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Hi Jaxson, thanks for the compliment. Learn as I go, I'd reckon. Next year I plan to get those vinyl coated wire fence and make my own tomato cages. It has been a fun season of doing & learning.
I would like to attempt my first square foot garden next season. I have a number of large trees on my property, which keeps a good part of it shaded. The location of the garden gets diffused sun all morning but gets 4 hours of full midday sun: 11am-3pm.
Will this be enough for a square foot garden?
I would like to grow tomatoes, peppers, basil and other herbs, garlic, onions, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, eggplant, melons, pumpkins, squash, and zucchini.
I've heard that you can put aluminum foil down to get more sunlight and keep pests away.
Any advice would be appreciated!!!!
Younglisa7, your SFG looks fantastic! I like your "Helper" behind you in the photo. Mine has begun stealing from me.
I don't have a space for a SFG in my yard. My house sits back on my pie-shaped property. Back yard is woodlot, side yards too shady and the HOA puts the kabosh on anything in the front yard.
Dang, if you would not be averse to driving to Mebane about twice or three times a week, we could expand my garden and get enough to feed quite a few households.
I plan on getting my garden going soon. My hubby bought me a kit made from composite lumber from Sams club. It is 84"X42"X8". Even though it's not the 4 foot wide I thought that I would put things like radishes, scallions, and perhaps some short carrots in the area that will be half a foot wide. I am going to take apart some miniblinds that I have sitting in the garage to mark my squares. When I lived in Illinois I did square foot gardening using Mels old publication. It worked wonderfully but I think that this will be even better. My hubby got me the new book and I liked what I read. He also has a website. It covers the basics of square foot gardening. It is www.squarefootgardening.com. I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do about the trellising.
We need to keep this thread alive for the coming year.
I've got eight 4"by4" boxes built and standing by in the backyard. I made mine from 2" by 8"s.
I lucked out and found a guy selling coarse vermiculite on craigslist. He had to order a whole pallet for his gardens. (can't find the coarse around here)
My wife has ordered all her favorite Asian vegetable seeds, long bean, setow, upo, bitter melon and I don't know what else. I'll get to grow some of my favorites too.
We will be doing a lot of vertical growing. I plan to use the steel conduit and nylon net.
I've scoped out a few sources of store bought compost, cow, chicken, mushroom. I'll be picking them up this week and the peat moss.
I'll be ripping up a couple extra 2" by 8"s to make my grids.
We need to keep this thread alive for the coming year.
Yes and actually we need all veggie gardeners to ask admin for a sub-forum again this year. Last year they said not enough interest but I think between both of these garden threads that our cool mod, Rance, made stickies they do deserve sub-forums.
I live in Michigan, so it will be awhile before I can even get to my garden. I have always been a traditional gardner, but the past two years I have had a raised bed garden, constructed with cement blocks. The blocks are two high and the beds are approx. 4 X 8, with a couple of them being 4 x 16. There are 8 beds total, one permanently in strawberries and another with very large rhubarb plants. I used regular soil with some compost and manure mixed in. My question to those of you doing square foot gardening techniques is this---how do you grow such nice gardens with only 6 - 8 inches of soil? Don't some of the veggies have longer roots than that? And how do you grow root crops such as carrots and beets? I would like to try your technique, but would I have to remove all the soil in my beds to do so? Any help would be very much appreciated!!
The beds my husband got me are 42"X84"X8". He ordered spare parts from the company so that I could make two 42X42 beds out of it. He got me three of these at kits at Sam's Club for almost $40 each. Through the company the same kit sells for $70. Even though it isn't 48" square I think that these will be better for me where I am putting them. You can check them out at Greenland Gardener. You can also stack this product and it comes with the clips to do it but then you still have to order spare parts to be able to stack it. The carrots I got to plant only grow 7 to 7.5 inches long. I think there are some that grow even shorter. I don't think that you would have to remove your soil. When I lived in Illinois I just removed the sod that was on the garden, dug the beds, amended the soil and it did just fine. My children were in trouble if they walked on that soil. Just make sure that when you harvest or clean up your squares that you amend the soil with compost. If you want to lighten up the soil beforehand add some vermiculite and compost. Do not use perlite. It just floats to the top when you water. Right now I live in New Mexico and the dirt(I hesitate to call it soil) is awful. So it is preferable for me to make a soiless mix. The thing that's nice about the soiless mix is there are no weed seeds to contend with and as the weeds come up it is very easy to remove them. I have a compost tumbler and in the past had a compost pile. I don't generally add chemical fertilzers as the compost seems to feed the plants just fine. If I add manure I just put it in the compost tumbler to rot with the rest of the stuff. Most of the time I just add vegetable scraps, weeds, leaves, shredded newspapers(not the glossy stuff) if the ink is soy based.
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Is 4 hours of sun enough?
