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Square Foot Gardening Square foot gardening is a fun and efficient method of gardening developed by Mel Bartholomew. This type of gardening focuses on planting in blocks rather than rows, usually in raised beds. The plants are arranged in square foot sections and Some of the benefits of square foot gardening include the fact it requires little space, it uses less water, pest control can be accomplished naturally, and fewer seeds are required.
On his website and in his book, Mel Bartholomew notes his ten basic tenets of square foot gardening. I have added additional information or options in parentheses. 1. Layout: arrange your garden in squares, not rows. (While Mel recommends a minimum of 4x4 square foot planting area, smaller areas can be used to make the garden accessible to you comfortably from the side.) 2. Boxes: build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground (the recommended is six inches minimum. While Mel recommends raised bed gardening, if you work with your soil, you can do this in the ground. Additionally, boxes can be made or purchased commercially.) 3. Aisles: space boxes three feet apart to form walking aisles. 4. Soil: fill boxes with Mel’s special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost. 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite. 5. Grid: make a square foot grid for the top of each box (these can be purchased or made from string, vinyl blinds, wood, rebar, or other materials.) 6. Care: never walk on your growing soil. Tend your garden from the aisles. 7. Select: plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot. 8. Plant: plant only two or three seeds per hole. Plant transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression. 9. Water: water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water (watering by hand ensures you water only your plants and not promote weeds in other areas. Many people use garden coils 10. Harvest: when you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with a new and different crop. A recommended number of plants per square varies by the size of the plant: for large plants such as broccoli or tomato, one plant per square; medium to large plants, i.e. strawberries and lettuce, four plants per square; medium to small plants, like spinach, nine per square; and small plants (carrots, onions, and radishes), sixteen plants per square foot. With square foot gardening, plants that vine and traditionally require a lot of space (such as cucumbers and squash), can be grown vertically in squares by tying the vining growth to a stake, growing pole Square foot gardening offers the gardener a method by which to grow a large variety of plants in smaller spaces with less consumption of water and easier maintenance. It is fun and rewarding for the entire family.
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the garden is tended manually by reaching to the plants from the sides of the garden.