All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
While cleaning up the debris from a tree that was blown over in a windstorm last September (2008) we found that the yard was pretty torn up so we decided to start a compost pile and think about turning that area into a small garden. After a bit of research we opted to try the Square Foot Gardening(SFG) method as its not a large space and we wanted to make the most of what we had.
The largest selling point to SFG is that you can grow more, in less space, with much less work. My family had a garden when I was growing up and, though I didn’t have to do a lot of work, the bits that I remember weren’t all that much fun. I do love tomatoes fresh from the garden, and if I can get them while not weeding constantly and having to till and turn every spring so much the better.
We built the beds out of yellow pine 2x10s and gave them a couple of coats of Linseed Oil to help them last a bit longer. We would have liked to have built them from cedar but we went the cheaper route until we find out if this is something that we are going to keep up with.
Raised beds in place
We moved the beds into place yesterday and got them filled with our soil today. We didn’t follow the Mel’s Mix recipe exactly as we were unable to find course Vermiculite anywhere in our area. We purchased some medium vermiculite, made for insulation, instead and ended up a little short for all three beds. I think we were closer to 55% compost and maybe 30% peat moss and 15% vermiculite.
We had to do a little bit of leveling on one of the beds to keep it from wobbling around but for the most part they all set in place nicely. We lined the bottom of each bed with weed cloth and left a three foot isle in between so we can get a wheel barrow through.
We need to get something together for trellis supports for the tomatoes, and work out some kind of fencing to keep the local critters out. We have a number of stray cats that come through pretty often, and I’d hate to have them using our nice clean raised beds as litter boxes. We had two of the little ones show up as we were working to hang around and watch for a bit.
Finishing the squares
We tossed around several ideas for making the squares that separate the ‘square foot gardens’ planting areas, and though we know that string is not really recommended, we are going to use it for now as we had it on hand and it is a cheap route to start off with. If it breaks or isn’t usable for more than the first season, we can replace it next year. As you may see in the picture here; we still need to dig out the root from the Plumb tree.
We’ve started a number of plants from seeds which we are keeping under florescent lights in the basement, and most are doing fairly well. We have Roma, Beefsteak and Cherry tomatoes, Green, Jalapeno, and Thia Chile peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, and some basil. We plan to direct sow lettuce and carrots, and purchase some onion sets some time in early May.
