This week on Ireland’s Classic Hits Radio we’re looking at how best to plan the space you have available to grow your own vegetables using the square foot grid system.
What is Square Foot Gardening?
- Square foot gardening utilizes a grid system to pack in vegetables (or other plants) as tightly as possible.
- Each grid is one square foot; the classic square foot gardening bed measures 4×4 ft for a total of 16 squares. Before square foot gardening, the most common practice was to plant rows of vegetables.
- Depending on the size of the vegetable, you can place a certain amount in each grid. For example, one large plant like a tomato would take up one grid, while smaller plants like beetroot could fit 16 in a grid. This grid system makes an extremely efficient way to plan, plant, maintain, and harvest.
- Square foot gardening is best paired with succession planting. In succession planting, you continuously plant throughout the growing season to strategically space out and extend your harvest. You can easily plan how many vegetables take up one grid and when to harvest and replace the grid with more vegetables for a second harvest.
- Square foot gardens are one of the best ways gardeners with minimal space can get a high yield.
- You also have to water way less. You don’t have to worry about watering a large space, instead concentrating your watering on the vegetables in the grid. This also means less soil, compost, and fertilizer needed.
- With square foot gardening, you’re also less wasteful when it comes to seeds. Rather than planting a ton in a row and thinning a majority of them out, you only plant with what you need to fill your grid.
- This gardening method also encourages you to intermix your vegetables. This means that your garden is naturally posed to better fight against pests and diseases and avoids nutrient depletion.
For more information:
www.bhg.com/gardening/how-to-garden/square-foot-gardening/
