Square foot gardening

Have you ever heard of the square foot gardening method? Square foot gardening is a form of intensive gardening that contains NO WEEDING, NO TILLING, NO DIGGING.It is user friendly, earth-friendly and economical too. A fellow by the name of Mel Bartholomew, wrote a book "Square Foot Gardening". He figured out methods to save time, work, money and space yet get a bountiful harvest.


There is nothing more satisfying than growing and eating your own food. Not everyone has large areas of land to farm, but just about everybody can Square Foot Garden. A square foot garden measures 4′ x 4′ and is 6″ high.

Square Foot Gardening is a uniquely simplified method of gardening that produces 100%of the harvest in only 20% of the space -- AND -- without all the hard work and drudgery of single row gardening.

One step up from the windowbox, SquareFootGardening (SFG) offers city dwellers a chance to relax in their very own compact market garden. This is a modular system of four foot by four foot wooden or plastic boxes. These are sub-divided into a grid of sixteen one square foot compartments backfilled with a compost, peat and vermiculite growing medium.

Easy to water, tend and weed-free, here is green-fingered fun. Annual flowers, vegetables and climbers are easily rotated around the grid and provide material for future composting.

How to make a square-foot garden---

Pick an area that gets 6-8 hours of sunshine daily.

Stay clear of trees and shrubs where roots and shade may interfere.

Have it close to the house for convenience.
Existing soil is not really important, since you won't be using it.

Area should not puddle after a heavy rain.

The Ten Basics

LAYOUT - Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4'x4' planting
areas.
BOXES - Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground.
AISLES - Space boxes 3' apart to form walking aisles.
SOIL - Fill boxes with Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss,
and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.
GRID - Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST!
CARE - NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. Tend your garden from the aisles.

SELECT - Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot,
using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot.
PLANT - Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place
transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression.
WATER - Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.

HARVEST - When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with
a new and different crop.

courtesy: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/