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Lisa,
One of the most important things (IMHO) to remember, in order to get the most out of your space is this.... Some plants take a long time to mature....and will stay in the ground all season (broccoli, tomatoes, green beans, squash, etc.) However, you have room around them to put in your "fast and one-time producers" such as radishes, onion sets for green onions, etc. Using a companion planting chart, surround your long-timers with the fast producers. You can keep reusing that soil until the long timers have grown enough to hog the space. Also, remember the blocking method when spacing your plants. In common gardening you'll find that it says, "Plant 8" apart in row, with rows 12" apart. In sq. ft. gardening, plant your block of plants 8" apart in every direction. Start collecting cow pies from your neighbor and always have a barrel of manure tea handy to water your garden with. The stuff works like magic! LOL
I don't usually use manure tea, but I am sure it is a good thing.
I like to work as much composted manure in the ground as I can before I set out my plants.
When I planted my tomatoes this year I got a hold of some rabbit manure. I dug a hole about the size of a five gallon bucket and mixed half soil and half rabbit manure. The results are amazing! Good strong healthy plants that are already blooming.
Manure is the best thing for breaking up that hard Alabama clay. I use as much as I can find.
I also like to use pine straw as a mulch, I can get as much as I want for free and with a little lime it makes good dirt.
The tomatoes did taste different when using Mel's Mix, but in a good way. The con is that the tomatoes were smaller, I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the depth of the soil or the flimsiness of the soil.
The biggest drawback to SFG that I saw was how relatively weak the soil was (Mel's Mix) in comparison to just good ol' fashioned DIRT. There seems to be a need for a balance between nutrient-rich soil and soil that can hold up plants through wind, rain, etc.
All in all my little SFG "looked" nice, it was easy to manage, but it was just too methodical for me. Call me a masochist if you want, but I find enjoyment in playing with real dirt, weeding (as long as it's not TOO much) plants and working with large gardens.
I'm experimenting with the tomatoes this year: we have three plants in our square foot garden and I think fourteen to sixteen in our daughter's raised bed that was filled with great soil from her father-in-law's place. Hers yielded a lot more than ours last year, though I think my novice pruning was, um, too enthusiastic .
So the plants I thought I'd ruined while hardening them off have - so far - survived.
Square Foot Gardening is the most productive, efficient, and easy way to garden. Not only does it use just 20% of the space a traditional row garden, it saves water, and time spent digging and weeding.
Last edited by Rance; 04-29-2010 at 01:33 PM..
Reason: Cause you can't be advertising your website here!
I had to replant my beans. We went on vacation for a couple of weeks and ended up staying for three weeks because our engine went so I was not able to monitor much. I had a friend take care of the things during the week and my daughter and family came for the weekend. I looked to see if the beans that were previously planted were still there and there was no sign of them. I don't know what would have gotten them. I had the bed covered with chicken wire. My peas are looking well and the lettuce is coming up although a little spotty. I planted a couple of tomatoes, an eggplant, and some more radishes today. The beets are also coming up nicely.
I planted my six tomatoes,three cucumbers and 4 peppers last Friday.
Over the weekend we had 50mph wind gusts and I hear the temps tonite are going down in the high 30's.
Half my garden is gone with the wind and the other half is barely hanging in there. I wanted to do it all by seed as the blight hit my tomatoes last year.
This spring has been so unbelievably unpredictable. Low 90s last week to high 30's this week.
Guess I better wait now till Memorial Day. Now I wish I had kept the weak seedlings. I'll be heading to Lowes for my tomatoes,and whatever else they might have. I just hope there is no blight this season.
Sorry to hear the news from PA. I usually plant out my stuff Mother's Day weekend too - but thankfully was so busy (including spending a day in PA- LOL) that I wasn't able to. Been frosts by me on Long Island in NY too. I did plant seeds in my SFG, but nothing has broken the surface yet, only put them in about a week ago. Hopefully they'll survive this cold snap and be up and at 'em when it warms up again!
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square foot tomatoes v. regular soil tomatoes
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