Square Foot Gardening: Raised Bed Gardens and Much More

Square Foot Gardening is a concept that has been around for years. Square foot gardens are a type of intensive gardens that were popularized by Mel Bartholemew in his book All New Square Foot Gardening. Based on the concept that the wide rows in conventional home gardening are a waste of resources, including time, work, water and space, Mel suggests that more quality vegetables can be grown in less space with less effort. Originally a variant of the wide bed approach to vegetable gardening, square foot gardening is a more structured approach, including suggestions for mixing the soil and the approach to watering.

Basically, the idea is to build raised beds in 4′ x 4′ grids. Each grid is sectioned off into 1 ft squares. The beds are separated from the walkways of about 3 feet in width.

Instead of the native soils, a special soil mix of 1/3 each of perlite, vermiculite, and compost is used. The beds are filled with this mix, and the beds are dedicated to growing vegetables only, never walk on the beds. For smaller beds you can simply nail the boards together, but for larger beds you may want to use raised bed brackets to reinforce the corners.

The soil is not compacted by walking, so less work is needed to prepare the soil, which stays loose and loamy.

You plant on large plant in each square (for example, tomato or peppers, or 4 smaller plants (like lettuce), 9 per square for spinach, and 16 per square for carrots and turnips. Planting in the small spaces, you will also conserve your seeds since they are not broadcast.

Like wide bed gardening, you get a higher yield because more of the actual garden space is used for the actual vegetable plants. Since you can water only the actual garden bed, you save on watering costs as well. He suggests you water near the roots as well, to avoid disease problems and to further conserve water.

With closely spaced plants, you get a shading effect and reduced weed growth. This layout also lends itself very well to organic pest controls, especially companion plantings like marigolds.

Finally, after harvesting, Mel suggests that you replenish the soil with compost, and be sure to rotate your crops, planting a different vegetable in that spot next year.

Square foot gardening is a great idea for almost anyone to try. The raised beds make it ideal for older folks who have a hard time with the bending over needed for conventional gardening, and it will also be a great idea for those with either limited space for a vegetable garden, or who just want to put their square foot garden close to the house.

The downside to the system: It’s a lot of work to set up the beds initially, and for those who are concerned about the esthetics the walkways now either need to be lawn or mulched adequately to keep the weeds down. And at times with a 4′ wide bed it can be difficult to find those last beans or cherry tomatoes buried deep in the vegetation. But overall, it’s a concept that works pretty well.

You can find books and videos on square foot gardening at Amazon.