French intensive gardening also known as raised bed, wide bed, or French market gardening is a method of gardening in which plants are grown within a smaller space and with higher yields than other traditional gardening methods. The main principles for success are often listed as soil improvement, raised beds, close spacing, companion planting, succession planting and crop rotation. Originating in France, the practice is very popular among urban gardeners and small for profit farming operations. History Beginning in the 1500s in neighborhoods in and around Paris, market gardens, as they were then known, were lauded for their high yields and high return on investment during seasons that were often bad for typical growers. "Maraîchers" or market gardeners employed techniques of fermenting manure to warm the soil, building stone walls to keep the wind at bay, and planting crops together to produce high yields. The work of two French market gardeners, Moreau and Daverne, who wrote their "Manuel pratique de la culture maraîchère de Paris" in 1845, often referred to as "La Culture Maraîchère," in which they recorded their knowledge of the gardening techniques, is used as reference for how the technique was traditionally practiced. Popularity of the French intensive method reached a high in the late 1800s and early 1900s as it spread to England. In 1869, William Robinson is the first English speaker credited with writing about the technique in his book "The Parks and Gardens of Paris." However, the practice wasn't taken seriously until the popularization by Peter Kropotkin in his 1899 book "Fields, Factories and Workshops." Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s that the French intensive method made its way to the United States, helped primarily by gardeners by Alan Chadwick and John Jeavans. Chadwick, an English gardener, started the Garden Project, now UC Santa Cruz's upper garden, using the French intensive method in 1967. Jeavons expanded on Chadwick's work by writing the book "How to Grow More Vegetables," which adapted the French intensive method into a consumable and understandable medium for the American public. Establishment Bed preparation Bed preparation is an important and time-consuming activity that is vital to the success of a French intensive garden, beginning with the bed layouts which are often what people associate with the French intensive system. A 3x3 foot bed is the minimum size needed to create the micro climates necessary for successful planting, however most prefer