This season, the Landless Gardeners are trying something new! On May 6, 2010 some of the Landless came out to help dig up the Chuge plot and work it into a checker-board of beds. Square foot gardening is a technique dreamed up by Mel Bartholomew that is supposed to help save space, time, money and water! It is most often carried out using raised bed boxes, not in full-out backyard gardening, but we thought we would give it a try this year.
Chuge plot after tilling, but before bed-making
The gardens were tilled before we made the beds and we added our alpaca gold to help amend the soil a bit. Last year, we found our rows to be too narrow, and a lot of our gardening space was taken up by an overabundance of walking lanes--once we were started making the beds this year, we found that dividing up the garden into squares once again creates a lot of space for walking. Next year maybe we'll try two-foot-wide rows to increase planting space, and decrease walking space.
Here's how our square-foot beds turned out
In a nutshell, square foot gardening requires dividing up the space into 4x4 ft beds; those beds are subsequently divided into four 1x1 ft squares (making a smaller checker board within) and planting is done by squares according to how much room the plant needs. For example, 16 beets can be planted in each square foot and one tomato every square foot as well.
The square-foot method is certainly an interesting way to organize the garden! Doing things this way can help diversify the garden a bit by mixing up the plants that grow together instead of having one row of the same thing. Also, because each four foot block is divided into four one-by-one foot spaces, there is a lot of opportunity for companion planting which we planned for this year. Companion planting is the the idea that some plants can benefit others when planted next to, or close to one another.
Rupert, being a good boy and walking along the paths
To learn more about square foot gardening visit http://www.squarefootgardening.com/index.php/About-Square-Foot-Gardening/
