Square Foot Gardening: Intensive Type Of Small Space Gardening

March 26th, 2007

Mel Bartholemew first popularized an intensive type of gardening that he called the square foot gardening. The idea was based on his theory that a wide row of traditional home gardening was not appropriate and wasted time, work, water as well as space. He thought it was possible to grow more vegetables in lesser areas by using minimum of effort. The essential square foot gardening involves dividing garden space in to beds and separating them by paths.

Sub-Dividing Beds Into Squares Of Roughly One Foot Each

The beds are sub-divided into squares that are roughly one foot each. It is common to plant one plant per square for broccoli, basil etc; Use four plants per square for lettuce; nine plants per square for spinach and sixteen plants per square for onions and carrots. To prevent the garden soil from being compacted, the beds may be weeded as well as watered from the pathways.

The benefits of square foot gardening include not having to work as much, saving on water usage, fewer weeds and keeping the garden free of herbicide and pesticides. This type of gardening is especially useful for elderly or disabled persons, but is really fun for all ages!

Square foot gardening means much less work since the soil is never compacted and will stay loose as well as loamy and so one does not need heavy tools as is the case with conventional gardening.

Because of the soil and its water holding capacity, square foot gardening does not require much watering and whatever water is placed, is very near the roots of the plant and thus there is very little wastage of water and also allows for rich soil mixture that will increase the harvest. Close planting that is a feature of square foot gardening allows vegetables to form a living mulch and also shades out a number of weed seeds, prior their being able to germinate.

Natural insect repellent methods are a easy for Square Foot Gardens. Just include companion plants- marigolds and other pest-repellant plants that allow for more efficiency in closed spaces. This way there is no need for pesticides.

Another bonus is that the different types of crops in a small space are not conducive to the spreading of plant diseases.

Check out Scenery Solutions for all your Square Foot Garden needs!

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