts applied to individual systems rather than absolutes that hold sway for all conditions and circumstances.

[ShenandoahJoe]

Row-cropping was invented by people who had a specific need, and it sounds like you might be one of them.
I grew a Three Sisters garden last year, and while I was gratified by how much food it produced, I was more than a little annoyed by how much time I had to spend hunting for beans. This year, my beans are growing on a nice, straight trellis.

[Matthew N Gooseneck]

I AM DOING BOTH.  I have a nice, awesome no-till garden and two row gardens.  I actually planted the same things in both to compare results. The no till has been way easier. The rows have been a pain, however they seem to produce more.

[Jim]

You may already know this one, but there is block planting, which combines square-foot gardening + row gardening:  http://www.cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/713.pdf

I technically do block planting in my framed in raised beds, but if I had a tilled-field, I would do block planting in that as well.  One thing I would add is blocks of beneficial flowers and cover crops (like buckwheat in summer).

[WayneH]

Seems like a lot of people are headed in the same direction I'm pointed towards.  I like my raised beds, and enjoy square foot gardening, but I will most likely incorporate several methods in the end.