A couple weeks ago the wife and I went to a little workshop on squarefoot gardening. We have a garden in our side yard and it is doing pretty well. We have some squash and bunch of tomatoes getting ripe. After this workshop I am convinced this square foot thing is the best gardening method for families.
Why is it the best?
- You can fit a lot of plants in a small area.
- No weeding
- No Fertilizers nor any other chemicals
- Requires less water than a traditional garden
- You don’t have to worry about your soil
The key points of square foot gardening is that
- Garden is no wider than 4′ so that you don’t have to walk on it.
- Soil consists of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peet moss, 1/3 vermiculite and is 6″ deep
- Layer the bottom with damp newspaper or cardboard (prevents weeds)
- plant seeds in 1’x1′ squares – according to size of plants (there are resources out there to know how many to plant in each square).
- Keep soil moist and let nature do the rest.
We are looking forward to giving this a shot and to be even greener we ordered a compost container from the town so we can create compost from our green waste. Look at us go. Unfortunately June isn’t the best month to plant much in our area other than pumpkins so we are competing with friends and family to grow the biggest pumpkin by hallowen. Come September we’ll get the whole square foot thing going in the rest of the garden.
