My experiments with SFG

It is a yearly tradition of mine to start a vegetable garden in the spring and to let it die in the summer. I have had years with a little more success than others, like this one year that I actually got a TON of cucumbers (before a bug that devoured my zucchini and squash had nothing left to eat so settled on the cucumbers), but for the most part I always end up with a withered, pest-eaten garden that's overgrown with weeds.

I am attempting something different this year. I had seen something about "Square Foot Gardening" floating around on Pinterest and it appealed to me. Besides the fact that the neat, organized squares appealed to my OCD, I had always leaned towards that style of gardening without realizing it was "wrong." I never knew I was supposed to plant vegetables in rows with space to walk between them, so I just planted up my entire garden space and was happy.... except for the fact that I couldn't reach a lot of my plants (which was part of what led to the pest and weed infestations). I told my mom about this gardening method I had read a little bit about and she said, "oh yeah, I went to a class! I have his book!". She brought Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening book with her on her next visit and I actually read it cover to cover (well, as much as you can read a gardening book cover to cover).

Some of the key points of Square Foot Gardening are:

-Build raised beds and fill them with a "perfect" soil (instead of trying to amend your existing soil). The soil blend is 1/3 compost (try to use your own or buy a mix of different kinds), 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite or perlite. (I used perlite, though I wish I'd been able to find vermiculite as that's his #1 recommendation). This mixture is pH balanced and provides plenty of nutrients while creating a loose, friable, moisture-holding (but easily-draining) soil.

-An average person has a 2' reach, so build your boxes so that you can always reach your plants from one of the sides (2'x4', 4'x4', even 2'x8' would work!). I have a 4'x4' and a 2'x4'. I have those sizes because I found planks of wood at the lake house, and that's how much garden space I was able to create with them. 

-Plant your garden "front and center". Don't put it on your neighbor's property line where it's difficult to get to and/or hard to see so easily forgotten. Put it where you'll see it every day. Mine was always in the back corner of my yard and I never noticed when it was dry and withered, on when bugs attacked. This year I put mine smack dab in the center of my yard where I can see it from the kitchen sink and the kitchen table. Because of the fact that I always see it, I'm always curious what's going on and I visit it (and water it) almost daily.

-The KEY (that makes it Square Foot Gardening) is to divide your bed into square foot sections and plant anywhere from 1 to 16 plants in each square (depending on the seed spacing recommendations). The theory is if you can plant the seeds 4" apart in a row, why not plant another one 4" apart right beside it? You must mark the squares because Mel is about as OCD as I am, but mostly because the squares help you visualize just how much you can really plant in your "small" space.

So far it has been working for me. I have no produce to show for my troubles, yet, but I seem to have a decent amount on the way. So, let's take a peak at my experiment:

My 4x4 gets more and more lush every day!

My 2x4

*The outdoor cat decided this garden made a really grand King-size litter box (more on this below) and unfortunately used the vacant squares frequently. They were not initially vacant, but, thanks to him, they are now. I also thought I had a cucumber plant along the back, but it turned out the be a green bean that I presume was transplanted by the cat's digging.
** I started seeds indoors and obviously did not know what I was doing because very little has survived that was initially planted indoors. The ones that did survive aren't dying, but they aren't growing. Something to work on next year.

Zucchini flower

Cucumber flowers. I have quite a few already!

Grape tomatoes!

Roma tomatoes

Yellow tomatoes

California Wonder bell peppers

My Mother's Day present from Drew
A "scarecrow"

Green beans

My final touch: home compost! According to Mel (author of Square Foot Gardening) homemade compost is the best because it has so many different things in it. Yes, I may be going just a bit crunchy.

Some issues I've had so far:

-As I said above, the outdoor cat decided this garden made a really grand King-size litter box. I put netting over top and it still didn't keep him out. I ended up buying some essential oils (lemon and eucalyptus) to make a "cat repellent" spray that seems to have worked. It was either that or my "scarecrow" from Drew. :)

-I am still getting grass through the bottom (I do have a weed mat down). One of the benefits of this method is that should be little weeding because a) your mix doesn't contain weed seeds, b) your bed is raised, c) the soil is "friable" so weeds are easy to pull, and d) with your grid and seed positioning you'll always be able to spot "intruders" that don't belong. I've had to pull a lot more weeds and grass than expected, though it has been easy as long as I keep up with it.

-Aphids on the tomatoes (thankfully Pikes Nursery was doing a free ladybug giveaway one weekend)

-Zucchini and tomato blossoms that fall off. This is what happens to my tomatoes every year and I have yet to figure out what the problem is. I've read this is common when the temps are too high or too low, but that isn't the case so far this year. The other problem is usually too much nitrogen in the soil, but I used no fertilizer! Sigh... I may not be able to mark this item off my yearly bucket list: "Grow a successful tomato plant! I never get more than 2 tomatoes (or a handful of grape tomatoes)."