Can someone explain their experience of advantages of square foot gardening?

[HamdenRice]

Because as I read about it more and more it just seems more like a psychological management tool than an actual improvement in the productivity of the garden -- except for the reduced labor part.

What I'm trying to understand is whether I can achieve the same benefits without all the wood and raised beds just by using string to measure off square feet sections of my regular garden.

The benefits seem to be first that you raise the beds which means the soil warms up more quickly and stays warmer, which is good for heat loving crops like tomatoes and peppers. But in my garden I turn over the soil, double trench and heap up the soil a bit, so I think I get most of the benefits of that anyway. It's a lot of heavy work, but I don't mind it because for me I like the exercise.

Another benefit is soil management, especially for people who have bad soil and basically use the beds as giant flower pots, bringing in new soil and compost. But again, that's not a problem I have because I've been incorporating compost into my soil for several years now and it's already very productive.

Another benefit is the use of clearly demarcated places to walk and other places where you don't walk, preventing soil compression. But again, I can accomplish this just by marking out walking areas and planting areas.

Another benefit is the very useful marking out of square feet and charts that tell you how many plants per square foot of each kind to plant. So what I'm really asking is whether, if I mark out those same square feet without all the raised beds and follow the same guidelines, will I achieve the same results?

I hope I'm not being dunderheaded about this, but does anyone have any ideas whether this will work? Will I get all the benefits or some or none?

[WolverineDG]

1. Yes nt

[sazemisery]

2. My reasons for SF gardening

My soil is 1/2 inch top soil and hard, red clay the rest of the way down. I have to add so many amendments that is the same as making new beds. I also have a mole/vole population that would eat everything if it were planted in the ground. I prevent that by covering the bottom of my boxes with a wire fabric (chicken wire deteriorates to quickly). I don't follow the soil contents to the SF specifications but that is because I have been building and using above-ground gardens for 28 years. The only plants actually in the ground are native flowers and grasses, elephant ears, and all bulbs and tubers.

If my soil was great I would go ahead and plant. Why spend more money when you have good soil?

[Gold Metal Flake]

4. Where do you get your wire fabric?

That stuff is expensive!

[sazemisery]

5. I happened to have a whole bunch left over when we used to..

make pens for our quail. It was laying around in the barn. I have also had success with stapling landscape fabric to the bottom of the boxes.

[Kolesar]

3. Companion planting would give you the benefit of pest control & symbiotic biology

The plants roots touch and actually help each other. SF gardening means less weeds because of the dense leaf canopy.

I don't use frames and I have to space my plants out further because the trees take my late-day light. Hence, I am not doing SF gardening.

[XemaSab]

6. We have great soil here

It's so great that it supports a vigorous weed crop, which in turn supports a vigorous slug and snail crop.

I was deeply, deeply skeptical about square foot gardening, but I am damn sick of battling morning glories and Bermuda grass.

We've never been able to grow anything like lettuce in the ground before, and cauliflower isn't supposed to grow here.

We grew a terrific lettuce, cauliflower, and collard crop in our small square foot garden.

I am officially a true believer.

I wouldn't use it for tomatoes or other really large, happy crops, but for little delicate things it's great.

Make a little 4x4 box and try it. I'm sure you'll be happy. :)

[wildeyed]

7. I don't have an orderly enough mind to do square foot gardening.

The guy who came up with it is an ex-engineer. His beds are always symmetrically planted and never grow out of bounds. Mine, not so much :) Also, in my experience, not all plants fit into 1 square foot. Some need 1-1/2, some need less. I keep trying to get my tomato plants to fit into 1 square foot like the book says they will and it never works!

I do use raised wooden beds, but dig down, mix the soil with compost and whatever, then add nice topsoil to raise portion. I mark the wood at 1 foot intervals with indelible marker to help me layout the garden plan, but I don't follow them slavishly. I give tomatoes 1-/12, companion plants (marigolds, nasturtiums) much less. Works great for me.

I like the Vegetable Gardeners Bible for a similar but more flexible raised bed system. It sounds like what you do already.

[susanna]

8. The original square foot gardening was as you describe.

The raised beds didn't come until the more recent versions of the book. So yes, you can grow that way in regular soil if you choose. I believe the older book I have using the regular soil method was published in 1981. Same author - Mel Bartholemew.

I chose the raised beds version because I am in an urban/industrial environment and have some concerns about the metal concentrations in my soil. The compost-filled raised beds alleviate this concern.

It's a good question!

[K8-EEE]

9. I have both raised and in-ground "square foot" gardens

Since I have a smallish city lot (well, big for LA I guess!) and am just trying to maximize.

For a number of reasons, the square foot raised bed is the easiest and most productive space I have especially for veggie gardening. The stuff doesn't seem to get the problems the in-ground stuff gets as far as weeds, bugs, and getting trampled by squirrels etc. I really don't know WHY; is it possible I am better at tending it since it's closer to me than the other? Not sure....

You can def do a geometric grid in-ground.....but the raised bed does have its advantages, the biggest advantage is it just has less problems overall.