Moxie Gardener

A red pepper growing in my modified square foot garden. If you look closely, you can see the "clothesline" dividers on the soil on either side of the pepper.

Square Foot gardening uses a square foot space as the centerpiece of its methods.  Four-foot-square beds are subdivided into one-foot-square sections and individually planted.  French Intensive gardening uses a bed five to six feet wide and twelve or more feet long.  Using either method, the actual growing area for crops is never walked upon.  Both methods recommend enclosing the bed with wood or masonry, raising the level of the soil, which creates a raised bed.

Square Foot gardening advises digging your soil to six inches below the surface, while French Intensive gardening double digs garden beds to a depth of two feet below the surface.  The perimeter boards or masonry increase the depth of the crops’ root zone and create a raised bed.

In my modified version, I create a bed four to five feet wide with the length determined by the geography of the site.  In the past I’ve used found or scrounged lumber for the perimeter, usually 2 x 4’s.

Next, I dig the soil down one spade depth and remove all the weeds, including the roots, by hand.  I then put down a two inch layer of compost and peat moss, along with a granular organic fertilizer.  I then turn the soil over a second time to incorporate the amendments, then rake the soil smooth.

To divide the bed into square foot sections, I use clothesline and three inch galvanized nails.  Here’s how:

• Measure the width of your bed, adding two to three inches to that width, then cut enough lengths of clothesline to separate the entire length of the bed into one foot wide strips.
• Tie a simple knot in both ends of each rope.
• Thread a galvanized nail through each knot and use the nail to anchor the rope into the soil on either side of the row.
• Do the same thing with ropes along the length of the bed, creating a grid, so that the entire bed is broken up into one-foot squares.

The squares are then planted using spacing advocated by the Square Foot method for some vegetables, and the French Intensive method for others.

The bed is planted, weeded, cultivated, and harvested without walking on the growing area.  Since I can only reach half of the bed from either side, I get a lot of exercise walking around to the other side of the bed.

The past two years have shown me that soil truly is the foundation of intensive gardening.  Build a strong foundation and your garden will produce outstanding yields for you.

Whichever method you use.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 2:34 PM and is filed under Intensive Gardening, Square Foot Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.