Square Foot Gardening 101

Your text for this course: All New Square Foot Gardening, by Mel Bartholomew. (Available at Amazon.com for $11.99 + S&H.)

The basics:

• Square Foot Gardening eliminates the wasted space of conventional "row" gardening.
• It eliminates the wasted work of weeding all of the wasted space in conventional "row" gardening.
• It also eliminates the wasted seeds planted that will later be "thinned out" in conventional "row" gardening.

Conventional gardening calls for tilling an area, fertilizing and amending the soil to make it ready to plant seeds. Then planting seeds in rows, the length of the garden and about three feet apart. Then, with that nicely tilled and fertilized soil, you have a lovely place for weeds to grow: in those wide spaces between rows.

In Square Foot Gardening, you build a garden box, Mel Bartholomew suggests a 4' x4' box out of 2" x 6" lumber. (You can make the boxes any length you like, but no more than 4' wide, because you need to be able to reach comfortably into the middle to care for your garden.)

Then, you mix your own, perfect soil to fill the boxes. That way, you don't have to worry about having your existing soil pH tested, amending it, etc. "Mel's Mix" for soil is made up of equal parts (measured by volume, not weight) of

• peat moss,
• coarse vermiculite,
• and compost.

The peat moss and vermiculite hold the perfect amount of water for your soil, and the compost provides the nutrients. If you are buying the compost, be sure to buy at least three to five different kinds of compost. Most compost is made as the waste product of a specific industry (i.e., cotton, or mushroom, etc.) and therefore isn't well balanced. Your own compost is most ideal. (We bought ours.) You need enough mix to fill your boxes to 6" deep.

Divide your garden box into 1' x 1' spaces. We used thin strips of wood found at Home Depot. You can use any thin, but firm material. This is an important step, do NOT skip it. A Square Foot Garden that is not divided into 1' x 1' spaces IS NOT A SQUARE FOOT GARDEN. Dividing your garden box has the following benefits:

• it creates easily defined spaces -- a defined space is easier to maintain;
• it makes planning your garden easier - one crop per square;
• it gives character to your garden, and looks nice.

Plant your seeds! (Or starter plants) To simplify this, we will think of our plants as coming in four sizes: small, medium, large, and extra large. (We are talking about the end product, and not the seed size.)

• For small plants, we will divide our 1' x 1' space into sixteen small, evenly spaced areas, and will plant sixteen seeds, one in each of these smaller spaces.
• For medium plants, divide 1' x 1' space into nine smaller, evenly spaced areas. Plant nine seeds.
• For large plants, plant four per 1' x'1 space.
• For extra large plants, plant one per 1' x1' space.

Using this method, you can plant what your family will actually eat, rather than a whole row, with a whole seed packet. In conventional row planting, everything in that row will be ready to harvest at the same time. Rarely will a family eat 20 cabbages at once. In Square Foot Gardening, you can stagger the planting of your crops so that the harvest is also staggered. When a crop is harvested from one of your 1' x1' spaces, you can add a scoop of compost to that space, and replant the space.

For more specific information on when to plant and how many per space of different plants to plant, please refer to your text.

Well, class, that's all we have time for today! Happy Planting!