Anyone care to give me a brief rundown of square foot gardening? (and a few other ?'s)

[barefootbabies]

I bought the book last year, and had every intention of reading it and starting my first-ever garden. But then we got a house, and moved in the early summer, so I never got around to it. I mentioned a garden to my boys last year, and the little buggers remembered. Now they won't stop pestering me about it

I still haven't read the book, we've had a heck of a year, and I've been a bit overwhelmed, tbh. If it were up to me, I'd leave well enough alone for now, but they're really interested in one, and it might be good for me to have a hobby...

My aunt read the book, and I talked to her briefly about it, but she was fuzzy on the details as well. I was hoping someone would be willing to give me an overview of what to do. I know I have to build beds, I think 6" deep? and fill them with a special mixture, but I'm not sure what or in what proportions. We're planning to just buy seedlings, but I'm also not sure when to plant them (we're in N. Central MA). We want to plant tomatos, bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, watermelon, & strawberries for sure. Also maybe pumpkins, herbs, potatos, and beans?

Any advice would be very appreciated!

[Laurel]

This is my second year doing a square foot garden, so I'm no expert.

The planting mixture is equal parts vermiculite, compost, and peat moss. I think 6" deep boxes are what the book says; I was a bit paranoid about not being deep enough, so my boxes are 12" deep and the soil is probably about 9" deep. You will want to make sure you buy short carrots.

Be aware that some plants require a bigger square, and some plants will need a trellis. Your pumpkins and watermelon will need more space, so you may only be able to get 4 in a 4'x4' garden box. You cucumbers will need a trellis because they are vines. So will your beans if you buy pole beans. (You can get bush beans which are bushes instead of vines.) There are instructions in the book to make the trellis, it is pretty easy.

I highly recommend just reading the book all the way through. It's an easy read. I started my garden last year after doing internet research. I bought the book after I had already planted, and I could have avoided some headaches if I'd read it first. (Like planting some of my squashes in squares that were too small.) The instructions in the book are step-by-step and very simple. There are also detailed charts telling you what to plant when, what can be planted from transplants and what from seeds, etc. For example, your carrots must be planted as seeds, not transplants.

When to plant depends on the typical last frost date for your area. The book has really great detailed information about this.

[Owen'nZoe]

To what the PP posted, I just want to add two things:
- there are sites online that let you plug in your zip code to find your last frost date
- While sfg is a good method for initially learning about gardening, don't feel like you have to sfg to be successful. If reading the book isn't going to work for you this year, why not just prep your beds (you can use the 'Mel's mix' recipe the previous poster mentioned, or just add an inch or two of compost to your existing soil - I actually much prefer compost and existing soil), and use the spacing in the SFG book as a guide for how clost to space your plants.
- Start small. You have a lot on your hands and are just learning. I wouldn't do more than an 8' x 4' square (or even a 4'x4' sqaure) the first year.

Last bit of advice: you're bound to have failures. That's all part of the learning process, so just go for it.

[DirtRoadMama]

Here are the two sites that have helped me the most:

My Square Foot Garden
This site has lots of information, including a spreadsheet that helps you figure out what to plant next to each other (companion planting), and you can sign up for a weekly email to remind you what to plant that week. When you sign up for that email, you will go through a very short process to find out what zone you are in, and what your first and last freeze dates are. It will take about 2 minutes. A ton of great information.

Garden Planner
This is, hands down, the best planner I have found. It's easy. Use the first link's information about companion planting while you use this link to drag and drop your crops. It's simple. Then, you can print it out, and it will tell you when to plant, harvest, how deep to put the seed, how many per square foot, everything. It's awesome.

Good luck!

[ms.shell]

Start small. You have a lot on your hands and are just learning. I wouldn't do more than an 8' x 4' square (or even a 4'x4' sqaure) the first year.

i don't know...i would recommend at least an 8x8 to start...a 4x4 isn't enough room to grow much at all.

we have had great luck doing our beds an easier way. we have been definitely inspired by sfging and i look to that book for my spacing, but i am not nearly as exact as following his recomendations specifically.
we used landscaping timbers, 2 layers high, to frame our beds (well, one is framed w scrap boards). The first bed, dp just scraped off the grass and chopped it up with a shovel; later we got a tiller attachment for our weed eater. So, we chop up the soil a little bit and then we have imported dirt. we just buy bags of compost and manure from Lowe's and dump them in and then plant. I limed the vegetable gardens and use blood and/or cottonseed and bone meal to amend with and i love to mulch with black kow or mushroom compost. -the sfg book is an excellent reference wrt organic fetilizer. That and the spacing recs make this my go-to book (well, one of 2, lol). We built our first 8x8 bed from scratch in a day, like i said, with just a shovel. The next year we built a 4x16 and a 10x12. We had enough compost to add to these beds ourselves, without having to buy much soil. This year we doubled the rectangular bed to 8x16 (it is full with only tomatoes and peppers) and just this weekend extended the original (herb) bed by 50% to 8x12. And then there is no more backyard for extensions, we will soon have to get more land, because we want to grow more
starting with seedlings is nice as you reap produce much quicker. But zucchini and bean seeds come up so fast, and you want to have room to grow a variety of food. SO I vote you start with at least one 8x8 plot, with a trellis system across the back, so that you can have maximum success and variety.
Take that book in your bathroom.
but dont think you have to read the thing before you get started
Good Luck!

[DirtRoadMama]

If she hasn't read the book yet, she may not know to not get it over 4 feet wide. So if you wanted that square footage, then you'd go with 4x16, or 4 4x4 blocks.

She's in central MA, and wants to plant "tomatos, bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots, watermelon, & strawberries for sure. Also maybe pumpkins, herbs, potatos, and beans?"

All of those items are plantable as soon as the last frost date is past. If the tomatoes are indeterminate, that harvest will continue until frost, and the herbs should all go until frost, or the heat of summer makes them go to seed. The potatoes will be harvestable throughout the season, if you harvest them as "new potatoes", otherwise, you dig them up in fall. Everything else will go until mid-to-late august, depending on frost date. If your summer is cool enough, you can replant the carrots every two weeks to get a continuous harvest (you may need two squares for this, if ya'll will eat 16 carrots every two weeks).

If you replant with fall crops, you can get in another crop of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, more carrots, peas, etc. This can all be found in the "calendar of events for advanced gardeners" section of the SFG book.

I'm doing my first "just mine" garden this year (meaning, I'm doing all the planning, planting, tending, harvesting), and I'm starting with two 4x4 blocks, and two conventional rows (for my tomatoes, because I'm planting 20 of them). I got the entire area tilled, since it was used as a garden last year, and then plopped my 4x4x6 blocks down in the southeastern corner. I'm filling both boxes with top soil and peat, and I'll build the soil "from the top, down" in later years, when I have more time.

If you want quick and easy, so that you can just get going, learn about the plant spacing, supporting your plants to contain them in the area (trellis), and then read the rest of the book in the evenings.

Oh, yeah, and take lots of pictures!!!!!

[barefootbabies]

Thanks for all the replies, you were all a big help! That garden planner is awesome, I think I have it all planned out now. We're hoping to get the frames done this weekend, I should start planting a few things soon it looks like. Thanks again!