"Square foot gardening" vs "Row gardening"

[tankman1989]

Greetings,

Last year was my first year planting a garden and I went with the row gardening which I had always seen. After planting I had read about another way of planting which was called "square foot gardening" which was basically planting in sections vs rows. The article I read posted a lot of benefits to this method of gardening and some of them were: less weeding, less watering, greater harvest yield, increase use of gardening area.

I am planning of trying this "sq ft gardening" next season and was wondering if anyone else had tried this. I am a little confused as to how the planting works as the seed packs I buy all state the distance to plant in terms of rows. How exactly is this done?

Has anyone tried gardening with this method and has it worked better than the traditional rows? Did you notice any drawback? What are your thoughts?

[Herbalpagan]

I have tried both methods. Here is what I settled on and have found to be the most productive and efficient. I garden in raised beds, but you can also create raised beds by hoeing the soil into mounds. Your mounds can be any size, but 4' wide seems to be the preference.
You take your seeds and/or plants and check to see how close they should be planted and disregard the "row" distance and simply plant them an equal distance apart. It elliminates much of the weeding, as the plants shade out many of the weeds. You can really customize the soil with this method and even mulch. The best thing is that the soil doesn't compact this way and that is what really cuts down your production.

In 25 years of gardening, this is the method that makes the most sense and is easiest to use. JMO

[tankman1989]

Originally Posted by Herbalpagan

I have tried both methods. Here is what I settled on and have found to be the most productive and efficient. I garden in raised beds, but you can also create raised beds by hoeing the soil into mounds. Your mounds can be any size, but 4' wide seems to be the preference.
You take your seeds and/or plants and check to see how close they should be planted and disregard the "row" distance and simply plant them an equal distance apart. It elliminates much of the weeding, as the plants shade out many of the weeds. You can really customize the soil with this method and even mulch. The best thing is that the soil doesn't compact this way and that is what really cuts down your production.

In 25 years of gardening, this is the method that makes the most sense and is easiest to use. JMO

Thank you for your suggestion! I have disregarded the raised bed option for some time because I didn't see the point. your post has me thinking about it now. I still do not fully understand the reasoning for raising the bed. Would it be any different than removing the "bad" soil from an area (say 4'x4') and replacing it with "good" soil and gardening in that? Does the fact that it is "raised" create any benefits that I am missing?

[Genevieve]

My raised beds warm faster than my neighbor's ground garden. My raised beds drain better than the ground garden because they're not compacted like his are. The raised beds have no soil or water run off. My raised beds only need to be turned over with a garden fork and not roto-tilled every year. The raised beds helps to keep critters and a large number of crawling insects out of my veggies, as compared to my neighbor's ground garden. My raised beds are much easier to plant and tend to and to harvest from. Helps those folks with bad knees and backs.
Square foot gardening is a form of intense gardening in my opinion. If you plant cabbages, you don't let them grow to huge sizes. You harvest more often and plant more often in SF gardening. I've found SF gardening to be really good for lettuce, carrots, radishes, peas,etc gardening. Potatoes and corn do better for me out of the raised beds. And IMO, they takes up too much room to be used in my raised beds.

[tankman1989]

Originally Posted by Genevieve

My raised beds warm faster than my neighbor's ground garden. My raised beds drain better than the ground garden because they're not compacted like his are. The raised beds have no soil or water run off. My raised beds only need to be turned over with a garden fork and not roto-tilled every year. The raised beds helps to keep critters and a large number of crawling insects out of my veggies, as compared to my neighbor's ground garden. My raised beds are much easier to plant and tend to and to harvest from. Helps those folks with bad knees and backs.
Square foot gardening is a form of intense gardening in my opinion. If you plant cabbages, you don't let them grow to huge sizes. You harvest more often and plant more often in SF gardening. I've found SF gardening to be really good for lettuce, carrots, radishes, peas,etc gardening. Potatoes and corn do better for me out of the raised beds. And IMO, they takes up too much room to be used in my raised beds.

Thank you for your reply! You gave some very good benefits to raised beds and I appreciate that. it does make some sense now and I think I will try to figure out what would be best to plant in raised beds. Thank you.

[Storm62]

I use a combination of both raised beds and rows. Our soil has alot of clay, so root veges don't do well in rows. Onions, carrots, garlic do great in raised beds. Cantaloupe, all peppers, and tomatoes did great this summer in raised beds. Crops like summer peas, corn, beans, and potatoes take a lot of room and we grow these in the row garden. If you use boards to make raised beds, build them close enough together so you can place a board across two of the beds to sit on while you weed or plant. You just slide the board along as you work. Saves your back and knees.

[tankman1989]

Originally Posted by dastine

I use a combination of both raised beds and rows. Our soil has alot of clay, so root veges don't do well in rows. Onions, carrots, garlic do great in raised beds. Cantaloupe, all peppers, and tomatoes did great this summer in raised beds. Crops like summer peas, corn, beans, and potatoes take a lot of room and we grow these in the row garden. If you use boards to make raised beds, build them close enough together so you can place a board across two of the beds to sit on while you weed or plant. You just slide the board along as you work. Saves your back and knees.

Great info! Thanks for the tips!

[Hammer007]

20+ years ago I bought abook called Square Foot Gardening by Mel Batholomew. It's an excellent book on sq. ft. gardening. I've have used it in conjunction with raised beds and have had great yields from a smaller area. The book explains planting methods, spacing of seeds and or plants, layouts, weed control, ect. I looked on Amazon.com and the book is still available for around $14.00 new. They did have a few used ones as well.

[cranky1950]

If you've got space, I've seen folks do raised rows, and hack a tractor or tiller for tilling the rows. One guy let the end barriers of his rows swing free so he could drop a cultivator on the row and drag it to the other end. You can do the same with a narrow tine tiller. I thought of doing that but in the end I settled for 8 4X4 beds. Rows wouldn't be more than 2' wide. In the end square foot lends itself better to stoop labor, rows work better for mechanization.

[packrat09]

If you are going with container square foot gardens, may I suggest making them only 3 feet wide. A lot less bending and stretching to get the veggies. I did this for 3 years before I moved, and outgrew most my friends with large gardens.

Also, fish is an excellent fertilizer for all plants. Bury under individual plants if transplanting, or under seedlings.

[hank2222]

try this website called ..www.gardeners.com they have a software program that lets you play with a 3.ft wide-x-6.ft long raised squared bed set up and what to plant in it ..

[hank2222]

along with the this website for ideas about raised garden beds ..www.naturalyards.com
there website has diff sized beds to give you a good idea about diff beds size and how high to make them ..

[HaroldWayneHamlin]

I was given (from the manufactuer who makes them) 4 ft diameter, 3 foot high concete coated steel pipe.

I filled them to about a foot of the top, after I stood them on end.

This way I have a raised bed and do not have to bend over to tend them.

The only complain I have is that when the vines of stuff hang over the edge of the planter, I have to bend over to pick them.

Later
wayne

[lanahi]

Originally Posted by tankman1989

Thank you for your reply! You gave some very good benefits to raised beds and I appreciate that. it does make some sense now and I think I will try to figure out what would be best to plant in raised beds. Thank you.

Our "soil" here is literally rocks with a little soil between them! Planting in that ground wouldn't grow anything beyond a few stunted plants. You could dig it all out, with great effort, and fill it back with good soil, but what's the point of the digging and removing all that rock? Just raise the bed and fill it with good soil so that it sets on and drains on the original soil. This allows the plants to send good roots down.
You can also grow more in less space with a raised garden because the roots can grow down instead of out and don't interfere with other plants. They can all get more nutrients that way and can be planted closer.
I have a very tiny area for a garden and it would not produce much if I didn't use raised beds, but a raised bed with plants closer together would yield a much bigger harvest in the space available.
Another benefit is that a raised garden planted on top of the original ground will allow more earthworms to live and improve the soil.
And still another benefit: My dog won't dig my garden up if it is in raised beds.

[cranky1950]

Originally Posted by lanahi

I have a very tiny area for a garden and it would not produce much if I didn't use raised beds, but a raised bed with plants closer together would yield a much bigger harvest in the space available.
Another benefit is that a raised garden planted on top of the original ground will allow more earthworms to live and improve the soil.
And still another benefit: My dog won't dig my garden up if it is in raised beds.

I've been making trellises out of electrical conduit and 4 foot 2X3 stock wire. I use 4 feet of metal rod small enough to fit the conduit driven into the ground on either side of the raised bed to support the trellis. This allows me to easily move trellises anywhere as I rotate plantings. eventually every bed will have trellis rods placed for climbing things and tomato plants. You get a lot of beans, cukes and squash by growing them up instead of out.

[scienceteacher]

If you want to see it done in short 1 step at a time videos see this site http://gardengirltv.com/
She has even designed chicken tractors that fit right on the raised beds so she can harvest a crop put the chickens there to fertilize and weed the area then replant. She designed greenhouse tops to extend the season. and all the parts fit with each other and the directions for building everthing cheap are on her site

[roro]

Square foot gardening is nice. I would caution against using vermiculite like mel says to do. Vermiculite can have asbestos in it.... Also, instead of peat moss, you can use coir, which, if you didn't know, was the fibrous material around a coconut. It acts pretty much the same as peat moss, but better for the environment. Oh, and pearlite would be a good substitute for vermiculite. Be sure to use more than 4 inches of soil, too... It doesn't work out so well. I use at least 8...

I have to do square foot gardening right now, as I do not have any property and I rent... If I had some acreage, I'd do something else.

I also do what's called vertical gardening, where I let my viney stuff crawl up trellises. Stuff like watermelons (baby ones), squash, cucumbers, etc. Kinda neat!

[TheOmegaMan]

could you provide some pictures of these? Sounds like an interesting idea.

TheOmegaMan

[a74aggie]

I tried for the first time this year both row and square foot gardening. We have almost an acre, so we had plenty of space.
Next year, we are going to all rows......