Benefits of a Square Foot Garden

The last few weeks I’ve been studying the benefits of Square Foot Gardening. The concept is brilliant.

It involves creating 4×4 raised beds. You never walk on your garden only the paths between. Conventional gardening demands using heavy work to loosen the soil, but here the soil stays loose. Weeding is easy too because of the soil.

Almost no weeds, easy weeding
No rototiller
You can customize soil mixture for each bed
Increased productivity per square foot
Less watering (water only plants no paths)
Improved soil drainage
Beds warm quicker so you can plant earlier and extend your season
No thinning (plant fewer seeds)
Better pest control
Ability to quickly chance soil or plans

This Video Introduces Square Foot Gardening

My past gardens were in traditional rows that demanded a lot of weeding, and rotter tiller. When contemplating a garden this year I had to take my health into consideration. Some days I don’t have the energy to work outdoors. I am so excited I found Square Foot Gardening.

Here is my garden plan using the trail version of Growveg.com

Square Foot Gardening Overview

Layout: Grow vegetables in squares, not rows. Begin with a 4′ x 4′ box.
Boxes: Build simple boxes that will hold soil above the ground. (untreated lumber)
Aisles: Leave a minimum of 3′ between boxes for walking between rows.
Soil: Mix together 1/3 good compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.
Grid: Make a grid with twin in each box measuring 1′ x by 1’squares.
Select: Use a variety of crop, plant, herbs or flowers in each square foot.
Plant: Read the instructions regarding spacing on the seed packet, and accordingly, plant 1, 4, 9 or 16 crops or plants per grid square. Plant up to 3 seeds or plants per hole.
Water: Water your plants directly at their base.
Harvest: After each harvest, add compost.

Photos from Flickr

Square Foot Gardening Videos

Don’t have a grandpa nearby to teach you to garden. Not to worry. You have YouTube!

Mel Bartholomew’s Videos (Creator of Sg Ft Gardening, severqal videos including FAQs)
Donna’s Square Foot Gardening (very motivating. 16 videos step-by-step)
How to Plant Square Foot Gardens (a dozen videos from Expert Village)

More about Square Foot Gardening

If you don’t have the space for Sq Ft Garden, consider container gardening.

Texas A&M University: Vegetable gardening in containers
Garden Guides: Guide to container gardening
West Virginia University extension service: Container gardening
Arizona Master Gardener manual: Vegetable garden: Container garden
Virginia Tech extension service: Four keys to successful container gardening

I’ll post more with photos when I get my boxes put together.

Visit Works for me Wednesday at We Are That Family for lots of motivating ideas.

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There Are 18 Responses So Far. »

Comment by Shout Factory :

Watch the trailer for the Simon & Simon Season 2 DVD here: http://budurl.com/9jyd
Comment by Gretchen :

We are doing square foot gardening for the first time this year and I am excited about it as well. Thanks for this post it is a lot of great information. We have done a regular garden and container gardening. I think we are making our boxes this Saturday. Thanks again!
Comment by Kim H. :

My husband and I are starting one of these right now – we are very excited, and can’t wait to see what our garden yields. Thanks for your tips!
Comment by Denise Nielsen :

I’ve used this with some success in the past, especially when we’ve had limited space. We have a much bigger garden these days but we still apply some of the principles of Square Foot Gardening to it, and it really works.
Comment by Kathryn :

We had one last year and it would have been better if I had gotten it planted before my fil poured in an entire package of tomato seeds in one and cucumber in the other – sigh

This year we’ve added three more boxes (total of 6) and are planting corn, salad mix, tomatos, okra, strawberries, cucumbers and about anything else that tickles my fancy .

We also do daylilies and iris – the picture on my link if from our yard in 2005 – I’ll try to get some pictures in bloom this year of the sq. ft garden and the flower beds also.
Comment by Robin Sampson :

❀ Benefits of a Square Foot Garden (My plan) http://budurl.com/9jyd
Comment by Lori :

I’ve never heard of this but it sounds just like what I’m looking for! Great post! (BTW, found you from your WFMW link). Glad I did. Have a blessed day.
Comment by ter :

We were talking about doing a square foot garden this year, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it on my own now that he’s gone but I’m still interested in the concept. I borrowed the book from the library last year but I think I’ll buy the book so I can use it for reference. Thanks for the links!
Comment by Frugal Dad :

Awesome! Looks like you’ve got a nice layout, and the boxes look great. Thanks for mentioning my article as part of the additional resources. We are struggling to get our garden up and running this year because of some family medical issues, and I already miss seeing those early-April sprouts. Your post has re-energized me!
Comment by Brad@Container Gardening :

New to your site.

I’ve always wanted to try square foot gardening and now the wheels are really turning in my mind.

Thanks so much.
Comment by Robin Sampson :

@annakate22 More garden info http://budurl.com/9jyd and http://budurl.com/8ml8
Comment by Tricia :

We did this today! My husband followed the Frugal Dad guidelines. The whole family had such a good time that the six-year-old dubbed it “Happy Gardening Day”. Will have post a link when I get photos up. Thanks for the great info.
Comment by BElinda :

Hi Robyn
We’ve used this method too – though we didn’t use the actual dividers we marked out our veggie plot this way. I’m going to get my family to read this post as it will inspire them for sure. We are about to plant our veggie plot in the next week or so. Actually I am hoping my mother in law will do it with my kids while I’m out of town! So reading your post here will be just what they all need – condensed information and inspiration. I love your plan – I’ll get the kids to get working on one for us. Can you tell us what computer programme you used to do that?
Comment by BElinda :

Ha! I have read back over your post and you tell us already how you did your plan! Sorry about that!
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Comment by Robin Sampson :

Welcome new Gardener Followers. See Benefits of a Square Foot Garden (My plan) http://budurl.com/9jyd
Comment by Sallie M. Anderson :

RT: @heartofwisdom See Benefits of a Square Foot Garden (My plan) http://budurl.com/9jyd
Comment by Theresa :

We haven’t built our beds yet, but I have been reading the SFG book and just wanted to say thank you for posting about it here with all the links… I came here from Jocelyn Dixon’s blog… this was timely!