It is almost planting time, but before you dive into the dirt, I thought I’d make some suggestions to encourage you to go an easier route than the traditional garden. In a recent post on composting, I talked about the Square Foot Gardening method (SFG), so as promised, here are some tips to get you going on your very own square foot garden.
Last year when my wife and I moved into our new a house, my mother gave us a gardening book called All New Square Foot Gardening. At the time, I had never heard of SFG, but now– my second year gardening under these suggestions– I just love it. If you are interested in becoming a new gardener or revamping your old plot, I would highly recommend this book.
Square foot gardening was developed by Mel Bartholomew as a way to make gardening easier, more fun and take up less space. With all of the space and time constraints of modern life, Bartholomew’s innovations provide a home garden that is practical and manageable, even with a full time job.
The basic guiding principles are these:
1. Grow more in less space
2. Use better soil
3. Have a more accessible space that is easier to work so gardening takes less time
This may may initially sound overwhelming, but I promise it works and it’s simple! The first step is to grow your garden in four-foot, square boxes instead of long in the shape of long rows. This accomplishes two things:
First, not growing plants in rows allows you to fit a lot more in a given area, and there is no need to allow for rows in which to walk between your plants, since you can reach all the plants in the square-foot garden by simply leaning over. Therefore, when a plant should be spaced 6 inches apart, you can put four plants in a 1ft square as opposed to one plant every six inches with a row on either side.
Second, this allows you to use better soil. While it would be impractical to impost an entire row garden worth of soil, with a 4×4 six inch deep SFG it becomes easy. Instead of digging up and using the poor soil that exists in your yard, build raised beds and fill them with Mel’s mix. Raised beds are fabulous! No tilling, no hurt backs. All you need to do is create a soil mixture of 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost. You will be importing all of the dirt, which has very little to none weeds– NO WEEDING! Also, the soil is full of nutrients from the compost, much more so than your yard soil would be. Lastly, the soil is light and airy, allowing for plenty of water drainage and space for roots to grow.
Since your garden is now much smaller, now, it is significantly easier to work with while providing just as much food. On top of that, you can grow it closer to the house, it requires no weeding, and it looks awesome.
I know I have not gone into all the details here, but this should be enough to peak your interest. You can learn more from Bartholemew’s book or the video and links I have included at the bottom of the page. For me, this has made gardening a real pleasure that I have time to enjoy, and I hope that you get as much out of it as I do. And thanks, Mom, for getting me started on this great project. We all love it!
Square Foot Gardening Links
-Vertical Square Foot Gardening
-Square Foot Gardening Foundation
Can you plant root vegetables in these raised beds?
Surprisingly, you can plant root vegetables in these beds, but for some things like carrots, potatoes and leaks you can make a special deep box. I have two 1×3 boxes with about 10″ of dirt for these root crops and that works great for me.
Love your blog….and handy tips like this on square foot gardening!
Hi, I just learned about SFG and it seems very interesting. My only concern is that both vermiculite and peat (especially peat) aren’t the most environmentally-friendly materials. Taking peat from peat bogs is bad. Do you know of any substitutions for peat and/or vermiculite to make Mel’s Mix?
Well, I agree with you that these are not the most environmentally friendly options, but one thing that is good is the decreased size of these gardens. As far as vermiculite goes, I use perlite and it does not have the same environmental concerns. With the peat moss, it is currently being used at a rate less than it is forming, but if you are looking for alternatives, sphagnum moss and coconut husks work well. Here is a link that explains some of these alternatives.
Hi I would like to use the photo in your blog for a poster for our school education program. May I please have permission?
Thank you,
Jo
You are very welcome to use the photo for a school poster. I love that young people are getting exposed to things like square foot gardening
Help! My dad is old fashioned and wants to start learning how to garden. I do also but I know unlike himself that square foot grdening is better then working the ground. He wants to put all the time and effort into a ground garden and I want to do square foot gardening. How can I help ejucate and help him understand that square foot gardening is better????
Hi Julie,
I have to say that working the ground can be MUCH harder. I would suggest looking at some of the links on this page and try picking up All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! It is a great book and gives all the benefits of square foot gardening.