Veggie Patch: Square foot gardening

Winter is the season of hot cocoa by the fireplace and preparing for the new growing season. While it’s still early for gardening in open soil, it’s the perfect time to start building a square-foot-garden.

The idea was conceived by Mel Bartholomew, who wrote the best selling gardening book: Square Foot Gardening. These are some of the big benefits to this form of growing plants.

• No need of a big garden
• Minimal weeding
• Consistent results
• High yield in small space

If that’s not enough to get you fired up, see for yourself how easy it is in de video below. A square foot garden can be built quite easily.

What do you need?

For every square foot garden you’ll need:

• 4 shelves of 120 by 20 cm
• 4 corner brackets and screws
• Root cloth of 130 by 130 cm
• A dividing grid (You can use rope or strips of plastic pinned together)

Other than that, it’s important to place your square foot garden on a flat surface.

Soil
We’re almost done! The next step is filling your square foot garden with soil. You can use any type of soil mix, but Bartholomew uses a mixture of equal parts peatmoss, vermiculite and compost.

You can use the following calculation to find out how much soil you’ll actually need:

Length (m) x width (m) x height (m) = volume (m³)
1,20 x 1,20 x 0,20 = 0,288m³

1 m³ equals 1000L, so 0,288m³ equals 288L of soil. Taking soil settling into account, it’s recommended to get about 30% extra soil. So. in total about 375L of soil would be perfect!

Nutrition
Obviously your plant will need some food to grow properly! We like to use our All-in-one Pellets. These pellets contain a complete organic nutrient profile and they break down in the soil in about two to three months. After a month or two you can sprinkle some more All-in-one Pellets over your soil. These will than break down slowly when you water your garden.

Using just the pellets will go a long way, but if you want to go the extra mile you can consider adding Aptus Regulator & Startbooster.

Planning

It’s best not to grow the same crop in the same spot two years in a row. Crop rotation is the secret weapon in preventing disease and ensuring healthy vegetables. With a proper cultivation plan you divide the vegetable garden into various plots. Stay tuned to learn more about planning and crop rotation!