Square Foot Gardening
Hey guys! Today I thought it would be fun to do a post on our garden. We have a special garden…because it’s a square foot garden! And yes, it’s different than just raised beds. We all love our new way of gardening so much, even though it’s only our second year into it!
What is Square Foot Gardening? It’s a gardening system done in boxes; using a special mix of soil (actually none of your dirt is involved!) and a grid system with each box. There is practically no weeding, easy watering, and everything is extremely compact. In each box you get 100% of the crop you usually would get, but in 20% of the space. It’s more efficient, very productive (the produce we’ve received last year was absolutely incredible compared to row gardening), saves time, it’s prettier, economical, easy to protect from pest and the weather, and very eco friendly. The first year you use a special mix of different types of composts and every year from then, you use your own compost. It’s very green, earthy-hippy type of thing (which I am not into). To learn more you can check out the Square Foot Gardening book!
These pics were taken a little earlier this year, so the plants have matured a bit more since then. This is our red leaf lettuce which I’m loving in salads right now!
Our beautiful parsley…no one has bad breath here.
Broccoli plants, something we’ve just started growing. So fun to try new plants. This year we’re trying leeks which I think is cool. I’m obviously not familiar with them, because the other day I picked a load of the baby leeks thinking they were chives. Oh well. Maybe that’s gourmet…baby leeks on baked potatoes. Maybe.
This is what I think the pros to Square Foot Gardening are:
- easy watering (you can just plop the sprinkler in the middle of each box and rotate it every 15 minutes, instead of standing there for ages in the sun)
- basically no weeding
- so much more beautiful than the rows of plants…I like how my Dad thought of the gravel paths to go in between…also eliminating more weeds
- much more produce and it’s bigger and better than with row gardening!
- more control of weather conditions (it’s hard to cover a long row of carrots when you hear hail is coming, much more convenient with a small 4’ by 4’ box)
- easy for anyone to garden, even the for black thumbs out there
- you can put it anywhere, since it’s so small…it’s possible for a little hutch in the middle of the city to have one box in a tiny backyard
- cost effective in the long run…that saying, here’s a couple cons
CONS:
- the first year you do it, it can be a little expensive with all the soils you buy, but it definitely pays for itself and saves you money in the long run. But if you have just one or two boxes it’s not bad at all. I believe we put up 8 boxes the first year.
- it probably won’t stop the rebellious rabbit from nibbling at the sides of the boxes
So, not very many cons. I’m in love with this style of gardening and will definitely keep using this method if I have my own family someday.
Oh, look…I’m weeding the strawberry patch by the garden. How virtuous.
And here are some beautiful flowers we have…
Do you keep a garden? What is your favourite vegetable to plant? Have your heard of Square Foot Gardening before?
Category: Healthy Living | Tags: examples of square foot garens, flowers, gardening, how to start a square foot garden, square foot gardening, what does a square foot garden look like, what's a square foot garden 13 comments »
thanks for sharing your garden with us! I’ve been wanting to start one but didn’t know where to begin! I’ve never seen a garden planted this way, pretty neat!
That’s very cool. My garden is always a mess so seeing your neat and tidy garden is amazing to me :D I’ve never even heard of that before. I’m going to go do some more reading about it, it looks so interesting! Thanks for sharing your garden! I’m so impressed :D
I do garden, but just a little. My husband maintains it more than I do. We’re growing a few vegetables plants and a mint and lavender plant. I can’t wait til they start producing!
Girl, where do you live that is GORGEOUS!! What spectacular gardens. Can I visit?!
The garden looks awesome! I need a little bit more reading to see the differences between the square foot gardening and the raised beds, but will figure it out eventually :)
Thanks for sharing!
I wish I had a big backyard to do some gardening. I have very recently started plating some herbs and flowers in pot and you can call it an experiment as it’s mu first time you know! Now that i know about your gardening skills I know where to drop by with doubts :)
This is amazing! I’m bookmarking this for the future when I’ll hopefully have space for more than a potted plant :)
This is awesome. I have to admit I have never heard of Square Foot Gardening before. It looks beautiful, and the gravel paths add a lovely contrast to the colorful plants. Yes, I have a garden, too, but we have to fence it in because the deer loves the garden as much as I do…
yay gardening! such a fulfilling task (that is, if everything survives the entire season…) i wish i had done square foot gardening this year because everything just seems so scattered in my garden! doesn’t help that my pumpkin vines are invading everything… :)
Beautiful gardens with all the lovely edible goodies…
It is only luddites that I have heard speak lowly of square foot gardens…
I had just made another raised no dig garden (in the style of Esther Dean of “Growing Without Digging” fame… I have the book here…it gets borrowed sometimes but funnily it does come back about 6 months later…I have been using this method for years…anyway back to my origional thought…I didn’t have time to go purchase the vermiculite, coir or peat that i needed, but I still had plenty of compost,…so till I did get around to getting that material, I just divided my normal no dig into the sqares…well my crops are doing well with the normal soil recipe of 1/3 Compost (or potting mix if you prefer, 1/2 bucket of cowmanure, and one cup of blood and bone…which I found a few years ago is a time standard recipe…
My official square foot garden with the peat, vermiculite and compost will be started soon now I have the ingredients on the premises…
And my #1 compost bin is getting impatient for me to clear it out…lol..when I borrow a digital camera will up load pics of said garden.
My trusty digital camera is being naughty at the moment…grrr…lol
What did you use fif your garden paths? I am constantly weeding my paths!
Jaime – We used gravel to make paths! It’s beautiful and keeps the weeds out.
Nice and neat ! Love it!