Gardening . . . I think it is my favorite hobby. I wish summer could last forever!
This year is my third year of Square Foot Gardening. I just like it better and better! The key to a great Square Foot Garden is putting out the initial investment in the special soil required. You can’t just do it in your regular old garden dirt and get the fabulous results. You have to create a blend of vermiculite, peat moss and several types of compost (described in detail in the book, Square Foot Gardening) to get the nutrient-rich soil that produces high yields.
My favorite part of Square Foot Gardening is that I don’t need tools anymore: no shovel, pitchfork, or rake. No sore back. Carrots can be wiggled out of the ground easily with your finger. No, my favorite thing is that nothing “gets lost” anymore, it is so organized and compact. And even the tiny seeds germinate so I am growing all my own fresh herbs as a result. Or maybe my favorite part is that you never walk on—or water or amend—all that space between plants. Instead the good stuff and water goes in the boxes along with all the plants, and you walk on the walkways around the boxes, resulting in a huge reduction—or extinction—of weeds! Weeds don’t really stand a chance. There is simply no room for them!
Hang on tight, watermelons!
This year, I planted half of my garden in Square Foot boxes, and I seriously ran out of vegetables and flowers to grow before I ran out of space. The author of Square Foot Gardening claims you grow twice the food in half the space, conserving water by 80%. I have been gardening for 40 years, but this is the most fun and success I’ve ever had gardening. No more rows!
The other half of my garden, I covered with black plastic in anticipation of all those big sprawling plants that take so much room. Last autumn, my husband loaded this area up with all the bags of fall leaves the neighbors were setting out for the garbage man, plus he cleaned out the chicken coop and dug it in. In about March, we spread a big sheet of cheap black plastic (3 mil) over the entire area, laying carpet strips down every 4 feet to serve as walkways. We did it early to heat up the ground quicker. Then we cut an “X” in the black plastic and insert the seedlings we had started earlier indoors.
In each 4 foot wide bed, we put posts in at each end and put up some flexible wire support or netting with big openings, so vines could grow up it. Normally the melons, cantaloupes, squash and other big sprawling plants overtake the beds they were planted in, and by mid-summer, I can’t locate a path to walk on anymore. So this year, I decided everything was going to have to grow UP! This takes a bit of training, directing the growing vines through the wire fencing. But it leaves the pathways open and makes it all so neat and compact! What surprised me, though, was to see huge Sugar Baby watermelons hanging along the fencing, 3 feet off the ground. I sort of hold my breath when I walk by them, hoping they won’t let go and splat to the ground!
Purple-and-white-striped Fairy Tale eggplant
Even yellow squash is growing up, up, up the fence, with a little prodding from me. It really saves so much space, and keeps the melons from getting soggy or bug-eaten on the bottom, too! My tomatoes are tucked in the fence on their row. Cucumbers grow straighter and are easier to find on a fence. So growing “up” has really worked well to keep the vine crops neater and more manageable. The black plastic heats the ground for earlier yields and weeds can’t grow in black plastic, yay!
This year I tried some new varieties for fun! I mixed a few “Carnival Morning Glory” seeds with my pole beans to show off their big striped blossoms. I also planted “Fairy Tale” eggplants—very unique and prolific!
I tried mixing flowers and veggies this year, and it really makes the garden so much more delightful! In one Square Foot bed (4 feet x 4 feet), you have 16 square foot planting areas. That’s a lot! 16 different crops can go in just one box! So, I planted two or three squares of flowers intermingled with my vegetable crops in each box. I put the trailing flowers on the outer edges of the box so they could drape over the edge. And I put the tall cosmos, zinnias or marigolds in the center squares so their height would not block access to the other crops. Having lots of flowers is wonderful! I keep them on my table and give them for gifts.
I love summer and I would be completely content to eat garden-fresh food all year round. While the growing season is here, enjoy the beauty, the taste, and the nutrition— to the fullest!
Orange zinnias grow alongside dill, carrots, basil and tomatillos
You might enjoy:
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I'd sure love to hear your comment!
Diane,
I have spent the past two weeks pondering over this "big transition" in my life (what laugh that switching gardening methods would constitute such an upheaval in my life!) and have another question for you.
My present soil is like black humus (I have layered 15" of leaves onto it each fall and let it decompose) and thus, is heavily laden with worms. Should I have worms in my new Mel's mix? They are in my compost pile and I wonder if they will die in a SFG box because there is really nothing to decompose.
Let me know your thoughts on the matter. This is a big leap for me to cover up my entire garden area with contractor fabric, and wonder what will happen to all my precious worms! However, I think all the benefits of SFG outweigh any drawbacks.
Tina
Wow, that is super interesting, Rene! Thanks for sharing that info.
Gardening is my favorite hobby too. When it is so easy, and produces great, and you aren't weed-picking all the time, I agree with you, "what's not to love?!" I went out before dinner with two laundry baskets and filled them up: yellow squash, cucumbers, green beans, yellow wax beans, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, basil, dill, celery, onions, zucchini, carrots, and more than enough to share with my neighbors! This is plenty of fun! Glad you are having a good time with it. I would LOVE to see a photo of your hopi pumpkin—please?!
I just love sq ft gardening! This is my first year and I realize that gardening is my new FAVORITE hobby. ( I always thought I didn't like it, but now that it's so simple, what is not to like!) I just wanted to comment that I have closed bottom boxes and my tomatoes look great! There has been no problem w/ the amount of soil. I also wanted to add that I am growing Hopi pumpkins vertically! (They get huge!) I have one particular pumpkin that is currently larger than a globe that is hanging from the vine all by itself. I was tempted to make a sling but the author says nature knows and the vines will grow thicker and stronger. This seems to be true. I watched over a couple of days how the stem part slowly started to tear from the vine, but it produced some sort of fluid and sealed itself back up and is as strong as ever. I go out and shake it a little every now and then, just to test the strength. No one who hasn't seen it believes me.
Hi Linda,
The author of Square Foot Gardening waters his garden by hand, dipping out of a rain barrel. He likes the sun-warmed water and feels he can customize water needs to each plant.
I watered by hose for the first two years, just standing and and spraying each bed. Or putting a sprinkler on overhead, and that got the carpet wet. This year we put in a drip irrigation system, running the hose line under the carpet and bringing it into each box through a hole we drilled in the side. Now it is much more efficient, and the plants all get the same amount of water, whether they like it or not.
We have flood irrigation in our area too, and some of the people have it go into a holding tank or pond and then they use it as needed. It is pretty amazing when you put all the plants close together in a box, how little water comparatively is needed, though. Not a fraction of the water needed to flood irrigate. So maybe using your well water from a hose would be an option. Expensive, but you don't use that much water, either.
Best success!
Diane
Diane, I love the posts about your garden. One major thing keeps me from trying SF Gardening – we are out in the country, and the major source of water for our garden is flood irrigation. It works beautifully – I've learned that once-a-week deep watering sure beats sprinkling of any kind. However, I can't figure out how I could irrigate if I used boxes. Any ideas?
Diane,
Thanks so much for your knowledge. I believe I will try this method and start creating the boxes this week. If I don't find the book in the library I will be placing my order this afternoon. I am getting too old to be pulling weeds and bending over to pick everything. Can't wait to start!
Hi Tina,
Yep, I like my tomatoes in black plastic too, as it does warm up the soil and make them yield earlier. However, this year, a few volunteers came up in my Square Foot Garden, rather late actually, and they are looking better than my "black plastic" tomatoes. And they are in the very shallow 6" growing box, too. They didn't yield as soon, but look healthier. I don't like my tomatoes lying on the black plastic as they end up laying in a little puddle after a rain, and bugs like to get to their undersides. Even in black plastic, I still put in a vining wire fence for them to grow through.
I added another layer of wood frame to some of my boxes to make them deeper (about 18" of soil) thinking tomatoes and carrots would like them better. But I'm not sure that it is necessary. The Square Foot Garden author believes that only 6" is needed to grow any plant. He came to this conclusion because he added 6" of good growing medium on top of the regular dirt in the box frame and no matter how well he encouraged them, his tomatoes would not root any deeper. They would rather stay in the special soil than reach down into the not-so-good dirt. So he determined there is no need to have an open bottom on the boxes, as the plants would not use it anyway.
The benefit of a closed bottom box is that weeds don't grow up through, or grass. And your special soil (which is an investment) never mixes with your regular garden dirt.
I don't think you would get the same result from using your rich composted soil. The plan is that 1/3 of the mix is peat moss, which is a moisture holding medium, non-nutritive. And the next 1/3 is vermiculite, which also has properties that are non-nutritive. Then the remaining 1/3 is what feeds the plants, a mix of several types of compost, not just one type. Each year, when you prepare your soil for planting, you add some more of the compost mixture (5 types of compost minimum) to make up for what the plants used, but the peat moss and vermiculite are never consumed.
Best success!
Diane
Diane, I love your blog and all that you do! I did the Mittleider garden boxes years ago and that worked well, but the wood rotted and I got lazy and tore them out. Then I studied E. Gordon Wells' methods and went to raised beds (30' long) and that left me tiny little pathways of just a foot wide between beds (because I didn't want to waste precious growing space). However, I do like how the tomatoes have been doing, just laying on top of the black plastic with no support–no cracks, splits or blossom end rot and extremely high yields!
My question is this: E. Gordon Wells taught us that the plant roots need to go deep (8-10' for tomatoes) so that the plants don't dry out. He told us never to put an underlayment under our boxes or beds. So, what do you think? Is the underlayment going to cause shallow rooting, or does it not matter if you are using the specially-formulated growing medium? If I were to just use my rich composted soil with no underlayment, would I get the same results? I just want to reconfigure my whole garden into comparments, instead of rows. I will definitely get the book, thanks!
Great idea. Hmmm, I don't wear pantyhose. Got tired of that about in the 1990's, hee hee. I'll take a look and see what I can find to sling them! Thanks. I am wondering, though, if nature provides (as it usually does) and they'll just hang on there until the are ripe, and then they'll separate and I won't have to guess about picking them at the right time? I'll do an experiment and sling some of them. Thanks again for writing!
Wow, so glad to hear about your garden! I'm going to have to make me some "covered wagons" this fall, as it seems the weather is starting to cool down a bit faster than my tomatoes are ripening!
Thanks for writing!
; 0 ) Diane
Diane,
I too am a square foot gardener and have been doing it for the past 5 years. If you are worried about your melons falling off the vine you can support them with old panty hose. Just wrap the hose underneath, like a sling and tie your fence. This will help support them and allow them to continue to grow. Your garden looks beautiful. I would like to see a picture of your support fencing if you get a change. Thanks!
Dawn
We did it! We have had the book for a few years, but we finally invested in making the boxes, grids, and the great soil…what a success! I even used all my big flower pots and grew wonderful potatoes just like you posted last year and got a great harvest!
Your carpet idea works great and no weeds to speak of. We did have to make the plastic greenhouse covers because of the short growing season we have and they worked wonders. We call them our 'covered wagons.'
Thanks for your posts and pointers and encouragement.
Your fairy tale eggplants are so cute, Mom!
Diane, I've been learning so much from your narratives about gardening the last 3 years! One thing about your watermelon, I've seen folks sling tie them with nylon stockings to the supports as they get heavier. The stockings stretch as the fruit grows.