The promise of a tomato, sun-ripened and bursting with flavor, inspires many would-be gardeners to dream in the spring of a vegetable patch in the summer.

The reality of finding a large, sunny spot, creating rich soil and weeding in the summer heat dashes some of those dreams.

Hyosub Shin / AJC (ENLARGE)

Raised beds in Cheryl Carson's Smyrna backyard offer 56 square feet of growing space, perfect for vegetables – like beans and carrots – for 6-year-old Catie and the rest of the family. The square-foot method uses 20 percent of the space row gardening uses.

Hyosub Shin / AJC (ENLARGE)

A plant marker reminds gardener Cheryl Carson what's what. Last summer she had a bountiful growing season, even with the drought.

RELATED LINKS: • Photos: Learn more about this gardening technique • Check out our Garden channel • See more garden galleries • See our food channel

What if that tomato came with a different kind of promise: No big patch of ground or weeding required. Who could resist? For more than 25 years, an intensive cultivation method called square-foot gardening has beckoned gardeners who want an easier, space-saving way to grow.

Changes to the method that make it even easier — no more back-breaking double-digging — are attracting a new generation of converts. In Atlanta, it offers an answer to smaller yards and tight watering restrictions.

Square-foot gardening is based on a 4-foot-by-4-foot raised bed that holds 16 squares marked off by a grid. (No surprise that a retired engineer and efficiency expert, Mel Bartholomew of Utah, came up with the system.) Like traditional gardening, the quality of the soil is crucial. For the soil, as with everything else related to square-foot gardening, there's a recommendation calculated with mathematical precision.

Cheryl Carson has tried both the old and new methods, first at a condo, then at the Smyrna home she shares with her husband and two young children. She prefers the updated version, which calls for blending compost, peat moss and coarse vermiculite to make your own soil, named Mel's Mix after Bartholomew.

It's a good fit for a corner of her backyard, where 54 square feet of marked-off raised beds are built into the side of a slope. That still leaves room for a big playset and an expanse of grass for running and tossing a ball. She's growing carrots, cabbage, chives, onions and parsley and just planted bean seeds with 6-year-old daughter Catie.

"The square-foot method really allows me to do a lot with the little, tiny lot I have," Carson says.

"Last year, even during the drought, I was able to supply salad greens, beans, okra, eggplant, Swiss chard, field peas, beets, carrots — really pretty much everything I would like to eat."

Square-foot gardening uses 20 percent of the space of a traditional row garden, says Karen Bastow, who taught a seminar on the method recently for Georgia Organics. Vegetables can be grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. The soil mix, replenished each planting season with a fresh cup of compost in each square, provides the nutrients.

Bob Westerfield has tried many methods of vegetable gardening as a consumer horticulturist for the University of Georgia, including intensive gardening (lots of plants in a little space).

"It's actually a pretty good way to start out for most people," Westerfield says of square-foot gardening. "A lot of people tend to overplant a large garden and they tend to let things slide. In a square-foot, intensive garden, you're keeping a better eye on it."

He sees other advantages, but also some drawbacks. Gardeners should choose smaller varieties of space-hogging plants like summer squash and cucumbers. And the close growing conditions, which can restrict airflow, may promote plant diseases. Following the advice to put a different type of plant in each square foot can cut down on diseases and insects, he says.

Irene Kagika plans to see for herself. She lives in Austell, in a Habitat for Humanity subdivision where yard space is tight. Using a 4-by-4 box put together from untreated lumber, she plans to grow parsley, tomatoes, onions and lettuce. She uses those ingredients on most days to make stews for her husband and their four children.

Kagika wants to use organic methods to grow the produce because she can't afford to pay the higher prices such produce commands in grocery stores. She also likes the idea of a small, manageable garden, and she's looking forward to checking out her neighbors' new gardens. Many attended a Habitat-sponsored seminar on square-foot gardening recently and are preparing to plant.

Marianne Snyder, formerly a row gardener, can't wait for the results. She put together that workshop as assistant director of human resources for Cobb County Habitat for Humanity, and she's doubling the number of square-foot beds she tends at her own home.

"It's a good way to garden," she says. "I'm a believer."