Inter-Cropping

• Take advantage of varying maturity times by planting vegetables that share space well. A popular vegetable combination using this principle is radishes and carrots. Purdue University Extension suggests mixing the seeds together to plant. Radishes grow quickly enough to harvest in three to five weeks, making room for the carrots to mature after your radishes are harvested.
  
  Try combining quick growing lettuce with slower growing onions. Or, plant corn between rows of potatoes.
  
  Succession cropping and succession sowing are two other space saving principles that takes advantage quick growing crops. Rather than planting large quantities of vegetables such as radishes, cress, turnips and spinach all at once, space plantings out at two-week increments. This provides a supply of fresh vegetables throughout the growing season and reduces the risk of having too many vegetables to harvest at one time.With succession cropping, the vegetable varieties you plant are rotated, one after the other. With succession sowing, on the other hand, you simply plant the same vegetable at two week increments to avoid a single large harvest.
  
  

Companion Planting

• Companion planting is similar to concept of inter-cropping. With companion planting, you combine vegetables and herbs that offer advantages to one another as they grow. Companion planting offers natural pest control, aids in soil balance and uses space-saving principles. For instance, Native Americans grew corn, beans and squash together because of their symbiotic relationship. Corn uses great amounts of nitrogen from the ground while beans replenish it. Corn, in turn, offers a natural trellis on which the beans can grow. To share space and prevent weeds from sprouting, shade-tolerant squash was added to this mix.
  
  There are numerous companion plant combinations to try in your vegetable garden. For instance, carrots grow well with lettuce, onion, tomatoes and English peas, but poorly with dill. Cabbage combines well with spinach, celery and beets, but should not be planted with tomatoes or pole beans.
  
  

Vertical Gardening

• Using trellising, garden arbors, hanging planters and even wall space, vertical gardening takes full advantage of space above the ground. Vine type vegetables such as tomatoes, beans, peas, cucumber, squash and pumpkin are all good vertical gardening options. Wall mounted planters can expand the vegetable varieties you can grow including shallow-rooted, non-vine types such as lettuce, spinach, radishes and onions.
  
  

Raised Bed and Container Gardening

• Use raised beds or container gardens not only to utilize deck and patio space, but to expand your growing season as well. Because the soil warms faster, it offers earlier planting and frost protection. These principles also prevent soil compaction and offer better soil drainage than in ground gardens.
  
  Raised bed and large containers can be planted using space-saving block style layouts, which Colorado State University Extension says improves kitchen garden yield 15 times more than row-style layouts.
  
  Containers also offer the added advantage of mobility, to control sunlight and climate impact on your vegetables.