Square Foot Gardening

What is meant by "square foot gardening"?
Building a straightforward but fruitful raised bed garden is the basis of the well-liked and effective gardening technique known as "square foot gardening." Mel Bartholomew first presented the idea in his book "Square Foot Gardening," which highlights the notion of optimizing output in the least amount of space. Separating the garden bed into square-foot parts enables improved organization, lower upkeep, and higher yields. This is the fundamental idea of square-foot gardening.

 

The origin of Square Foot Gardening:

Mel Bartholomew created Square Foot Gardening in 1976 as a low-tech substitute for labour-intensive and ineffective row gardening. Mel invented the new gardening technique known as "Square Foot Gardening" by emphasizing soil, planting, spacing, and weed management. Despite being disregarded by specialists in gardening at first due to its ease of use, novices and gardeners alike welcomed this novel approach.

 

What are the fundamentals of Square Foot Gardening
1) Densely Plant
2) Develop vertically

3) Employ the proper soil

4) Stay near home

5) Grow shallow

6) No fertilizer is required

7) Maintain Narrow Aisles
8) Spare your seeds.
9) Arrange Arrangements in Squares

10) Rotate the Plants

The Advantages of Square Foot Gardening:

• Quick Setup:Square foot gardening is a quick way to start a new garden or expand a garden. Once you have gathered your material, you can build, fill, and start planting the same day.
• No Digging:Since raised beds are positioned above the ground, there is no need to till or dig a garden, so you don't need to worry about that. Underneath the bed, the grass naturally breaks down.
• Maximizes Space: Square foot gardening makes the most use of available space by planting in a grid pattern, which enables you to grow more plants in a smaller amount of space.
• Begin with Healthy Soil: Because you are starting with soil that is rich in nutrients and organic matter, creating raised beds and filling them with excellent soil provides you an immediate edge over a conventional garden.
• No Soil Compaction: Because the beds are never trodden upon, the soil remains loose and retains water, oxygen for the roots of the plants, and a thriving microbial environment that is perfect for plant growth.
• Less Weeding: In the initial years, there are fewer weeds because you are working with fresh soil. Intense planting also helps keep weeds from sprouting by shading the soil. Over time, weed seeds do spread, but they are simple to control. Because of the loose, fluffy soil, weeds are easy to pull out.
• Easy to Water: Watering the roads or rows between the crops is a simple way to give moisture to the crops without wasting water because the beds are small. The mixture of soil retains and absorbs water. Additionally, the close spacing helps to shade the soil and stop moisture loss.
• High Yields: Square foot gardening's intense planting strategy guarantees that every square foot of the garden is used to its full potential, producing an abundance of harvests.
• Easy Maintenance: Soil needs feeding, just like any other living thing, to create a healthy environment in which to produce plants. You can replace nutrients and preserve the texture of your soil by simply adding organic matter every year.
• Low Maintenance: Square-foot gardening beds are a great option for people who are busy because of their compact shape, which reduces the need for weeding and watering.
• Accessibility: Especially for those with restricted mobility, the raised bed design of square-foot gardening facilitates easier access to plants for watering, harvesting, and upkeep.
• Versatility: Gardeners of various skill levels can choose from a wide range of plants, including fruits, vegetables, and herbs, in square-foot gardening.

 

How to Set Up Your Square Foot Garden

1. Choose the Ideal Site for Square-Foot Gardening
   A square-foot garden needs to be located where the ground is comparatively level and receives at least 6 to 8 hours of full sun every day, just like most vegetable gardens. Stay away from low places where heavy rain could cause pools. Watering, weeding, harvesting, and other garden tasks will be easier and less likely to be forgotten if you select a location close to your home.
2. Build a Raised Garden Bed

Four by four feet is the most popular size for square-foot raised garden beds. Most gardeners can reach the middle from any side at this size. Furthermore, this dimension readily divides into sixteen 1 x 1-foot squares for a grid. Create sides that are at least 6 inches deep. Growers of root crops, like carrots, need to use 12-inch-deep sides.
          Buying four planter wall blocks (which have two-inch slots on four sides) and four 4-foot-long 2x6s from your local home center will allow you to quickly construct a raised bed that is six inches tall for square-foot planting. To create a square, place the blocks about 4 feet apart on flat ground. A 2x6 board is used to join two blocks by sliding it into the corresponding 2-inch slots.

         After about 15 minutes, you will have a 4x4-foot frame made by repeating with the remaining boards and blocks. When building a frame, choose for a more robust material like pressure-treated timber or cedar.

3. Fill the Raised Garden Bed

After constructing the raised garden bed's framework, you must fill it with dirt. It's possible that you're wondering if special soil is required for square-foot gardening. As long as you make changes, you may use what you have, which is a fantastic notion for any garden. First, aerate and loosen the soil below the surface. Then fill the frame with as much compost and more topsoil as necessary.

4. Plant Your Preferred Vegetables
   Make sure there is enough room between any elevated square-foot garden beds you construct so a wheelbarrow can pass between them. One extra-large plant per 1x1-foot square, four giant plants per square, nine medium plants per square, and sixteen small plants per square is the straightforward planting formula.

An idea of what you could fit in each square is as follows: One vine tomato, one pepper plant, one eggplant, four bush tomatoes, nine onions, nine beets, or sixteen radishes. For a single example, zucchini requires nine of the sixteen squares; the remaining seven squares can be planted with other crops. Fruits and vegetables that spread, like watermelons, need their own bed.

Sowing Seeds

When sowing seeds, place one seed in each hole, spaced according to the mature plant's requirements. (For instructions, see the back of the packet.) Dig a fingerhole through the mulch into the soil, add a tiny bit of vermiculite, sprinkle the seed on top, and then cover the whole thing with more vermiculite (this will assist the seed stay moist as it sprouts). To prevent the soil from drying out, mist the freshly planted seeds every day. Water plants once a week or so after they are established.

Transplanting Vegetables:
Apply the same spacing technique as previously discussed if you're transplanting vegetables from a nursery or gardening center. Plants should be placed in the soil with a little depression around them to assist retain water. To keep newly planted vegetables from wilting, you might wish to shade them. After a few days of daily watering, remove the shade and apply weekly watering.

5. How to Maintain Your Square Foot Garden

• Techniques for Watering Square Foot Gardens:
  Watering your plants properly is crucial to the health and yield of your square foot gardening. Consider the following efficient watering techniques:
  Drip irrigation: By putting in a drip irrigation system, you can assist your square foot garden retain moisture by supplying water straight to the roots of your plants. This will encourage effective water use.
  Watering Cans : To assist avoid overwatering and make sure every plant gets enough hydration, use a watering can to target specific plant sections in each square foot.
  Mulching : By adding a layer of mulch to the soil around your plants in your square foot garden, you can improve plant growth by retaining moisture, lowering evaporation, and controlling soil temperature.
• Garden Weeding:
  Make time to weed once a week, but instead of pulling weeds up by the roots or with a hoe, pull them when they are small or cut them off at the base using scissors. (You don't want to mess with the neighboring vegetables' roots.) Weed every time you pass by the bed or just one square at a time to make things easier for yourself. You won't need to fertilize since weeds won't compete with your veggies for nutrients.
• Pests Control:

Every gardener must maintain ongoing attention to detail in order to keep pests under control. The long-term detrimental consequences of synthetic pesticides are a cause for concern, and they are costly. Trying some basic pest control techniques is safer, easier, and less expensive than using chemicals. Your garden is small, so these work well. You are near every plant while you work. Look for the person who chewed the holes in the leaves. Your hands and eyes are your instruments. Netting can be used to cover a space. Insects are repelled by onions, dill, marigold, and nasturtium.

• Plant Rotation:

To ensure the health and growth of your plants, turn your plants over annually in square foot gardening. Plant rotation maintains the balance of soil nutrients and inhibits the growth of fungi that cause diseases in the soil. A three- to four-year regimen is followed by some gardeners.

• The Best Plants for Square Foot Gardening
  Keep the following things in mind while choosing plants for your square foot garden:
  Plant Size: Select plants like lettuce, radishes, carrots, and herbs that are compact and space-efficient and ideal for dense planting in small garden beds.
  • Companion Planting: To make the most of available space and promote plant growth, try pairing pest-repelling plants like marigolds or basil with tomatoes.
  • Succession Planting: To guarantee a consistent harvest throughout the growing season, incorporate succession planting into your square foot garden design. This technique entails planting new crops as soon as the previous ones are harvested.

How many plants can you have per square foot of gardening

The size and development habits of the plants determine how many can be cultivated in a square-foot garden. Larger plants, like peppers and tomatoes, usually need more room and should be planted in separate squares. Herbs and lettuce are examples of smaller plants that can be planted closer together.

When planting in a square-foot garden, keep the following general criteria in mind:
1. Plant one larger plant per square foot, such as peppers or tomatoes.
2. Plant 4–8 plants per square foot for smaller plants, such herbs or lettuce.
3. Plant sixteen plants per square foot for root crops like radishes or carrots.
4. Plant one climbing plant per square foot and provide a trellis or other support system for plants like cucumbers and beans.

 

What grows best in a square-foot garden?

The following plants thrive very well in square-foot gardens: 1. Leafy greens such as lettuce: Throughout the growing season, these crops can be harvested many times due to their rapid growth. Radishes: These root crops can be planted in the same square as other crops and mature swiftly. Carrots: If the soil is sufficiently deep, these root crops can be cultivated in a single square foot. Tomatoes: If the soil is rich and deep, tomatoes can be grown in one square foot, however they still need to be staked or supported.

Peppers: Square-Foot gardens can be used to raise both sweet and spicy peppers.

Herbs: A variety of herbs can be harvested all year round in square-foot gardens, including parsley, cilantro, and basil.

Beans: Bush beans can provide a lot of beans and are a fantastic choice for square-foot gardens.

 

Seasonal Care to be taken for square Foot Gardening

In light of the changing climate, the following advice will help you guarantee a plentiful harvest of all the homegrown vegetables you adore:
2. Types of Climate-Resilient Plants
3. Selecting seed kinds that are resilient to heat, cold, and drought is one of the most exciting ways Square Foot Gardeners can build resilience in their backyards.
4. By poring over seed catalogs, you can identify a lot of cultivars that are heat, drought, or bolt resistant.
5. After selecting hardy cultivars to plant, the following stage is to search for Square Foot Garden accessories that will enable you to prolong your growing season. This includes hot weather conditions as well as exceptionally chilly springs or early autumns.

6.During heatwaves, shade cloth can be employed as a solar heat buffer. You can cover an existing crop cage with shade cloth to keep animals out. Alternatively, you might choose to construct a special shade cloth cage to cover your raised bed.
7. Hoop buildings and cold frames shield crops from pests and cold temperatures.
8. Read our post to find out more about utilizing shade cloth in the SFG!
9. Hoop houses and cold frames can assist extend the growing season into the spring or fall, or for certain gardeners, they can be used to cultivate cold-season crops into the winter.
10. Another application for hoops is to shield crops from pests, which could become more prevalent as weather conditions change.

Harvesting:

No matter how lengthy your growing season is, you may increase your vegetable yield by using two gardening techniques: succession planting and square-foot gardening. By either spacing out the planting dates of a single crop or growing a new crop after the previous one is harvested, succession planting lengthens the harvest season. Square-foot gardening is a thorough gardening method that maximizes the utilization of tiny garden areas.

Succession Planting:

You may utilize succession planting to grow a steady supply of veggies for your table, just as farmers do to guarantee a steady supply of produce to take to market.
Replacing a crop that has completed producing with a new one in the same location is another method of using succession planting. Plant cucumbers for the summer, for instance, after you harvest spinach in the spring. Kale should be planted for the fall after the cukes are harvested. You can cultivate a greater range of veggies in a smaller area by using this technique. Just be sure that the vegetables you grow for spring or fall are cool-season and the summertime ones are warm-season.

Succession Planting for Different Seasons
Spring	Summer	Fall
Spinach	Bush beans	Kale
Mesclun greens	Cucumber	Lettuce
Peas	Sweet corn	Collards
Radish	Eggplant	Chinese cabbage