Square Foot Gardening – Grow Your Own Vegetables
Traditional vegetables consist of long, single rows of vegetables spaced widely apart. By using raised beds and the principles of square foot gardening it is possible to increase the yield by 400% for the same area. To ensure you understand your garden and learn about plants you should keep a square foot garden diary to have a log of your failures and successes to improve your results.
The practice of square foot gardening isn’t just for those with small gardens; rather square footgardening allows you to concentrate your work effort to create an ideal plant environment, to give better yields naturally.
The are many people who like the idea of digging for victory. They enjoy the sight of long, straight rows in their gardens and the hard labor that goes with digging and hoeing the land, whilst others prefer machine cultivation.
Owning a square foot garden still means weeding by hand but because the raised bed is filled with vermiculite, peat and compost there are fewer weeds and they can easily be seen and removed in a few minutes.
If you like the idea of all your vegetables being ready to harvest in one go then square foot gardens are not for you. The idea of square foot gardens is to have something growing all the time so you can have fresh vegetables growing in your garden for most of the year.
To benefit you need to have a good square foot garden plan which needs to be thought out early in the year, thorough planning to make the best use of your time and space. Before you start planting, you must consider the interrelationships of plants with each other and their needs and how to protect them from bugs and insects.
Square foot gardens are based on 1.2m by 1.2m raised beds. If you have more space then the length of the bed can be increased to 12 foot. The width should not be more that 1.2m so that you can easily reach the middle with out standing on the soil.