The biointensive method is an organic agricultural system which focuses on maximum yields from the minimum area of land, while simultaneously improving the soil. The goal of the method is long term sustainability on a closed system basis. It has also been used successfully on small scale commercial farms.

GROW BIOINTENSIVE is a form of BioIntensive Gardening.

• In order to plant intensively, beds are 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 m) wide, usually 5 ft (1.5 m) and at least 5 feet (1.5 m) long, often 20 feet (6 m), forming a bed of 100 square feet (10 m²). Crops are not planted in traditional rows according to a square pattern, but are planted in a hexagonal or triangular pattern in the bed so that no space is left unnecessarily unused. These wide beds and close spacings not only allow more plants per area, but also enable the plants to form a living mulch over the soil, keeping in moisture and shading out weeds. Additionally, whenever possible seedlings are started in flats so that more garden space is available to large plants and so that the seedlings can be more closely spaced before transplant, forming a living mulch in the flat as well.
• Companion planting is described as taking place both in space, which is traditionally called companion planting, and in time, which is traditionally called crop rotation. Companion planting can be used to improve the health and growth of crops, and also as another form of intensive planting, which uses vertical space more efficiently by mixing shallow rooting plants with deep rooting plants or slow growing plants with fast growing plants.
• In order to achieve sustainable fertility on a closed system basis, the biointensive method uses carbon and calorie farming, an aikido-style of work, composting—including safe and legal human waste recycling, the use of open pollinated seeds, and limited land use, which allows farmers and gardeners to retain more of the land in a wild state for genetic diversity.
• If carbon or compost crops are grown in about sixty percent of the cultivated land, they can provide the compost and thus the fertility for one hundred percent of the cultivated land. Many cereal crops qualify as compost crops, providing both food and abundant compost. Additionally some of these compost crops may be grown during the winter, when the land would be otherwise unused. Certain compost crops are higher in carbon while others are higher in nitrogen, and the desired proportion of each must be grown. Also, certain compost crops take particular desired nutrients from the subsoil and concentrate them in the compost. This proportion of 60 % compost crops is crucial to the sustainability that is the goal of the biointensive method, and to the fertility of one's garden.
• In calorie farming, care is given to growing enough food energy (and other nutrients) to live on in a minimal area. Root crops also allow biointensive farmers and gardeners to grow more nutrients in smaller areas, resulting in less labor and more space for wilderness and other people. These crops—which have both a high calorie content per pound, and a high yield per area—include potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, leeks, burdock, and parsnips. About 30 % of the land cultivated for food is used for root crops.
• Composting allows the plants to transform and enrich the soil with organic matter, and also to return nutrients to the soil. Biointensive composting is fairly straightforward, emphasizing the health and diversity of the microbes that break down and become a part of the compost. Thus, relatively cooler composting is practiced, and plant materials are preferred over animal materials. Soil is often combined with the compost to inoculate the pile with microbes. Without human waste recycling, however, nutrients and organic matter are constantly removed from the soil and flushed away. Therefore, when safe and legal human waste recycling is possible--as in many places it already is--that fertility can be returned to the soil. A great unappreciated source of compost and soil improvement is the roots of crops themselves, which are left to decompose in the soil, and help to both fertilize and sew it together. Thus crops such as cereal rye and alfalfa, which have exceptionally deep roots, are valued.
• The use of open pollinated seeds ensures genetic diversity, and allows the farmer to be self sufficient, harvesting seeds from his or her own plants, and cultivating varieties which are best suited to that particular region.
• Retaining half the land in a wild state also allows for genetic diversity.
• An aikido style of working which conserves energy and thus requires less food energy, is more efficient, and thus enables one to get more work done, leaving time for other pursuits.

Because some of these techniques result in intensive productivity, the system must be practiced as a whole in order to prevent soil exhaustion. Although the goal of the biointensive method is sustainability, if the techniques concerning productivity are practiced without the techniques concerning sustainable fertility, the fertility of the soil may be used up even more quickly than with normal unsustainable methods. The most important element for sustainable fertility is the growing of sixty percent compost crops, composting, and when possible safe and legal human waste recycling.

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