Square Foot Gardening

[redfig]

 Hi
I am thinking of giving Square Foot Gardening a go on my allotment as a experiment.http://www.organicgarden.org.uk/SqFt/index.htm
Has any one tried it and how did you get on,


I am going to try it out on the allotment 4 foot squares divided in to nine squares and a few with the 16 squares in the 4 foot i think .With no vermiculite ect just the soil.

There is also a another way to garden Keyhole gardening which i hope to try http://www.sendacow.org.uk/schools.asp?active_page_id=272
I saw it at Hampton Court Flower show its a great way I was very impressed

Happy gardening

All the very best
Redfig

[redfig]

[tonybloke]

square foot gardening is very good at getting a mix of crops in a confined area (patio/balcony/back yard. etc) however, it requires higher maintenance and usually involves transplanting most of your plants. As an experiment on an allotment it might be interesting, though!! Have fun, and keep us informed of progress (with photo's?) rgds, Tony ;)

[sunloving]

Between plots i had to garden in square plastic beds that were 80cmx80cmand around 35/40cm deep
In these i manged to raise greeshaft peas, climbing beans carrots parsnips and srping onions . Its a struggle to water such high density growing but if you can keep them watered then you get great crops espcially in a raised system. I also grew turnips an salad leaves which did great!
good luck
X sunloving

[orgcol]

square foot gardening is very good at getting a mix of crops in a confined area (patio/balcony/back yard. etc) however, it requires higher maintenance and usually involves transplanting most of your plants.

Sorry but no, you can seed into soil just as easily. Sq Ft beds can also be used to grow single crops, you don't have to follow what the book says.

[artichoke]

Redfig, I have looked into keyhole gardening -  it seems very interesting, and a way of producing desperately needed green food in a desert area. Eventually I realised that in our country (UK) there are easier ways to grow food.

I don't have the stones for the outer wall - I am not convinced that the basket in the middle really distributes nutrients in the way described - it would take a lot of compost to fill in the growing area - all the vegetables described would grow for us in flat ground without the effort of building up the keyhole garden.

If anyone in UK has tried this and found it more successful than conventional methods, it would be very interesting to hear about it.

I have spent time in southern Arabia and seen tiny gardens protected by thorny fences against goats. Not much seemed to grow there, and I really felt for the people (women) who were trying to provide for their families in this hot dry sand. Maybe keyhole gardens would have helped them, but I had not heard of them at the time.

Stones were certainly available in abundance, and maybe the soil could have been made of goat/camel/cow droppings, and if I had to live there I would have tried it.

In my area of southern Arabia everyone foraged for wild plants, and only rarely did an individual attempt to grow them. My job was to record the plants they used, and to illustrate them, so it was very inconvenient that when I had collected a heap of foraged plants, everyone kept eating them.

[saddad]

 Sounds like an interesting job Artichoke. Were your pictures published anywhere? On the net? ???

[zigzig]

I tried both links and found nothing about it, just Obamas doing a but of gardening and a thing to send a cow.

[carrot-cruncher]

I used SFG on my plot for the last two years & found it worked fantastically well for myself.   As a person who works shifts I found it far, far easier to manage my plot around some rather odd working hours.   I could weed an entire 12' x 4' bed in less than an hour.   Also, as I had to carry watering cans from the communal tap to my plot I could be a lot more efficient with my watering, saving me several journeys.

I found it very easy to sow direct into the soil & found my use of fertilizer dropped as I was able to spread it my hand over a far smaller site so less was wasted.   The thing I have most difficult was keeping track of what I had sown where, however, labelling can easily overcome this.

I have now moved all my cultivation to my house but am still using the same principles.   I have a copy of the book but find it a little to 'anal' sometimes & prefer to adopt a more relaxed style.   The principles are sound but I don't think you need to be as strict as the book suggests.

The one thing I have found is that you can also play with the suggested spacings.   Growing a cauliflower by itself in a 1-square foot space is fine if you want a football-sized cauli to feed a family.   For myself they are too big.   As an experiment I planted 2 x caulis in a square, on a diagonal line.  To start with both cauli were small, but perfectly sized for myself.   After cutting one cauli for use it left the remaining cauli to grow slightly bigger, until it too was harvested.

I didn't use vermiculite at all.   I just added compost to the soil & planted into it, & just topped up compost if I thought it needed it.   Also, I wouldn't recommed a bed more than 4' wide in order to make it easier to reach into the middle squares.

Good luck & we'll have to compare photos

CC