Getting Started with Square Foot Gardening

Square Foot Gardening is a popular method of gardening created by Mel Bartholomew. It is used for variety of gardens, including floral or ornamental, vegetable, and organic. The underlying premise is that you grow your vegetables or flowers in a square that is one foot by one foot, increasing your yield and reducing your work. It is an excellent method of vegetable gardening for gardeners with limited space.

The square foot method allows you to grow different varieties of flowers or vegetables in a small, compact area. Growing vegetables such as cucumbers or beans are accommodated with a simple garden trellis on one end of the plot.

The Square Foot Grid

A square foot garden begins with a box:  2’ by 2’, 3’ by 3’, 4’ by 4’, it’s up to you. For beginning or child gardeners, smaller boxes are encouraged. Each box is then filled with high-quality soil (Mel Bartholomew has his own special mix of compost, peat moss, and vermiculite), and the gardener puts a permanent grid marked in one foot by one foot squares over the soil. This creates the planting areas: four in a small box, sixteen in a 4’ by 4’ box. Each square is then planted, tended, and harvested separately.

Gardeners who want more than one raised bed can create several such grids, spaced 3’ apart for aisles. Because the garden is in small squares instead of rows, plants don’t need to be spaced apart for the gardener to have access to them. Because each plot is so small, the gardener can grow different vegetables and harvest them at different times without as much labor as a conventional garden. Another significant advantage is that the condition of your original soil doesn’t matter since the earth is added separately; a square foot garden can even grow on a patio!

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