[RobRob]

I have a decent sized area to grow in but it doesn't meet the demands I put on it so any advice to maximise output will be welcome.
I have been doing this properly for two years now so my fruit area should be established for next summer. gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries,

It's the veg side which can be altered no end.
Some things I am doing to help so far include:

Overwintering peppers and chillies, earlier start and more fruit,
Deep beds in greenhouse rather than just pots etc,
Lots of good compost and manure,

What tricks do you have? What varieties swamp you with produce?

[mumofstig]

Most important - what do you like to eat, which tells us what you want to grow  and roughly how big is the 'decent size area' you're growing in ?

[madcat]

and are you talking volume or value?  main crop potatoes give huge volume but arent that expensive to buy.  Frozen peas may not be as nice as off the vine but are good and cheap.  Fresh beans on the other hand are horribly expensive to buy so might be better use of the land if it is £s you are trying to save.

[RobRob]

Volume!
Eg, I grow runner beans a lot because there is good output for space used,
I am not a fussy eater, I just want LOTS of good veg,

[Auntiemogs]

I grew 'climbing' courgettes this year with good results...

[RobRob]

I didn't put a lot of detail in because I want things I haven't thought of, a fresh input. Like the last comment... Climbing courgettes! Great response thank you. I didn't know about them. I will do my homework.
I never liked courgettes until I grew my own.

[gavinjconway]

Its no good being swamped with too much stuff if you cant freeze it. So decide what YOU like and want to grow and then just do it. I grow loads of different veg to eat fresh, freeze and give some away. I grow quite close spacing to maximise on quantity but size sometimes gets compromised. I dont have de-marked beds - just cottage garden style but instead of a line or two of veg I use bigger patches to grow on either side of a main centre pathway. I then place scaffold planks between varieties to use as paths to keep compaction down.

[Potty Plotty Lotty]

I found my Little Gem Rolet squash climbing through my currant bushes this year... Not sure whether to recommend that! The squash grew very very well.

Kohl Rabi (Gigante variety) has been very prolific and very easy to grow compared with other brassicas and gave a lot of produce even with 30cm spacings.

I've had lots of success with growing spring onions in a raised bed just filled with compost from grow bags used the previous season. They are started in modules and then transplanted out and seem to grow so quickly compared to anywhere else on the plot.

Try growing green manure over the winter, or inter sowing between brassicas with a nitrogen fixing green manure. 

Give up a small patch of ground to Comfrey then make comfrey tea or just mulch beds with the leaves.

[gobs]

We would need to know your space limitations, really, as Mum says. This is important.

The fruit, once established with good pruning and feeding can produce lots. I have that much red currant on one established bush that I struggle what to do with it.

Feed established strawberry bed with tomato feed. This is good for a lot of flowering crops.

Read the description carefully when buying seed and plants about the variety, some are prolific(they will be).

Buy reproducing broccoli, there will be second, smaller heads to harvest.

Try Central-Eastern-European and Turkish pepper varieties, they shall be more productive than a Bell pepper kind. Generally try more natural varieties than those produced simply for the shelf-life.

Burpless Tasty Green and Crystal lemon cucumbers are hard to beat in performance in my book. Both do well outdoors, the latter even in the worst of summers. The first you only need one plant of, yet again, upwards. You get such in marrows, too.

Try dual purpose plants: celeriac will give you a bulb as well as leaves, the same with Hamburg parsley.

But then, good husbandry is key. A good rotation, feeding and watering routine, that the plants need is crucial.

[Salmo]

Arrange your rotations so that you can double crop.
For instance:
broad beans/peas harvested by July followed by overwintering brassicas sprouting broccoli/cabbage/caulis harvested by May followed by sweet corn/courgettes, squashes.

runner bean trench planted with salads in March April before runner beans.

[Totty]

Arrange your rotations so that you can double crop.
For instance:
broad beans/peas harvested by July followed by overwintering brassicas sprouting broccoli/cabbage/caulis harvested by May followed by sweet corn/courgettes, squashes.

runner bean trench planted with salads in March April before runner beans.

Essential advice for maximizing crops from Salmo.
Try to have crops ready to fill gaps all the time. With continuous cropping however, looking after the soil is hugely important. Plenty of organic matter added when ground does eventually become empty, and top dressing with BFB throughout the season will help.

Totty

[goodtogrow]

I've found gherkin (cornichon) to be a very productive crop, grown vertically.  If you let them grow to full size, rather than the delicacy of a cornichon, they make a mini cucumber.

[RobRob]

Thank you everyone, lots of good advice there. I will be planning my rotations better and looking at more vertical varieties. Cucumbers will be new for me so that will be fun.
 I have lots of animals that eat anything I don't so freezing veg isn't necessary. It just saves on feed costs.

[Trillium]

Gavin, that's an interesting stool in your first pic.

To save space, I grow all my cukes up a Munty frame. It keeps them under control and the long eating cukes stay straight as they hang rather than curled up. The space below has lettuce or potatoes. Otherwise, I don't bother with potatoes here because they take too much valuable space. I grow them elsewhere.

For tomatoes, I find the plum types yield heavier crops than regular eating toms and are superior for cooking sauces since they're drier inside. This year I did fantastic with Polish Ligustra and a locally selected San Marzano (from my local heirloom seed producer). I tied the ligustras and San Marzanos to stakes (no pinching or pruning) and had 30-40 huge toms per plant. Chicken manure is the secret.

Chard is thickly sown in a 6 ft long row (after being well manured) and I can give away chard because the yield is so heavy. I do the same with French beans and get great yields. Forget the 'space seeds 6-8" apart' business. This year I found the French beans produced more heavily in raised beds (12" high) than in the ground. Same with sweet potatoes.

If you have odd spaces in your grow area, build some small raised beds to fit them and grow things in them like sweet peppers, beetroot, leeks, toms, etc.

Like gobs, I've cut back on red currants because I kept getting way more than I could use. I'm down to 2 large bushes now and they still produce more than I can use.

I built 18" raised beds around the outer edges of my septic system weeping beds and grow an assortment of foods in them. Some folk don't think about possible health issues or interfering with the system's percolation, but I do and the raised beds solve that problem.

In another area, under my walnut tree, I built more raised beds, lined them with polythene sheeting before filling, and grow fantastic crops of blueberries. Blueberries prefer partial shade and we built tall netted cages for them to keep out birds.

[pigguns]

@ Trillium re 'the stool' ahh- I'd not spotted that so had a closer look!  I have one of these, it must be from Lidl  you can turn it upside down as an assisted 'kneeler pad' and the 'legs' help you to get up again!  I've not used that function just yet....