Square foot gardening: Why should I go this route?

[XemaSab]

We live in Redding, California.

Blazing hot in summer; cold and rainy in winter. By blazing hot I mean 115 a few times a year. By cold and rainy I mean we get as much rain as Seattle in winter months, and occasional freezes down to 20 or so.

We've got a 20x40 foot area demarcated for vegetables.

Our soil is thick, dark brown, creamy river bottom soil, and if I posted a picture y'all would be really jealous. (Well, actually the first foot is like fudge, and then the river gods played a little prank on us 'cause it's red clay and pebbles below that.)

Unfortunately, it's a struggle every year.

Why is that?

'Cause the WEEDS TAKE OVER. Bermuda grass and morning glories are the big ones, with Phalaris, Carex, and Dallis grass in the mix too. In the spring you can stay ahead of the weeds, but when the temperature hits 95 or so it just becomes TOO HOT TO WEED. By the end of the summer the "garden" is a sea of weeds.

I've heard that with square foot gardening, you don't have to worry about the weeds, and that's what I want: to not worry about the weeds.

I have three hesitations.

First, the start-up costs seem high.

Secondly, it seems dumb to cover up part of our soil with a box containing imported soil and cover some more of our soil with paths. And we'd have to build real paths, or they would just be mudholes in the winter.

Thirdly, it gets so hot here that it doesn't seem like peat, vermiculite, and compost would retain moisture or stay as cool as well as our native clay loam does. I could build a few boxes for winter, and use them as cold frames too, but that's not really the idea, is it? (I built a big planter box a few years ago and that thing DRIES OUT in the summer. I am thinking of taking all the commercial soil out of it and replacing it with the homegrown. But it doesn't have any weeds! Or hardly anything else alive!)

So tell me, folks, why should I adopt a square foot gardening system? :shrug:

Thanks! :hi:

[bvar22]

1. Interesting question.

We are using a modified system that has its origin in Raised Box Square Foot Gardening.

We find it easier on the back to work our raised beds whether planting, weeding, maintaining, or harvesting.
The selling point for me was water management and soil management.
There is also the benefit of Companion Planting as an aid for insect control.
We are researching beneficial nematodes, microbes, and molecular soil management.
It will be easier to tailor the Ph and nutrient levels for particular crops in raised boxes.

It is absolutely the way to go if limited space or access to water is an issue.
Raised Box Square Foot will give you the most variety in the least amount of space with minimum water.

More details and photos at these links.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x5729

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=246x7979

My suggestion would be for you to try a box or two next year, and if you like the results, make the plunge the following season. It would be fun. The cost would be low, and you can decide for yourself.

[XemaSab]

2. Fantastic pictures!

You want to do a house swap? :shrug:

How many boxes do you have, and what's your total square footage?

It looks like you mixed up your own soil for the beds. What went in there?

Finally, do you have Bermuda grass, and are the boxes keeping it down?

Thanks! :hi:

[bvar22]

3. More boxes all the time.

We have 16 raised boxes in the Veggie Garden, 5 more for ornamentals.
The core garden started with 4X4', or 4X8', but we started experimenting and now have several 2'X8' (long skinny), one 4X10', one 2X10', and several hexagons because right angles were getting boring. I don't have any idea of the square footage.

The previous owner kept a Bull Buffalo, 40 goats, and 40 chickens here, and it appears that they never mucked out the stalls. The place was vacant for 3 years, so everything had a chance to age.
The roof had blown off the critter barn in the previous year, and lush, green, thick weeds were growing in the stalls. We took that as a testament to its fertility.
We simply wheel barrowed the soil from the abandoned goat barn and chicken shed over the hill and filled the boxes with it. This soil proved to be very fertile. Since it is so much better than our natural topsoil (sandy red clay with rocks), raised boxes has become the preferred way to grow anything around here.

Between seasons, we added our own compost, and sifted out the rocks.

We are currently reading up on nematodes, and the microbiology of healthy organic soil, and will be taking a more responsible approach to monitoring the health of the soil in our boxes. We are composting everything now, planning for a time when our supply of goat shed dirt runs out, but we still have plenty left.


We do have bermuda grass.
In the Spring, we laid landscaping cloth between the boxes, and laid straw over that, but some grows up through the cracks alongside the boxes.
We try to keep it clipped so that it doesn't go to seed. Very little gets in the boxes.
So far, it is not a problem.

Since we used the soil from the sheds, we got alot of early weeds the first year, and spent a lot of time on our little stools pulling weeds until our veggies took over and crowded them out.
This year, the weed situation is much better...not near so many, but still some, mostly in boxes where we have moved away from strict adherence to the Square Foot method.

We are talking about using a more conventional raised mound/row for some crops next year (Corn, Field Peas, ?). They just take up too much room, and seem to grow well in our natural soil.

:hi:
:hi:

[HamdenRice]

4. Did you know that morning glory is called "Dead Man"? Also, sq foot isn't needed imo

First, let me sympathize with your morning glory problem. I've been battling it for about 5 years and am finally getting the upper hand. The main thing about winning is being relentless. Do not give up on weeding, ever. Here's why.

According to what I've read, most of those little morning glory vines are connected to an underground tuber of some kind that stores an immense amount of energy. Morning glory is sometimes called "dead man" because if you dig all the way down to the tuber, it can be as deep and big as a dead human body in a grave.

There are two ways to kill it. Relentlessly pull up every vine, every single stem you see and starve the "dead man" as the tuber uses up its energy; or dig way down and find the thing and take it out. Since you don't know where it is, the former is more practical.

Most years in the past, I gave up as you did as the weed took over and I had to settle for it coexisting with my garden. If you give up, however, the leaves and vines produce energy and store it in the tuber making it stronger, ensuring a big increase in the amount and vigor of the vines for the rest of the year and next year. By giving up, you are basically feeding the dead man.

This year, I've been relentless, and the much smaller number of vines and leaves that are appearing are getting small and spindly. The dead man is dying, hopefully.

Here's where sq ft gardening comes in. I think it's basically a way to force you to create a layout in which you have paths between plants and therefore an easier way to control weeds and watering. Btw, because morning glory has underground tubers, putting new soil over your old soil in boxes will not kill morning glory one bit. It is an underground weed (not a seed borne weed) and will push up through whatever you put on top of it.

You can achieve the benefits of sq ft gardening by just cutting back on your planting and making paths between your plants for easy access. That I think was the key to me getting mg under control this year. I cut back drastically on what I planted making access and weeding easier.

In other words, you can do sq ft gardening without actually putting in walls and raised beds.

Hope that helps.

[LiberalEsto]

5. What about heavy mulching?

I have an old gardening book by Ruth Stout called "How to have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back." Stout's method is to pile more than a foot of mulch (straw, compost, food scraps, etc) in the garden and dig little holes to plant seedlings. She says this eliminates weeding, reduces watering,and creates great growing conditions. It might also help with your temperature extremes.

Here's a link to an article about the Ruth Stout method:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s-5-21-189,00.html

I've tried a modified version of her method but never got enough mulching material to really make it work. I can't lift heavy stuff any more.

[HamdenRice]

6. I mulch heavily and recommend it; but it won't stop morning glory

The OP's weed problem is with morning glory, which can grow upward through almost any soil-like thing you throw at it.

I have a compost bin and compost grass, hedge clippings, weeds, kitchen waste and yup even the voluminous morning glory I'm always pulling up. Hence I am rarely short of mulch.

But it is back breaking work.

[XemaSab]

9. I think we might go with some boxes

but we're going to put weed cloth under them.

That should stop the morning glory.

[Gormy Cuss]

7. You'll be able to control the weeds better if you use raised boxes

Here's what we did. We made frames out of redwood 2 X 12s stacked 2 high (roughly 23 " high frame,)blocked the corners with pieces cut from a 4 x 4 post and secured them with lag bolts.
Some of our beds are roughly 6 ' squares, some are 12 x 6.' We like to minimize the cuts and size the beds with that in mind.

We then dug out the clay to about 1 foot depth and lined the hole with heavy duty weed barrier then placed the frame in the hole. We filled the frame with a combination of the clay, compost and purchased loam because we didn't have any nice topsoil in our yard. Because the beds are fairly large and half of the depth is below the surface we don't have much trouble keeping the moisture levels up -- we water everything deeply once a week and water the thirsty stuff like cukes twice a week. During our hot spells (which admittedly are 5-10 degrees cooler than yours) we water every day.

We have one 3' cube bed for herbs and it retains moisture fairly well. It's got a healthy amount of amended local clay on the bottom half and loamy soil/compost mix in the top half. I made the cube from reclaimed slats from our old redwood fence.

We have cold frames too -- we just plop them on sections of the big beds after we pull out the summer garden. Lettuce all winter long, and the water's free!

If your morning glories are the local bindweed, we've never had either one cause problems in our raised boxes. The rest of the yard is loaded with both. You can start to eradicate it in your current beds by digging out as much as possible then solarizing the soil.

[LiberalEsto]

10. Solarizing is a great idea

I spread sheets of heavy clear plastic over my raised veggie beds every spring and let them sit for weeks. The intensified solar heat kills many pests and weeds. It also warms up the soil nicely for early plantings.

[XemaSab]

11. We've got half the garden solarizing this summer

It's like magic! :D

[hippywife]

8. We did it for the first time this year.

And even tho most of our garden got mowed down in a hail storm, what was left was still one of the most successful gardens we've ever had. We live in OK and it is blazing hot so working in the garden mid-summer ain't no fun at all! This method has made weeding a virtual thing of the past. Since you aren't starting with soil that's been tilled up, you are not dealing with the existing weeds and their seeds that continually come back to plague you in a conventional garden. And ours is planted in the midst of our front yard out in the boonies where it's all bermuda and weeds.

I would use this method again in a heart beat, and as a matter of fact, we are going to expand the garden soon. This time around, tho, we are going to use more than 6" in some of the boxes and I'm going to incorporate the cardboard boxes and newspapers from the lasagna method, too.

Good luck! :hi:

ETA: Look for used lumber on craigslist or at your local salvage yard. Cedar will be the most weather tolerant. That will really help with the initial costs. Then keep telling yourself that if you are growing food, it's going to pay for itself soon.