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The Perfect Garden
What is a perfect garden?
Well, let's describe what we would like it to be:
Attractive : so you are proud of it
Productive : so it's all worthwhile
Easy to understand: in case you're a beginner
Takes little time: it fits in with your busy life
Easy to take care: of makes gardening enjoyable
Inexpensive: everyone can afford it
Natural: no harm to the environment
Quick: results come early with little effort
Simple: even kids can do it
Adaptable: elderly people or anyone challenged can do it
Space efficient: everyone has room for a garden
Easy to protect: no losses to critters or weather
Efficient: twice as much in half the space
Convenient: located close to the house
No tools only a trowel, pencil and scissors needed
No weeds: Mels Mix has no weed seeds
No work: after it's built, no more hard work
No sweat: if you want to sweat, go mow the lawn
THAT'S SQUARE FOOT GARDENING!
Those features all describe every attribute of Square Foot Gardening. If you can condense traditional gardening into one-fifth or 20% of the space, eliminate all the expense and heavy tools, eliminate the use of chemical fertilizers, insecticides and other poisons, be able to raise the garden up to wheelchair height, teach children as young as four-years-old, adapt it to seniors who can no longer bend, kneel or do heavy lifting, produce a just enough rather than too much all at once harvest, teach in just a few hours, explain in any language, save 80% of your water use, not harm the environment in any way, so inexpensive that now anyone can afford to garden, utilize only 5% of the seeds normally used and provide almost year-round gardening with extra protection...
If you can do all that, then I'd say you have a perfect system.
Try it and see if you don't agree.
Start small, (only a 4-foot x 4-foot to start with) make absolutely sure you start with Mels Mix in your 6-inch deep frame, lay down a very visible grid (recycled Venetian blinds or wood lath or molding strips) and start planting using the book as a guide for what, when and where. It works all over the country and all over the world.
One of the best features of Square Foot Gardening is you can start a new garden during any month of the year.
Winter: time to plan where, how big, how many boxes to start with, build boxes in the garage, get grids all cut, drilled, painted and assembled;
Spring: time of course to install, mix soil and plant;
Summer: time to convert just a corner of your old fashioned single row garden with just one or two 4 x 4 frames. Practice by planting a second summer crop (see page 97) and add more later.
Fall: great weather to start a new Square Foot Garden (see page 95 for what and when to plant).
Most people dont realize how abundant the fall crop can be. You can always add a new Square Foot Garden at any month near the back door for a special herb or salad garden.
The main thing is to get started. I've had more people tell me over the years that they regret procrastinating. Oh, if I had only started a Square Foot Garden when I first read your book or saw you on TV, I could have been enjoying my garden all these years. So, don't be like them, get started now, today. NO EXCUSES PLEASE.
.
What's Wrong with Single Row Gardening?
Twenty-five years ago when I first took up gardening seriously and learned the single row method that was being taught by all the experts and gardening writers, I kept asking myself, "What's wrong here - something doesn't seem right". Then I said, "Let's look at the end result". After looking at other people's gardens, it was usually very predictable. Here's what I found out about single row gardening:
IT'S JUST TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING!
And what I observed was, next year it's going to be the same thing all over again in everyone's garden. It's like deja vu all over again. I was finding out that it's not only all of that, but especially for men, it's an ego buster. Every spring every man and many women envisioned not what they had last summer - a field of weeds - but what they hoped for this year. Like a Cubs fan, this year it's going to be different. They envisioned this manicured garden of lush plants in well spaced rows with attractive, recently loosened dark brown soil offsetting the glorious plants all standing at attention in neat rows just like a military drill parade.
I can't tell you how many men I've met and women who have told me "My husband won't reduce the size of his garden and he's getting a lot older - he still insists on growing everything for our entire family (grown children included) and often including all of the neighbors and frankly, I'm getting very tired of cleaning, chopping, preparing, canning, freezing all that stuff".
These women ask me with great dismay "Can't you convince him to reduce it all down and grow less?" Of course I know with Square Foot Gardening that less is more but I explain to those women and I truly do understand those men "there is no way we are going to convince them to cut down the size of their garden much less teach them a new way to garden".
Remember the answer I got from all those horticultural experts when I asked them why we garden in single rows? I expected many scientific and sensible, logical answers that I hadn't thought of in my search for a better way but the ONLY answer I got from the horticultural experts was "Cause that's the way we've always done it". The ONLY answer and I said then and there "I'm going to invent a better way to garden" and Square Foot Gardening was the result.
I remembered those same conversations after the method was perfected and my book was published. When it was time to develop a marketing plan my publisher, Rodale Press, never did understand Square Foot Gardening or the radical difference from other methods and they felt it should be treated just like any other garden book or method. After all, they reminded me, they were the Experts in garden books. When I tried to convince them the book should be marketed mostly to beginners and to those who have tried to garden but failed, they said "No, we market to gardeners, especially experienced gardeners".
Because of my TV show, the book sold not just in the spring like all the other garden books but all year long. Every month seemed to outsell the last month and the book's outstanding sales record (over 1 million copies sold making it the largest selling garden book in history) was supported mostly by beginners, new homeowners, and mostly by people who have tried to garden in the past but failed and were reluctant to try again. So much for Expert book publishers.
And you know the surprising thing; Rodale still doesn't get it after 22 years. They are still baffled by it's continued large sales every year. Oh well, the sun will still come up every morning even if some of us don't know when the moon comes up.
Going back to those men, you have to love them because they are so dedicated and determined to continue their huge single row gardens and they usually keep them looking pretty good. It takes a lot of time and maybe that's why the wives don't insist they reduce the size and then they'll have more time to hang around the house. It's hard for us all to change or to reduce (that could be a double entendre). I remember being a teenager and caddying at the local club. We had to carry the bags and clubs for two golfers. No carts back then. And I notice the oldest golfers usually had the most clubs and the biggest, heaviest bags. Boy, were they heavy (and they were usually the smallest tippers). And they hardly ever used all those clubs. But like everything else in life, we keep doing things the way we learned and the way we've always done them. We've gotten used to it and on a positive note, we're usually fairly successful at it.
Well there's a lot wrong with single row gardening. It doesn't belong in home gardens. Actually, single row gardening is really a HAND-ME-DOWN FROM FARMING. Single rows work great for farms although a lot are converting now to double, triple and quadruple rows in beds and machinery is being made different. Single rows certainly don't belong in the home garden. Why are the horticultural experts still teaching single row gardening? Why are many of the books and the seed companies and all the gardening equipment companies still promoting single row gardening? CAUSE THAT'S THE WAY WE'VE ALWAYS DONE IT.
I challenge anyone, anywhere, to justify single row gardening.
Deck Gardens
DON'T HAVE ANY ROOM FOR A GARDEN?
YES YOU DO - if you have a deck, patio, porch, or rooftop; Square Foot Gardening fits in anywhere.
Now to get started, just build some boxes of any size that fit your space. Give them a plywood bottom at least 5/8 thick with ¼ drainage holes drilled one per square foot and an extra one in each corner. Fill the box with Mels Mix, lay down your grid, and start planting. It's that simple and that easy.
How deep does the soil have to be? Six inches is enough, eight inches is better, but in one of these photos we have used 1 x 4 lumber so the soil was just a little over three inches deep. How can the plants grow in such shallow soil? The secret is in the soil. Follow my formula for Mels Mix (see our how to page) and use homemade compost (more about that in a later column).
Raised garden.
What to plant? Well it can be all flowers, all vegetables or all herbs but I like to mix all three in the same garden no matter where it is located. If you raise your boxes above the floor level, it adds a great deal of interest to the setting and, speaking of setting, why not provide a sit-down garden if its for an elderly person or notice the railing boxes in the photograph for stand-up, no bending over gardening. That will save those knees.
With Square Foot Gardening, a deck garden is really no different than a backyard garden. You need room to walk around your boxes so you never walk on the growing soil. You lay down a grid and then you merely start planting each square foot with a different crop. Look up the plant spacing in the book (See Page 101) remember its either 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot. Lets go back to the grid for just a moment. In the photographs of these earlier gardens, we used white twine for a grid. Today's advice is to find a rigid piece of wood or plastic (like molding strips, wood lath or a recycled Venetian blind) for your grid. Its much, much better. With string you have to put in nails or screws. The string rots and breaks, gets dirty easily etc. etc. So many people wanted the rigid grids but couldn't find the right material, so we had them fabricated and started offering them on our catalog page as a kit.
The size and type Flowering rail and deck gardens. of lumber to use for the sides is 1 x 6 pine, cedar or redwood. (We dont recommend treated lumber for growing edibles.) The size of your boxes depends really on the size of your deck and how artistic you become. 1 foot x 4 foot boxes bolted to your railing are great. For the open areas, 3 foot x 3 foot or even 2 foot x 4 foot can be arranged in any different pattern and with plywood bottoms, they become movable so it will be just like rearranging your furniture every season.
Just think of your next party as your guests step out on your deck, and you snip fresh herbs, or lettuce, or pull ripe radishes from your garden. Wont they be impressed?
Now, if you dont have a deck for a deck garden, well, just get busy and build one!
Guest Column
"AMMO BOX GARDENS"
or
"Swords into Plough-Shares"
Written by: Dr. Reilly Maginn
of Montrose, Alabama
And they laid down their arms and turned their swords into ploughshares. A familiar biblical quote known to most of us. Now, today, very few us have swords for warfare and ploughshares are made by John Deere for those huge, mechanical behemoth tractors, for corporate farmers. But after a fashion, Im recommending a similar exchange of equipment. Well, almost. Its not exactly biblical. What Im advocating is converting obsolete M-16 ammunition crates, (swords), into (plough shares), planter boxes for table top gardens. It's a stretch, but it is changing weapons into useful gardening implements.
Why planter boxes for container gardening? Because the ordinary garden-variety backyard garden (pun intended) can become a nuisance rather than a pleasure if one is not careful. Small is fun. Big becomes work. Let me explain. The conventional backyard vegetable/flower garden is planned and begun in the spring. Usually too big to easily manage and with too little thought as to how much work will be entailed later on. Its usually muddy or dirty. Hands, shoes clothes all get filthy and take a beating. Your arthritic knees, hips and shoulders all ache from the bending, lifting, digging, stooping and weeding. It's an expensive investment for all those hoes, rakes, hoses, shovels, fertilizers and possibly even a mechanical tiller that may need purchasing. One might even poison ones self with pesticides or herbicides. Varmints like the rabbits, squirrels, armadillos, raccoons and possums will gladly share your produce as it matures. Moreover, the effort of maintaining a garden through the long growing season becomes a burden by the time the August dog days of summer arrive. As Louie Armstrong says, Hoeing in the sun just isnt no fun. Weeding, cultivating and hoeing and harvesting your bounty become chores at the end of the season, instead of a pleasure. And finally, what to do with the plethora of fruits and vegetables youve obtained?
Can't waste good food, can we? Our neighbors are fed up with all the excess tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini weve been foisting off on them. I dont relish (pun again intended) canning and pickling all this stuff in that steamy kitchen on a torrid summer afternoon.
I think Ive made my point about the ordinary backyard garden. Many of us say, "The supermarket, the farmers market and the florist can furnish all my culinary and decorative needs. No gardening for me, thank you very much." But Im not referring to the ordinary backyard garden plot. Im recommending the waist level, tabletop, container garden in an ammunition planter box.
The weapons into tools garden variety mentioned at the beginning of this article. Swords into ploughshares. Interested? Does it sound attractive or appealing? Let me count the ways. No stooping, kneeling, lifting, digging or bending over. Clean hands, shoes and clothes. No shovels, rakes, hoes, forks, hoses, or garden tillers to buy. No pesticides or herbicides. Gardening is at waist height so therell be no varmints to bother your garden. No weeding, cultivating or hoeing in the sun, because it isnt any fun. No need to alienate the neighbors with bushels of zucchini and no long afternoons in the kitchen over a hot stove canning and pickling. Still interested? Lets get on with it.
Start by placing a sturdy table near your back door in a sunny, high traffic area, where you can see your tabletop container garden every day. None of this out of sight and out of mind stuff. Get one or two used M-16 ammunition crates from the army surplus store. They have rope handles at each end and are constructed of yellow pine right here in Alabama, and are roughly made so they drain well when watered, and your plants wont have wet feet. They are three feet long, one foot wide and six inches deep. An ideal size for a small table top container garden. Put the ammo boxes on the table, fill them with potting mix, get a couple of ten cent seed packets from Wal Mart and follow the directions on the back. A few pieces of broken clay pots in the bottom will help in the drainage department. Todays seeds are usually guaranteed to have 90% germination so you dont have to follow the old adage, plant one for the rabbit, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow. Tools? The most youll need is a trowel and a watering can. Plant a seed or two in each little depression in the soil, cover them and water them and then just stand back and let Mother Nature do her thing.
I think youre going to be amazed at what you can grow with a single planting in such a small three square foot container garden. Fifty radishes. Twelve heads of Bibb lettuce. Nine broccoli plants, three tomato vines but only one zucchini plant. (darn it). And thats only one planting. If you plant two boxes youll double your return and thats only the first planting. Here in LA (lower Alabama) you can get two or even three plantings in a summer because of our long growing season. A little drink of liquid fertilizer every two to three weeks will help your seedling become prolific plants. I use Miracle Gro. Big thanks to Mel Bartholomew for his advice and instructions on his square foot gardening techniques.
With just the investment of a few dollars and minimal effort one can enjoy the pleasure of green and growing things right at your finger tips. Can you think of a better way to enjoy a culinary herb garden than on your patio or back porch? Container gardening can be enjoyed without the guilt of discarding good food, alienating your neighbors with your plethora of vegetables, and, as I said before, there'll be no hoeing' in the sun, cause it isnt no fun.
Easy, affordable and enjoyable. Watching seeds sprout, plants mature and bear flowers or fruit can be yours with minimal investment of time and effort. Try it, youll like it and you might even save a buck or two at the market. Swords into Ploughshares? Well, almost.
All above names and included material are copyrighted by Mel Bartholomew and any extended use by others except for review, brief descriptions, and credit mentions, must receive prior written permission.
Square Foot Gardening Hydroponically Is Here
(Another innovative idea from Mel's fertile mind!)
While filming one of our PBS-TV Shows at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, we were invited to tour and subsequently film several shows at the Land Pavilion where they were exhibiting several new methods of growing vegetables some even suited for the moon! One demonstration was the standard hydroponic method where plants are grown, not in dirt or soil, but in water.
Another method (but this is for another time) was airoponics where the roots hung down in a closed, lightless area where they were sprayed with a fine water spray and the plant top grew up a string in the sunlight - very similar to our SFG vertical method.
But - back at the ranch. At the hydroponic display, they had large shallow pools of water with 4x8 sheets of Styrofoam floating on the surface. The actual plants were started in little cups filled with a soil mix much like Mels Mix. Holes were drilled at uniform spacing in the Styrofoam and the cups fit tightly into those holes. When the seeds sprouted the roots grew down right into the water.
Apparently a plant can have two kinds of roots - normal air roots for growing in soil and also water roots. Remember, the SFG book tells you how the roots do not actually grow in the soil particles, but meander their way through the air spaces between those particles. In addition, a plant has the ability to grow a slightly different type of root that will grow in nothing but water. The water roots can take up the oxygen and nutrients in the water solution and, believe it or not, provide the plant with all the energy it needs. Liquid fertilizer was being added to the water, which was continuously circulated to keep it fresh and moving. The top of the plant had plenty of room to spread out on the Styrofoam surface just as if it were planted in a garden. If it were a vine crop and hanging support strings were provided, the plant would just climb up the string or could be attached to it very easily by gently twisting it around the string once or twice a week.
$ MONEY - MONEY - MONEY $
Could you use some extra money?
If you don't need any more money, don't read any further. If you do, here is a quick & easy way to make a hundred bucks in just 1 hour.
Sell SFG books to your friends and neighbors.
Buy low and sell high. Buy at wholesale, and sell at retail.
We want to get the word out about Square Foot Gardening and the best way is for friends to tell friends and neighbors to tell neighbors. We know that everybody likes to make some extra money so we thought, what could be easier than selling your favorite garden book. We set up a plan where you can order from us wholesale at a deep discount depending on the number you order and then sell them at retail. Full list price is $19.99, or in round numbers, $20 per book. By the way, most other full color garden books are now $ 24.99 but not SFG it is still only $19.99. We take only ½ and full case (20 per case) orders for this special offer
Here is the discount schedule:
Number of Books Ordered Discount % Profit Per Book
10 30% $6
20 35% $7
40 40% $8
60 + 45% $9
Start small and earn $6 a book to start with, then jump up to the highest rate of $9 per book. Sell at your office, health club, to friends and neighbors, even church. You can even buy at that discount to give away as gifts. You may sell your books at full price of $20.00 each or at a discount if you prefer in order to have more sales. All we ask is do not sell them above the list price of $20.00.
Please sign here if you agree.-______________________________________________________
Shipping is by Post Office media rate. There is a small $4.00 handling fee for each order. This special offer is so low that it requires no returns, checks only, or a 5% credit card charge.
To order fill out page two, use the chart to determine the amount for your check and mail back to: Square Foot Gardening, PO Box 10, Eden, UT 84310
Or for credit card orders send a copy of your order form by email to: order_squarefootgardening.com or fill out and fax to 801.730.0775
Hope you like this new plan and that it becomes successful for you.
Best Regards, All of us at Square Foot Gardening
_____________________________________________________________________
Book Order Form
Name:____________________________________________________________
Mailing Address:____________________________________________________
City, State, Zip:_____________________________________________________
Number of All New Square Foot Gardening books you wish to order:__________
Quantity Discount % Profit/Book Cost/Book Shipping/Book Total Cost/Book
10 30% $6 $14 $1.00 $15.00
20 35% $7 $13 $1.00 $14.00
40 40% $8 $12 $1.00 $13.00
60 or more 45% $9 $ 11 $1.00 $12.00
Quantity $ Total Cost per Book Totals
________________ X $________________ = $______________
Add $4.00 Handling Charge $______________
Check Total $______________
Or please add 5% for Credit Card order $______________
Credit Card Charge Total $______________
Credit Card #________________________________ Expiration____________
Secure ID # (Last 3 numbers on back of card)____________
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Signature
Please call the office at 801.782-4559 with any questions.
To order use the chart to determine the amount for your check and mail back to:
Square Foot Gardening
PO Box 10
Eden, UT 84310
Or for credit card orders send a copy of your order form by email to: order_squarefootgardening.com
Thank you for your order and good luck with your sales.
Write us and tell us how they went at order_squarefootgardening.com
PLANT A FALL GARDEN NOW
This is the absolute best time of the year to plant a new garden, or add on to your existing SFG. We call it a fall garden, and you're going to plant cool weather crops, all the same ones you planted in the spring, but this is going to be twice as good for a couple of reasons.
Here are all the things you can plant:
Beets Parsley Radishes Brussels Sprouts
Chives Broccoli Cauliflower Japanese turnips
Carrots Cabbage Swiss Chard All kinds of lettuce
Now, with a little bit of protection from the weather, deer, and rabbits, you'll be able to harvest your holiday salad for Thanksgiving right from your new fall garden. Read pages 65, 167 and 171 in the All New Square Foot Gardening book, and study the charts, and lists on page 252 to learn all about the details and for the protection against the deer and rabbits and all other problems that can harm a garden, including weather, we've built a brand new Critter Cage to keep out all the bad elements from your new fall garden. It fits right over a 4x4 garden frame, and assembles with no tools, and virtually no time. The top is easily removable in sections so you can work in any part of your garden.
Why Plant in the Fall
Believe it or not, fall is actually a better time of the year to plant a garden than in the springtime. Why? Because the weather, climate and time available is perfect for gardening. The pleasant early fall weather is so much better than the wet, cold springtime which is probably the worst time of the year to start a garden. But traditionally that's when farmers get out their plows and single row gardeners get out their rototillers.
NOT ENOUGH TIME
Let's first consider the time available. In the springtime there is so much to do after a winter season. The yard needs cleaning up, the lawn needs attention, all of the summer things put in storage need cleaning and setting up - and if you are still an old fashioned, single row gardener - the rototiller, that dreaded machine, needs uncovering and checking out, even a tune up and hopefully you remembered to empty the fuel tank before winter and maybe if all goes well, it might even start up and the tires won't be flat. That's also when you realize you didn't put things away very well. The garden tools are all rusty, some broken and many scattered all over the garage and tool shed - even some left in the garden. Maybe the hose froze and split and you won't find that out until you try to use it the first time.
KIDS AND OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES
The kids are busy with outdoor sports and activities after being cooped up inside all winter. Parents find out quickly that those activities take a lot more back and forth time, watching from the sidelines in the cold chilly spring, increased laundry time, etc., etc.
SLOWER PACE AT THE END OF SUMMER
Compare that with the end of summer. Activities are winding down, your schedule has slowed somewhat and even the weather has had an effect on the pace and intensity of your activities. You find yourself with more leisure time and a sense of not being as rushed in all of your activities.
TOO MUCH ENTHUSIASM IN SPRING
Tie all that in with your attitude about gardening. In the spring, you have been pouring over the seed catalogs so long you can't wait to get outside and start planting. That enthusiasm will lead you down the path of planting too much. It happens every year. Next year is going to be different you swear - but it never is. With traditional gardening, that mistake of planting too much, as well as all at once, repeats itself every year on an unbroken cycle.
CALM, COOL AND COLLECTED GARDENER
But let's consider your situation in late summer. You've had a garden all spring and summer and regardless of how it turned out, you're much more reserved, calm, cool and collected about the garden. You don't have that fire in the belly desire to plant seeds and "till the soil." You already have a garden and despite how it turned out, it has more or less satisfied your desire to cultivate Mother Earth. In addition, you sort of feel you've come to the end, there's not much more to do. You've either given up your single row garden again because of all the weeds - or you've settled back just harvesting what's left. If you are a SFG, you'll be thinking how easy, and neat that was and wish you could just plant a little more and continue the garden a little longer.
SUMMER GREEN
In either case there is green all around you from the summer growth so there is not that feeling or necessity to change things as there is in the spring and there is also not that traditional practice of having to plant a garden as soon as winter closes and spring arrives.
FALL WEATHER IS PERFECT
With that casual attitude, removal of the "have to do something syndrome", along with more time available, you'll find yourself actually enjoying the planning and preparation of a fall garden. But what about the weather you ask? Actually it's perfect for both the gardener AND the plants. Think of the plants. In the spring, it's cold, rainy, windy, dark, all of the elements that keep a gardener indoors looking out the window and the seeds shivering in the still frozen soil.
TIME TO SPROUT
How long does it take for those seeds to sprout? Check the table of temperature versus seed sprouting time in the SFG Book on page 157. At 40 degrees F, carrots take 50 days to sprout. 50 DAYS! Wow that is almost 2 MONTHS, of course the soil warms gradually so they finally do sprout sooner but think of all the bad things that can happen to those seeds in that time period.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE
Now look at the time to sprout in the late summer when the soil temperature might be around 70 degrees. Carrots take 6 days! What a difference - the same is true of every other type of seed. Beets - 40 days versus 6 days. Onions: 30 days versus 4 days. Peas: 40 days versus 7 days. Spinach: 25 days versus 5 days.
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE
Did you know all that? Most gardeners don't. That's why I put those two germination charts in the book. It makes a huge difference in the success of a gardener if they know just a few facts. So we can now see why late summer is so much better to plant seeds than spring. The same will apply for transplants, both from a standpoint of sprouting and growing your own transplants like cabbage, parsley and lettuce as well as buying and planting nursery stock.
STRONGER STARTS IN THE FALL
Everything will start off faster, stronger and better in late summer than in the spring. Fall gives us warmer temperatures, less wind, more light, while spring brings us a constant threat of frost, sleet or snow. In the south we call those conditions unseasonable weather, sort of like in Southern California we always said, "it's not rain, it's liquid sunshine." No one likes to admit to bad weather in his or her part of the country.
TROUBLES IN LATE SPRINGTIME
Then the weather gets hotter and the plants start maturing rapidly, most of the spring crop goes either to seed or gets wasted as they mature almost instantly in the hot early summer months. You can't keep up with the harvest, especially if you over planted in an old-fashioned single row garden.
PLEASANT FALL WEATHER
A fall garden is exactly the opposite. You prepare and plant your garden in the comfort of the warm weather, the seeds sprout quickly and as the weather cools down they mature slowly from very strong plants. Fall is a more leisurely time with better weather and it is much more pleasant to be outside tending your fall garden. Many of the crops can be carried right into the cold winter with just a little protection. Check out page 95 of the SFG book to see what to plant in the fall and when in your part of the country.
DO A TRIAL IN THE FALL
Even if you are expanding your SFG or perhaps just want to try out SFG on a small scale before you switch from your big single row garden, fall is also the absolutely best time to do it. Build just a few 4' x 4' boxes and see how it goes. It's much easier to start small, not many materials to buy, build or mix. With the success you'll have with your fall garden, see chapter 16 of the SFG book on page 235 for end of the season activities, it'll be very easy to start up in the spring. And then gradually expand even more until you get just the right size. Not so big you don't enjoy taking care of it, yet big enough to grow all the things you want in the quantities you will actually use. Remember SFG is so different from single row gardening; we plant the amount we want to actually harvest - not the length of the row or amount of seeds in a packet.
A NEW IDEA TO MANY
Controlled planting is what we call it. Compare it to going to the auto-mat restaurant in New York City where you put in your coin and get one serving of something versus standing before a huge buffet table holding a gigantic plate and told to take all you want. Do you think you will take too much and there will be waste in the end? Either theirs or yours. With the auto-mat, you can always go get another portion of that same dish if you want it and with SFG you can always plant another square foot of the same crop either now or later to give a staggered harvest or even a different variety to give a varied choice of harvest.
TIRED OF WEEDS ?
Now I know by fall, single row gardeners are tired of gardening because it has all been Weeds, Weeds, Weeds. But the Square Foot Gardener is thinking, this was so easy and so much fun I wish it would never end.
FALL IS BEST
So in summary, we have better conditions of all factors for both the gardener and the plants. Both will be happier because they will be much more successful in the fall. Now the scene gets even better as fall progresses and the weather cools down. The plants had a vigorous healthy start and are of sturdy stock - yet as the light shortens and the temperatures cool - they are not in a rush to mature and go to seed. This stretches out the harvest into a very usable compatible event. There is no demanding pick it now or it will all go bad. The harvest seems to patiently sit quietly and wait with no pressure on the gardener. Even further down the road, since the fall crop is made up of cold hardy varieties, they will last long into the cold weather.
HARVEST WHEN THE SNOW FLIES
Pull back the clear plastic cover, open the deer netting and the harvest is ready just for you.
In addition, if you plant a SFG, you know it takes only 20% of the space and your 4' x 4' boxes are very easy to protect from adverse weather. Even to the point of carrying the harvest well into winter. You will be able to dig carrots and pick parsley even after the snow flies. If you are in a "not so cold" part of the country - you'll be able to harvest all winter long.
TRULY THE BEST
So from all stand points, a fall garden is truly best. Best for the plant and harvest and certainly best for the gardener. It makes gardening so much fun and rewarding. Try it and see for yourself!
Community Gardens - The DOs and DON'Ts
In the last 25 years, I have organized, run, visited, filmed and observed community gardens all around the country, I've realized that they all seem to have similar problems and pitfalls. The biggest mistake you can make is to give each individual garden or gardener too much space. Believe me, it will go to weeds and destroy the look of the entire garden area no matter how neatly the other spaces are kept. Keep in mind at the very beginning everyone is enthused, will promise you the moon, they'll be there every week, they'll take care of their garden, they'll weed it, etc., etc., but things happen. Lives get complicated, people move or get involved in other things, children take precedent, family goes on vacation - all kinds of things happen.
My first community garden was like that before I invented the Square Foot Gardening System. We all planted in rows spaced 3 feet apart like all the gardening experts taught everyone (and in fact, many are still teaching this outdated system). Those 3-foot rows sprouted so many weeds you couldn't even see what was supposed to be growing in each row. The next year, we converted to my newly invented Square Foot Garden system with a 15-foot x 15-foot space for each plot. Those were the individual family plots. Oh, they complained at first "I need more space - we want a big garden - we're going to grow a lot of things". Yeah, like weeds, I thought. They expressed all of those concerns but I had done my homework and completed my experiments the year before.
I knew how much you could grow in a 4-foot x 4-foot block IF you used the Square Foot System by laying down a grid and kept replanting every square foot as it was harvested. As it turned out, a 4-foot x 4-foot area was sufficient for one person to have either a salad or dinner vegetables during the entire growing season. Therefore, a family of four needed just four blocks spaced in a 15-foot x 15-foot area very nicely with 3-foot aisles down the center and 4-foot aisles between their neighbors. To satisfy the ambition of some, we allowed them to sign up for two family spaces but only the second season after they had proved that they could keep their garden neat and tidy, which turned out to be very easy with a Square Foot Garden.
In general, your community garden will need a set of rules (and these should be posted) that everyone will abide by. They are pretty self-explanatory and can quickly be set down by the organizers. Things like hours, accessibility, plants not allowed because they are too messy or space taking, how to settle disputes, tools (where they're kept) and, the really big one, water (how and when it can be used). It really boils down to respecting your neighbor's space and taking care of your own. Sort of like the neighborhood isn't it?
This 15-foot x 15-foot spacing, allows a 2-foot wide path all around the perimeter of each space. If your neighbor has the exact same thing, then you have created a 4-foot wide path or really a buffer zone between neighboring family plots. No one should be able to put up a fence although vertical frames or towers, tripods and beanpoles should be allowed inside each 4 x 4 planting block.
That spacing and layout eliminates the interference of some rapidly growing crops that actually become overgrown like corn, squash, pumpkins, etc. They could shade or invade your neighbors' plots. All plants must be contained within each 4 x 4 planting block. What if someone wants to rototill their entire 15 x 15-foot area and put in row crops? You're going to have "Trouble in River City". Don't let them do it. It'll just turn into a weed filled mess and destroy the looks of your entire community
Handicapable SFG Boxes
I'm not much of a carpenter, but I'll try and describe how to build a raised box the best I can. Boxes can be made from any type wood. A good size for a raised bed is to use 1"x6" or 1"x8" (for a deeper box) lumber and make the box 2'x2', 2'x4', 3'x3' or even 4'x4'. The wood for the boxes are just screwed together alternating and rotating the corners. If you decide to treat or paint the wood, be careful not to paint inside the boxes where the Mel's Mix comes into contact with the wood, so that nothing harmful leaches into the soil. We do not recommend using pretreated wood for this same reason.
To raise the box up or to place the garden boxes on a patio or deck, you will need to add a bottom and we recommend using plywood. For a 4'x4' box, we use 5/8" thick plywood. Of course, you have to drill holes in the bottom for drainage. To do this, drill a 1/4" hole, one per square foot with an extra hole in each corner of the box. Mel's Mix holds so much water that you won't see a lot of dripping from the holes unless it really gets over-watered, but it is still very important to have the drainage holes. If your garden box is going to be raised up you can tilt it slightly towards one corner and put a container under it to catch any drips if you don't want it to drain onto the balcony or patio.
You will then want to raise the box up to the desired height. Some ideas for doing this is to build legs and attach them to the corners of the box. You can also use sawhorses. Some people have purchased an old table from a thrift store and put the box on there - securely. The important thing is that it be sturdy and stable with no chance of it tipping over or falling. This can be done so that a wheelchair can roll right under allowing the gardener to easily reach the plants
Father's Day
Fathers day, its coming very soon, which is usually around the 21st of June which is also the first day of summer. Now the question for you: What do most dads like to grow in their garden? Tomatoes of course, its not only dads favorite, its Americas favorite vegetable to grow, and the bigger the better. Also, to be the first on the block is another real target, all across the country. It seems that the 4th of July is the target date, so it doesnt matter where you live. If you can pick your first ripe tomato by the 4th of July, youre a hero in the garden world or at least your household.
For people in the more northern climates, that becomes quite a challenge, and it requires starting the seeds very early inside, and then taking great precautions to protect the young plants all through the early spring. Most gardeners then want to put them out in the garden as early as possible which requires even further protection from the elements. Of course, those of you in the more southern states have no problems like that. Maybe its not even a challenge to have tomatoes on the 4th of July. Florida, all along the coast, and in southern California, Ive seen tomatoes growing all winter long, so they dont even get to enter into the excitement of being the first on the block with a ripe tomato in July.
Biggest question is: Whats the best way to grow tomatoes? There are only 101 ways and opinions. And, Id like to give you mine. When I first invented Square Foot Gardening, all the plants seem to fit nicely into one square foot. You know the spacing; its 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants. In SFG, you dont think about the size of the young transplant or seed, you think about the harvest and the size of the plant at maturity, and thats how the spacing of 1-4-9-16 came to be. Its also the exact spacing that the seed companies, bless their hearts, tell you to thin to so many inches apart. Of course that is after youve poured out a whole bunch of seeds from the packet, and then they tell you to thin to one sprout every 3, 4, or 6 inches. Thats tearing out a lot of plants if youre still planting in old-fashioned single row method like in the 70 year old Victory Garden method.
In SFG, we start our thinking where they used to end their thinking, at the harvest and how big will the plant be at that time. So why plant a lot of extra seeds only have to rip them out? Why not figure out how much space a plant needs at maturity and thats where we plant the seeds, or the young transplants? Does that make sense? Thats how we get the 1, 4, 9, or 16 per square foot.
Tomatoes, and in fact all vine crops, are slightly different, because they like to spread out, to grow horizontally, not vertically like a carrot. A carrot, of course, grows the bottom straight down, and the top straight up. Most plants grow that way but vine crops tend to grow straight out to the side, rather than straight up. That means they take up a lot of room. Tomatoes grow spreading out, each stem can grow out 3-5 in all directions. That would mean you would need an area like a 5x 5, or 25 square feet, for 1 tomato plant. So, instead of letting tomatoes grow spreading out, someone got the bright idea of containing them in cages.
How big the cages should be, well within practical means perhaps 3 or 4 in diameter, maybe even 5 if you had a big cage. And through the history of back yard gardening, cages were made out of all kinds of material, all the way from big, tall, thick, heavy-duty reinforcing concrete wire, which unfortunately is very, very difficult to cut and then has very sharp ends where you cut it, and it also gets very rusty and looks unsightly. But, it comes in rolls 6 wide, which you then make into a circle standing up so it becomes 6 tall. Of course, you have to stake it into the ground, so you need a couple of steel fence posts to hold it upright. But it holds a tomato plant very nicely inside if you keep poking the stems back in.
Then manufacturers started making smaller cages, so they could be easily shipped, and less expensive. The only problem is they have long prongs that go in the ground, and in the store they look fairly tall, maybe 3 even 4 tall, but after you stick them in the ground, suddenly they become only 2 to 3 tall. And, of course, since tomatoes grow a good 5 to 6 tall, you just become overwhelmed about halfway through the season. Then they started making taller and taller cages, but, of course, they got much more expensive, and then they topple over, so you have to stake those, and so forth and so on.
After solving all the small plant spacing numbers to determine how many plants will fit into a Square Foot, I then decided to tackle the big space grabbing vine crops. After studying all the gardening world experts solutions, there werent any except cages, I visited commercial greenhouses to see how they grow their tomatoes in the wintertime. It was quite a sight, because, you walk in the greenhouse, and the tomatoes were growing on the bench, in containers, either like raised beds, or individual containers, and they had strings hanging from the ceiling tied to the plant. And the plants were growing right up those strings. Now, a tomato plant wont hang on very well. It doesnt have tentacles like pole beans do. So, they have to weave the plant around and around the string, or, they made special little plastic snaps that go around the string, and hold it tight to the string, then that holds the plants stem there. Its sort of like holding up some one by the arm pits.
They also showed me how to prune the plant to a single, central stem. Now, a tomato plant has a lot of side branches, and they bear fruit, but that takes longer, and they take a lot of strength from the plant. Better to remove them and harvest only the fruit from the main central stem. Pruning the plant to a single stem is really very easy, and next week, Ill have a drawing and description on exactly how to do it for you. This way, you could place each plant much closer together, actually one foot apart. And then I read some agricultural studies at Cornell University that showed that a single stem plant will grow more pounds of tomatoes per square foot than any other method known.
Well, putting 2 and 2 together, I thought, why cant we do the same thing in our garden? Of course, we dont have any rafters to hang the strings from, so I designed a sturdy steel frame, that doesnt need extra staking, and wont fall over by the end of the season, and stands 6 tall. The original book showed the steel frame with strings hanging down, and you first tied a string across the bottom, and then tied the vertical strings from that up to the top of the structure. And, it worked very well. You have to be careful what type of strings you select, because some deteriorate, even within a year, and break just at the wrong time, like in September when you have a heavy load of tomatoes there. But since then, weve come across some nylon netting that has large openings, 7x 7, so you can easily reach through; you tie it to the steel frame, and looks really terrific. The nylon netting is unbreakable and has a 20 year guarantee. Its unbreakable so you dont have to worry about rotting and in fact, its guaranteed to last for 20 years. Why thats longer than Ill be growing a garden.
So now, if you go to our website, www.SquareFootGardening.com, go to the catalog page, youll find Mels Tomato Towers, and theyre all steel, galvanized so it wont rust, comes complete with the ground rods to make them sturdy, and also the netting that you tie to the steel frame. Theyre 4 wide, and almost 6 tall. Makes a great Fathers day present. I have also determined that a tomato plant, even though all the experts said you need a lot of room for the roots, I found they grow very nicely in 1 square foot. So, this tomato tower will hold 4 tomato plants along one side of your 4x 4 box, and itll last for well over 20 years.
Now, the nice thing about the tomato towers, and this method of growing, is that all vine crops can be grown the same way. The easy ones to visualize are cucumbers, (2 per square foot), pole beans, (8 per square foot), this is all in the book ALL NEW Square Foot Gardening but maybe you didnt get Dad a book yet, and squash, 1 per 2 Sq Ft.; yes, you can grow squash vertically. Its a vine. Make sure you dont buy the bush variety from the seed catalog. And the vines will climb right up the netting. Sometimes you have to be a traffic cop, and take the ends and move them over a little bit so they dont get out of their space, and the fruit will just hang there on the netting, and its a perfect way to grow vertical crops. It saves an awful lot of space, and its very simple and easy to do. Besides all that, it looks terrific.
So, Im suggesting all this as a perfect way to grow tomatoes and a perfect gift for Dad this year. Visit our website to see all the details or to order a Tomato Tower for him. They come 4 wide to fit right on a 4 x 4 box. Or, you can get them wider if you have a 4x 8 or 4x 12 box. Or, you can build your own, just from the pictures. Another idea for a gift for dad, of course, would be a book, if he doesnt have one, to tell him how to grow the tomatoes and all of Square Foot Gardening. And, the last, but not least, go to your favorite nursery and buy him some nice tomato plants. Pick out varieties that will grow vertically. Theyre called, vine, or indeterminate type tomatoes. Horticulturists like to use big fancy names, so theyve assigned the bush type tomatoes, which you do not grow vertically, as determinant. I like to think of it as determinant means you can determine how tall theyre going to be, about 2 to 3 tall. They wont grow any taller.
The indeterminate, or vine type, that you do grow vertically, I like to think its indeterminate how tall theyre going to get. And, they will climb up those 6, and by fall, youll have a huge crop of tomatoes. And, they will last until the very first frost. But the book even tells you ways that you can protect your tomato plants in the fall from the frost, and keep growing for another couple of weeks. So, make dad happy this year, and give him something to grow tomatoes with. It makes a perfect gift.
Humanitarian Project
Whenever I see examples of humanitarian aid (non-emergency) items shipped overseas to help those less fortunate then us, I always wonder what happens when that particular item is used up or gone.
Have We Really Helped ?
What have we really done to help others in the long run ? Nothing really, because they are right back where they started. The next question becomes, "What could we have sent them that would have a lasting benefit ?" The only answer that keeps coming up is EDUCATION.
Food Is Life
The most needed item in daily life is FOOD. So let's teach others how to become self sufficient by growing their own food. Im not talking about big agriculture with dependence on machines and fuel, fertilizers and large tracts of land.
Home Gardening Is The Answer
Im talking about home gardening where each family can grow a good portion of their own needs in a small space with no tools, fertilizer and a few seeds... A simple easy-to-understand method that anyone can use and one that doesnt depend on the existing soil or the need to improve it.
The Method That Works
Of course you can see my direction; Im heading toward Square Foot Gardening. That is the only method known that accomplishes all of the above. When the former LDS president Spencer W. Kimball said, "We encourage you to grow all the foods that you feasibly can... Study the best methods. Make your garden neat and attractive as well as productive." Im sure he was talking about Square Foot Gardening.
Start With A Book
