Has anyone ever heard of/ used the Square Foot Gardening method?

Mel use to have a show on PBS I think. I was going to try it but we moved and now there is not enough sun back in the woods. I guess you can’t have everything.

His methods made a lot of sense.

Also try here.

Well, er, um, that is raised garden bed if I ever saw one, plus a mixture of companion planting and 'intense gardening' (basically shoving as many plants into an area as possible) principles. I bet his book will tell you about successive planting too.

I believe I covered similar methods in posts around here (too lazy to look them up myself).

And all of my info comes for free......

Thanks!
I'm really looking forward to actually doing something with my big yard this year, now that we've taken the pool out and just have vast stretches of openness. I'm not sure what or how much or how big, but something. I can't do too much because it's just the two of us, and it'll be just me doing the work, but I think the man will at least help me with the manly lumber parts.
I borrowed a bunch of books from the library and most of them recommend (preach) the double-dig method. That seems great, except it's just so hard for one person. So maybe Mel's onto something, here. Now, if I can just get the funding for "Mel's special soil mix."

You don't need "Mel's Special Soil mix".

What you need is a gravel yard/sand yard that also sells composted material. If you ask real pretty like they will mix a load of top soil and compost together for you, haul it out there and dump it in a nice neat pile. Then with wheel barrel, shovels you can deposit it into boxes.

For my parent's garden around the patio I used 2x12x 8 foot long cedar/redwood lumber screwed together at corners with brass (around 3 inch long) screws set every 3 inches apart, making simple "butt-joints". I set those on the lawn butting up against the slab, squared them up then lined the bottoms with section thickness of newspaper (the non-glossy pages) lining the bottom to cover up the grass. Then I dumped in a mixture of top soil and compost (Actually I layered that) up to about 2 inches shy of the rim of the boxes. That gives about 9 inches of soil to work with more than enough for most plants.

The boxes were 30 inches wide (the ends were cut 30") and various lengths, one 7'6", another about 3' long). To keep it simple, I put the length on the width, thus the interior width was 30" the exteriors were 30 plus the two thicknesses of the lengths. Good rule of thumb for bed gardens is to keep the bed as narrow as you can comfortably reach from either one side (if that is the only side you have access) or from both sides.

You can paint the wood first, if you want to, use a latex based exterior paint, about 5 coats on the back (where the soil will be against the wood) and 2 coats for the front (just for color).
(edit: addition): I often thought of using truck bed paint liner as an interior paint for wood boxes. I have used it on wood before in other projects and it makes a plastic coating - might be worth the money if you are looking at long term usage of those boxes)


However redwood/cedar is less likely to rot. DO NOT use pressure treated wood, they use an assortment of chemicals which will leech into the soil and should you (or anyone else) decide to plant food crops those chemicals will leech up into the plant.

Home Centers sell lattice and lathing strips - you can make your own "grid" if you feel you need one.

The only need for a lattice would actually be for climbing vines.

As for seed starting, I use white paper towels cut into one inch wide strips, about 5 sheet long will do well. Then I mix up cornstarch with a few drops of water making a paste - more along the lines of thick syrup than dough - using a syringe I put a drop of cornstarch glue every 1/2 inch or inch (depending on the seed) and drop individual seeds onto each drop of glue. Let it sit and dry then roll the strip up. Sometimes I write on the strip what is there (carrots, lettuce, blah) in spring when it comes time to plant I unroll my strips, cover with the required depth of soil, water and walk away. No kneeling, no bending over drawing lines and guess-amating distances between seeds or worse loosing those tiny little seeds (lettuce seed is the worst) in the dark soil. Seed Tape making is a thing I due in the winter, in front of the TV. Tedious, boring instead of back breaking.

I use spring grass clipping to "mulch" over seeds. I sprinkle about an inch of grass clippings loosely over the seed tape. This will reduce the number of weeds and will keep moisture in the ground longer preventing your seeds from drying out during germination.

If you are not up to dealing with yards of top-soil and composted material, home centers sell those in the bags.

Whew... Yeah. I may have to start slow with this whole garden project, since it's just little ol' me doing the work... But I am looking forward to it nonetheless!

quote:

Originally posted by DvdGStwrt: DO NOT use pressure treated wood...

I don't suppose I ought to use pressure treated wood for my compost bin either, then, eh?

quote:

Originally posted by Elexina:
Whew... Yeah. I may have to start slow with this whole garden project, since it's just little ol' me doing the work... But I am looking forward to it nonetheless!

quote:

Originally posted by DvdGStwrt: DO NOT use pressure treated wood...

I don't suppose I ought to use pressure treated wood for my compost bin either, then, eh?

No please don't, its all chemical treated wood, which will leech into the pile.

I would suggest a wire fence enough to make a 24 to 30" cylinder about 3' high - allowing air to reach it from the sides will aide in the composting (speed it up). Also makes it easier to open the bin to get at the compost afterward.

As for the work, it is worth the effort - not only for making things look nice but if you grow veggies too.

My latest thought is this: container gardening!! I don’t know what our backyard is going to look like over the next couple of years (my husband has some “plans”) so I was thinking something temporary while I save money to buy the SFG supplies and stuff. After all, I have containers. Plus, I can start my compost pile this year and have it ready for when I do a real garden next year.
I was thinking about a low slat-style compost bin of scrap wood, against the back of the house. It’s just the two of us so I can’t imagine we’ll generate or need that much compost. We’ll see what kinds of materials we can scrounge up and that will determine what sort of bin I end up with. It figures: my father has a bunch of wood just lying around, but it’s all pressure-treated. That’s why I asked -I thought I remembered reading somewhere that such wood was bad news.

Thank you!!

Compost you can not have too much of. I have found that there is always a lack of compost around here, but then I use compost everywhere, even the lawn gets a "dusting" of compost every so often (along with manure and other stuff).

There is a method of making compost called "sheet composting" basically instead of heaping it up in a pile you lay your material between the rows or in pathways (works best with leaves, grass clippings, straw, "dry" material for paths) this way you get a mulch to reduce or even prevent weeds from growing and still get composted material. I prefer laying it between rows of beans, between tomatoes plants and between the hills for squash - by the time the season is up on these the material is completed rotted.

But then I do not plant the same kinds of plants in the same area each year, I circulate my crops reducing the chance that species specific diseases and pests build up in any given area. Thus one year I may plant tomato, the next year lettuce, the year after that onion. The sheet composing around tomato plants is just raked into the soil before laying out my sheets of lettuce seed.

The older I get the more I prefer "sheet composting". Bin composting requires turning and a wheel barrel to move the material around...

An update on me and my garden...
I decided to try container gardening on the front steps this year and, though I planted late because of two vacations, things are growing really nicely. My husband, however, is not thrilled with the look of the white plastic tubs on the front steps -this from the man who leaves his clothes strewn all about the bedroom floor and has piles just everywhere... But oh well. I’d like something bigger anyway.
So this year I started my compost pile -with non-pressure treated wood!- and next year I think I’ll put my garden out back behind the garage, near the compost bin. Whether I do the double-dig or the square-foot depends on whether the man wants to help double-dig, or wants to spend the money on the supplies for the square-foot. But either way, I plan to be spending lots of rainy afternoons and cold winter nights curled up with my books and the threads in this forum. Thank you for all of your great input.

I've tried both methods and double digging isn't that much extra work. The deeper soil is softer, anyhow, and you get those long weed roots like (ugh!) dock.