Square Foot Gardening Thread

[Kassaundra]

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Square foot gardening is "designed" for those w/ limited space to best utilize the small space they have, but I don't see any reason it or similar concepts of close planting and intesive gardening wouldn't work on larger scale gardens. If you have the space use it to the best advantage. (jmho)

 

[Kassaundra]

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I do not (or have not) grown eggplant, not one of my favorite veggies to eat (the big purple ones anyway, just saw an article in a garden magizine that talked about many differant varieties) but I always thought they were heat lovers. Just a thought though about your little holes in leaves, choose your garden battles, a few small holes in the leafy part of a plant you aren't eating the leaves isn't going to harm them. (big holes or unhealthy looking plant is another story).

 

[jennh]

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I do not (or have not) grown eggplant, not one of my favorite veggies to eat (the big purple ones anyway, just saw an article in a garden magizine that talked about many differant varieties) but I always thought they were heat lovers. Just a thought though about your little holes in leaves, choose your garden battles, a few small holes in the leafy part of a plant you aren't eating the leaves isn't going to harm them. (big holes or unhealthy looking plant is another story).

You will want to get rid of those little "beetles". They turn into BIG bugs that will eat the leaves of your eggplant. Those big bugs turn into caterpiller like "things, and the cycle keeps repeating itself. Don't plant eggplant, tomatoes, potatoes or anything in that family for more than 1 year in a row. They should be rotated.

 

[tiffanyg2]

OK I do know I have to rotate the garden beds for those plants as they will attract criiters to the soil. Yea I was thinking I need to kill them beetle thats why I squish them! But I would think they may try to eat the blossom which produces the eggplants~ so I have to get rid of them. The plants themselves are healthy except for that fact~ The sun just seems so brutal right now outside I have the garden slightly shaded and I'm actually glad I didn't cut anymore branches above away because it does offer a little bit of relief. I water thoroughly first thing in the morning and everything is doing great so I just needs to treat the eggplants and the cabbage and get rid of the nuisance pests~ Thanks for the suggestions!

Kassundra~ Thanks I do pick my battles!! I read that to on the organicgardening.com (I love that website) lots of great information on there. If I notice random holes I don't get all paranoid about the bugs if it is doing major damage to the leaves though I will try to eradicate it

 

[NanaKat]

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You can do square foot gardening in any size bed. If you like using a tractor to work your soil, then you don't have to have box beds to make your garden. Simply till your garden as usual working your compost and ammendments in . Then go back and "hill up" the beds any size you want. I made mine 4 x 16 the first year and later added the boxes. That size bed was big enough for three rows of most vegetables. Part of your garden could be the raised beds (with or without the boxes) and the rest in ground level plots. A section for corn, and another for spreading vines can be big enough for the 4 rows of corn and sprawling space for cantaloupes, pumpkin and squashes.

Added to inform: My garden is 67 feet wide on the north end and 115 feet on the south end. the west side is 107 feet and the east side is a diagonal line that connects the north and south ends. There are dwarf fruit trees on the west and south sides of the garden. The odd shape is based on the diagonal fence that was existing and we aligned the other fences on 90 degree corners . It' like 1/2 a trapezoid. I've posted pictures on this thread and on the other gardening thread.

 

[NanaKat]

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Those are flea beatles, named so because the jump like fleas when you approach them. They eat little holes and usually leave the fruit alone. Sevin dust can be sprinkled on your plants while they are young and should get rid of them before the fruit gets big enough to need the energy from the plant. BT is an organic spray that kills the catepillars and bugs that eat the foilage and does not harm the bees your need for polinating. The critters eat the leaves and then die a few days later.

 

[CoyoteMagic]

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Just break down your area into 4x8 sections. 4 ft which is good for reaching in from either side with no problems and you don't have to step on the soil which compacts it. 8ft-thats the length that landscape timbers come in! lol.

At the very beginning of this thread there is a link to another thread that has links to all kinds of sqft and lasagna gardening. Check them out! Nanakat on here does a BIG garden!

 

[CoyoteMagic]

A good spray for bugs in general.

1-TBSp of Pink dish soap--not dish detergent
1oz Listerene mouth wash
1-cup tobacco tea---Drop a plug of chewing tobacco into a milk jug with warm water, let it set out in the sun for a day to brew.

Put it into your sprayer, top it off with water and spray away. Takes care of all of the "soft" critters like aphids, and caterpillars. But it deters a lot of other critters like beetles.

 

[floyd242]

I made 4x8 boxes at first, but I found them to be too wide... I changed to ~3'x16' rows and like them better... just my opinion though, seems like most people like the 4' wide boxes.

Here's my garden after I put in the mulch for the paths and finished the middle 3 beds. It's messy... looks a lot better now

Edit: not sure why the pic got messed up, but you get the gist of it.

 

[CoyoteMagic]

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Nice!!! I'm working with 2x7 wooden boxes I got off craigslist. Suckers are made of 2x6, 2x8, and 2x12 pine. Heavy as heck!