Mel Bartholomew promotes putting a grid on your square foot garden. Here's what he says about it:
"When I wrote the first book on Square Foot Gardening more than twenty-five years ago, I advocated laying out a 12x12-inch grid for the garden. Then, in my travels around the country, I heard a lot of people say, "Oh, I do Square Foot Gardening," or "I have a Square Foot Garden." But when I went to see them, the size was right but they had no grid!
"In our introductory film, we show the people in our class how a 4x4-foot garden looks without a grid and ask them, "How many plants could you plant there? How many different crops?" They draw a blank because it looks like a small area that isn't going to contain very much. As soon as we lay down the grid, they suddenly light up and say, "Aha! I see! Sixteen spaces, so it'll take sixteen different crops! Later, as soon as one square is harvested, I can add a trowel full of compost and replant that square foot with a different crop without disturbing anything else around it." Bingo! They see the light."
There are many interrelated reasons for the "different crop in every Square Foot" rule. They deal with nutrients used, limiting over-ambitious planting, staggered harvests, weed and pest control, companion planting, simplification of crop rotation, and other factors that result in a very unusual and innovative gardening system.
If you use string or twine to mark off the squares, it will eventually rot or break. More often than not it is cut by a spade. After years of experience, Mel's advice is: Do not use anything floppy. A firm, rigid, prominent, and visual grid permanently laid on every one of your boxes will make all the difference in the world as others see it but mostly in how you use and enjoy your garden. And he adds, Without a grid, your garden is not a Square Foot Garden. So there you have it!
What do I think about it? I hesitate to say anything about it, because I have mixed feelings about it. When I first started, I put a grid on all my boxes. I encourage you to do the same, especially if you have a 4x4 box. Some of the advantages of the grid do not exist or are less important when it comes to a 2x2 box, such as being able to visualize where to plant each crop and how close to space them. There are times that I find the grid to be an inconvenience. It is harder to weed if the weeds are growing under the grid. It is harder to mix in more compost, although that can be done in spring or fall when you take the grid off anyway for winter storage. One strong point that Mel makes is the improvement of the appearance of your garden, which is especially striking if you have a white grid. However, if you use grass clippings for mulch the way I like to, the grid is completely covered up. Not only that, the grass clippings get matted to the grid, stain it, and it no longer looks good. If you want to plant a box full of just one crop (which Mel does not recommend) it is not practical to have a grid. I also find it harder to dig root crops if you have a grid, which is why I plant mine in tubs with Mel's Mix (he recommends making separate boxes for root crops anyway, 12 inches deep instead of 6).
So I say, start out with a grid, especially if you have a box bigger than 2x2. Plant a different vegetable in every square. And go from there. I want you to at least experience the potential of a real Square Foot Garden! Here is an example of the volume of vegetables you can harvest from a 4x4 box in one season, with sixteen squares: one head of cabbage; one head of broccoli; one head of cauliflower; four heads of romaine lettuce; four heads of red lettuce; four heads of leaf lettuce, then sixteen scallions; four heads of salad lettuce; five pounds of sugar peas; eight bunches of Swiss chard; nine bunches of spinach, then nine turnips; sixteen small carrots; sixteen beets, plus four bunches beet greens; sixteen long carrots; thirty two radishes. Look on your seed packets for the recommended plant spacing after thinning and follow those guidelines when you plant your Square Foot Garden.
Grid material can be found at home improvement stores. Lowe's has the ideal strips for it. Go for the 1-inch wide or inch-and-one-eighth. An inch-and-a-half is too wide; it'll take up too much of your garden space. A 3/4-inch strip will be more likely to split, or twist, or break. Make your squares equal sizes (it looks goofy if you don't). If you're putting the grid on a 2x2 box, it is as simple as finding the center of the sides (which is 12 3/4 inches if you rotated the corners of the box) and centering your strips there to fasten them. If the box is bigger than 2x2, measure the inside of your box. Write down the measurement (for example, if you made the box 4x4 and rotated the corners, it will be 46 1/2 inches). Now figure the total width of the strips you're going to use. If you have a 4x4 box it will take three strips across it. If you have 1 1/8-inch strips, your total width would be 3 3/8 inches. Subtract that from your first measurement. In our example, the result would be 43 1/8. Now divide this by 4 to find out how much soil is going to show in each square. That's about 10 3/4 inches. Measuring inside the box, make a mark at 10 3/4 inches, then another at 11 7/8 (if your strips are 1 1/8 inch wide). That is where your first strip is going to go. Then starting at your second mark, measure another 10 3/4 to 11 7/8 inches for your second strip. Continuing in this way should give you the most uniform squares and the best appearance.
Pilot drill holes about 3/8 inch from each end of all your strips, and attach to your box with short screws. If you made a 4x4 box with rotated corners, and cut your grid strips 4 foot long, the ends of the strips will only reach halfway across the 2x6 sides of your box. That is okay. The only alternative is to either shrink the size of your boxes by another inch and a half, making them exactly four foot when measuring the outside of the box, or to cut your strips each 49 1/2 inches long, both of which has its own set of complications.
Blessings to all!
"When I wrote the first book on Square Foot Gardening more than twenty-five years ago, I advocated laying out a 12x12-inch grid for the garden. Then, in my travels around the country, I heard a lot of people say, "Oh, I do Square Foot Gardening," or "I have a Square Foot Garden." But when I went to see them, the size was right but they had no grid!
"In our introductory film, we show the people in our class how a 4x4-foot garden looks without a grid and ask them, "How many plants could you plant there? How many different crops?" They draw a blank because it looks like a small area that isn't going to contain very much. As soon as we lay down the grid, they suddenly light up and say, "Aha! I see! Sixteen spaces, so it'll take sixteen different crops! Later, as soon as one square is harvested, I can add a trowel full of compost and replant that square foot with a different crop without disturbing anything else around it." Bingo! They see the light."
There are many interrelated reasons for the "different crop in every Square Foot" rule. They deal with nutrients used, limiting over-ambitious planting, staggered harvests, weed and pest control, companion planting, simplification of crop rotation, and other factors that result in a very unusual and innovative gardening system.
If you use string or twine to mark off the squares, it will eventually rot or break. More often than not it is cut by a spade. After years of experience, Mel's advice is: Do not use anything floppy. A firm, rigid, prominent, and visual grid permanently laid on every one of your boxes will make all the difference in the world as others see it but mostly in how you use and enjoy your garden. And he adds, Without a grid, your garden is not a Square Foot Garden. So there you have it!
What do I think about it? I hesitate to say anything about it, because I have mixed feelings about it. When I first started, I put a grid on all my boxes. I encourage you to do the same, especially if you have a 4x4 box. Some of the advantages of the grid do not exist or are less important when it comes to a 2x2 box, such as being able to visualize where to plant each crop and how close to space them. There are times that I find the grid to be an inconvenience. It is harder to weed if the weeds are growing under the grid. It is harder to mix in more compost, although that can be done in spring or fall when you take the grid off anyway for winter storage. One strong point that Mel makes is the improvement of the appearance of your garden, which is especially striking if you have a white grid. However, if you use grass clippings for mulch the way I like to, the grid is completely covered up. Not only that, the grass clippings get matted to the grid, stain it, and it no longer looks good. If you want to plant a box full of just one crop (which Mel does not recommend) it is not practical to have a grid. I also find it harder to dig root crops if you have a grid, which is why I plant mine in tubs with Mel's Mix (he recommends making separate boxes for root crops anyway, 12 inches deep instead of 6).
So I say, start out with a grid, especially if you have a box bigger than 2x2. Plant a different vegetable in every square. And go from there. I want you to at least experience the potential of a real Square Foot Garden! Here is an example of the volume of vegetables you can harvest from a 4x4 box in one season, with sixteen squares: one head of cabbage; one head of broccoli; one head of cauliflower; four heads of romaine lettuce; four heads of red lettuce; four heads of leaf lettuce, then sixteen scallions; four heads of salad lettuce; five pounds of sugar peas; eight bunches of Swiss chard; nine bunches of spinach, then nine turnips; sixteen small carrots; sixteen beets, plus four bunches beet greens; sixteen long carrots; thirty two radishes. Look on your seed packets for the recommended plant spacing after thinning and follow those guidelines when you plant your Square Foot Garden.
Grid material can be found at home improvement stores. Lowe's has the ideal strips for it. Go for the 1-inch wide or inch-and-one-eighth. An inch-and-a-half is too wide; it'll take up too much of your garden space. A 3/4-inch strip will be more likely to split, or twist, or break. Make your squares equal sizes (it looks goofy if you don't). If you're putting the grid on a 2x2 box, it is as simple as finding the center of the sides (which is 12 3/4 inches if you rotated the corners of the box) and centering your strips there to fasten them. If the box is bigger than 2x2, measure the inside of your box. Write down the measurement (for example, if you made the box 4x4 and rotated the corners, it will be 46 1/2 inches). Now figure the total width of the strips you're going to use. If you have a 4x4 box it will take three strips across it. If you have 1 1/8-inch strips, your total width would be 3 3/8 inches. Subtract that from your first measurement. In our example, the result would be 43 1/8. Now divide this by 4 to find out how much soil is going to show in each square. That's about 10 3/4 inches. Measuring inside the box, make a mark at 10 3/4 inches, then another at 11 7/8 (if your strips are 1 1/8 inch wide). That is where your first strip is going to go. Then starting at your second mark, measure another 10 3/4 to 11 7/8 inches for your second strip. Continuing in this way should give you the most uniform squares and the best appearance.
Pilot drill holes about 3/8 inch from each end of all your strips, and attach to your box with short screws. If you made a 4x4 box with rotated corners, and cut your grid strips 4 foot long, the ends of the strips will only reach halfway across the 2x6 sides of your box. That is okay. The only alternative is to either shrink the size of your boxes by another inch and a half, making them exactly four foot when measuring the outside of the box, or to cut your strips each 49 1/2 inches long, both of which has its own set of complications.
Blessings to all!
No comments:
Post a Comment