Gardening Made Easy

Maybe you think you don't have room for a garden. Maybe you think you don't have time or the energy for a garden. Maybe the only sunny spot you have is on your deck, or on your driveway, or on some barren, rocky corner which would be impossible to convert into a conventional garden. If so, what I'm about to share will greatly broaden your horizons. Because what I want to show you makes it possible to have a beautiful and very productive garden on your deck or patio, on your driveway, or (seriously) some people do it on their roof for lack of a better place (a flat roof works best, of course)! We're going to make it really, really easy to give your garden all the light and water it needs (provided you don't actually live in the forest), and just the right kind of soil. As you might have guessed, this is a combination of both raised beds and container gardening. And yet it's not entirely either one.

Square Foot Gardening
There's a man named Mel Bartholomew that spent years looking for ways to make it easy for everyone to have a garden. If you have read his book "Square Foot Gardening" you already know the general direction I'm taking. If you have his second book "The All New Square Foot Gardening" you have an even better idea of where we're going. His "All New" method is what I started in with, and made a few modifications to better suit our climate here in central Arkansas. In his "All New" book he makes several major improvements over his first book, as a result of his on-going research and experimentation. Mel calls his method 'square foot gardening.' He advocates making your gardens four foot square, although they can be different shapes and sizes. He says that one 4x4 raised bed will supply enough produce to make a salad for one person every day of the growing season. One more 4x4 box will provide the daily supper vegetables for that one person. And just one more 4x4 box will supply that person with extra of everything for preserving, giving away, special crops, etc. And a 3x3 box will do the same for a child as a 4x4 does for an adult (if you count the square feet within a 3x3 you'll find it is just over half as big as a 4x4).

Start Small
Because I am trying to make it possible for school children to have a garden, I recommend starting in with a 2 foot by 2 foot box. If someone knows nothing at all about gardening (or that person is maybe only pint-sized), a 2x2 is very manageable. True, it won't produce your supper every day of the season, but after experiencing a 2x2 you will have a much better idea of how much you can handle and how many square feet you need to raise the quantity you would like. Start in small. The same principals that I'm about to share can be applied to a 3x3, a 4x4, or a 2x8, or whatever size you want to make your garden. For those that already know they're going to do more than a 2x2, let me give you a few words of advice here. Never go more than four foot wide. That is all the average person can reach comfortably. Anything wider than that will have you or somebody else placing a hand or foot on the soil in the box for support in order to reach the middle, causing unhealthy compaction. If your beds are going to be up against a fence or a wall, don't go more than 2 foot wide (that's the same distance as to the middle of a 4x4). Never make a bed larger than 4x12. If you do, I guarantee somebody will try to step across it instead of walking around it to the other side, and end up in the middle of your garden! If you plan to put more than one 'garden' in the same area, be sure to allow plenty of room in between. Two feet for the aisle width is rarely enough. It might seem like enough when you build the box, but you will very likely have plants cascading over the sides, and it could easily end up being impossible to pass between them without trampling them. Go a bare minimum of two and a half feet for the aisle. I make mine three feet to make it easy to pass through with a wheelbarrow.

In my next post, I want to show you exactly how to make your box, so we can get started with the best gardening experience you've had yet!

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Blessings to all!