Square Foot Gardening

Hundreds of families across the United States have gardens, whether a small flower box, or three-acre garden. Gardening is not only fun, but also a great way to cut vegetable costs. Hundreds of gardening books exist, but one book in particular, Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space, has some great methods. Mel Bartholomew, the author of the book, came up with this ingenious way to garden - in raised beds. Instead of planting the vegetables in long rows three or four feet apart, he tried planted them in a
square foot. For example, in a twelve by twelve foot garden, planted with only lettuce in the traditional three-feet apart rows, a gardener can grow approximately one hundred heads of lettuce. But, by using 2 three by nine foot raised beds in a twelve by twelve foot garden with the lettuce planted 5 inches apart; a gardener can grow about 590 heads of lettuce! By using the raised-bed style, a garden can grow about six times more than the traditional three-feet apart rows. The raised beds are merely more practical than planting squares straight into the ground. Another method Mel Bartholomew uses to save space is trellises. For example, zucchini take up about three or four square feet of space, but by using a trellis for the plant to grow up on, a gardener only uses about one square foot of space. Square Foot Gardening also has some other really great ideas and methods that help save not only space, but also money. It’s a great book that every gardener should buy!

My Garden with raised beds and trellises.

        ~Susi Van Criss