My dad gave me a suggestion to look into square foot gardening. We setup three 4' x4' boxes in the front, and two 4'x2' boxes in the back. The basic idea is that you get a great soil mixture (1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost) - and you put it in a box about 6-8 inches deep, and divide it into one foot square sections. Plant accordingly. I spent about $100 on the soil mixture, which filled way more than the original 3 boxes. and about $100 on the cedar (8 inch high/wide) and screws and brackets for the front boxes. In the future, the idea is to just top up the soil with compost for nutrients, as the peat and vermiculite are just soil conditioners. The boxes in the back were made with leftover 6 inch wide spruce planks.
The 2 units in the back (16 squares) have mostly tomato plants, and pepper plants.
Here are photos of the 3 in the front:
The 48 squares have things like...
12 flower squares: Geraniums, marigolds, and more...
Herb squares: mint, basil, cilatro, parsley, rosemary, marjoram, chives
Vegetables squares: carrots, beans, tomatos, pepper, lettuce, green onions, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli.
We have one that 'almost' followed the rules, it is against our fence at the end of the driveway, and is about 20 inches x 5 feet. I divided it in half and planted 2 rows of beans, about half are growing...
-André
2 comments:
Are you doing your gardens again this year? Is there anything that you would do differently? I am trying this out this year and am curious about other success and areas for improvement. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thx
We are doing the gardens again this year - and adding. Last year was quite wet - but even so, those areas which got the most sun did the best, this year will only be better! The traditional guidelines indicate 6 inch high boxes, but for some of ours we chose 8 inch wide cedar. I would go with 8 inch if you are planning on root vegetables, but 6 inch would be ok for everything else, especially if you top them right up. We even did tomatoes, and just got three foot 1"x2" stakes and attached it to the box at the bottom, and used twine on the tomato cage at the top for suport, as the soil could not support the cage by itself. Soil is very important, and we stuck to the instructions 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost (we used mushroom). Initially the boxes and the especially the 'good' soil is expensive, but it is worth it for yield and it is really an investment - in the following years you would just need to top up the level. Good Luck!
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