Thursday, June 7, 2012

Square foot gardening


I recently read All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew, which I borrowed from some friends. After finishing the book, I will be buying a copy for us so we can make good use of it. Mel gives very clear instructions on how to successfully build, fill, and plant a square foot garden, as well as the reasons for why he does things that way.

We're hoping to get our yard landscaped (fill dirt brought in, yard leveled, retaining walls constructed) this fall, which is why we didn't worry too much about whether our garden worked out this spring/summer. Which is good, since it's *really* struggling. Reading about square foot gardening gave me a good idea of where to put our garden, how to organize it, and how to successfully grow produce. I think even with my propensity for killing plants I should be able to keep a garden alive and producing :)

Thinking really ambitiously, I'd like to combine square foot gardening with winter harvesting. Mel talks about extending your harvest a bit in the square foot gardening book, but I'd like to take it further, like Eliot talks about in his book. We'll need to build a greenhouse first, so we won't start the winter planting right away.

Have you tried square foot gardening or winter harvesting?