How We Fixed Square Foot Gardening And Grow More Food, Intensively!
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- We are huge fans of intensive gardening and integrate a lot of square foot gardening practices into our growing efforts. That said, the square foot gardening technique, as written in Mel Bartholomew's book is not as good as it can be!
A lot of newer growers fall into the trap of square foot gardening and think it's the solution for growing everything. That couldn't be further from the truth! In fact, it's a very poor technique for some plants and the smart grower will use alternative techniques to grow these things.
Over the many years we've practiced SFG and other intensive intensive gardening, this video discusses all of the major changes we've made to the technique as far as we practice it. In our opinion, we've improved on the practice and are finally quite happy with the food it produces in our gardens.
For a very detailed guide, including our full plant spacing guidelines, please check out this in-depth article:
frostygarden.com/topics/how-w...
As always, you can check out a ton of cold-climate focused growing information that we've produced at FrostyGarden.com!
In case you're curious, these are the plants we grow in our intensive, square foot gardens:
Radish
Beet
Rutabaga
Turnip
Carrot
Lettuce (leaf & head)
Spinach
Mustards
Bok Choy
Onion
Green Onion
Leek
Chard
Celery
Peas
Thank you for great infos for square foot garden. FYI background music is too loud, hard to hear what you are talking.
Thank you! I'll try to work better at striking the right balance with the music next time!
My opinion is you don't need the music at all
Good info. I like the content and video however, like others have mentioned, the music is distracting. With your content I feel the music is not necessary. If you want to add music, maybe make a short intro or include separate b-role footage with music. Just suggestions. Good work thanks for sharing and keep it up!
Thanks for the comment. I edited our latest video without music when talking, so we're still trying things. It's good to know people don't think it's necessary, appreciate you sharing your opinion!
Just found this and love your channel. Great content rich material. Im glad to be a new subscriber.
Fantastic! Thanks for the sub and appreciate the kind comment!
Love your editing and film style brother! Thank you for your amazing recommendations! Drip irrigation has been my favorite upgrade. -Dave🎉
Thanks for the kind comment, Dave. Appreciate the view. We love our drip irrigation too, saves tons of time!
I used to watch his TV show, and he explained about the beds being different sizes, and also about the soil preparation, not compost alone, and he used fertilizer continuously, every time he planted a seed.
I do think Mel evolved over the years. He went pretty hard into the organics later in his writing/talks, which is totally fine. But, for us northerners, organics alone is a difficult proposition. We'd argue that raised beds for most large plants isn't very cost effective. While it can be done, the cost per grow site is quite high. For us, it's better to use more traditional growing techniques for these. Thanks for the comment & watch!
Good information on square foot gardening. Thank you!
You are welcome, glad you enjoyed it!
What a great video. God bless you and your wife. So so helpful.
Thank you for the kind comment! Appreciate you stopping by for a watch.
Thank you for sharing! Your opening statement is on point! That caught my attention 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 New subscriber! Very INFORMATIVE!
Excellent! Glad you found our content useful. Thanks for the sub, we'll be seeing you again soon!
I have taken this valuable info and introduce it to my own garden Thanks for the insight
Excellent! Thanks for the kind comment, glad you found it useful. Appreciate the watch!
Great information brother 🙏
Thank you very much! Appreciate the watch & kind comment.
Hi Frosty garden, I’m living in southern part of United Kingdom and three years ago stated SFG . My experience has been exactly as you describe. In addition I find many of the spacing suggested too intense leading to over-crowding which can cause a fungus build- up. I have modified my planting in the same way you suggest, but I do grow pole beans or peas vertically along the ‘northern’ edge of suitable beds . Potatoes, courgettes I grow in containers. I find my own compost quickly raises the soil pH so also use lime and general organic fertilizers sparingly. (‘ Worm tea’ is good for containers.
Thanks for your interesting channel
Tony, Cardiff, UK.
Thanks for sharing your experience. If anything, we're thankful to Mel and SFG for at least starting us down the path of intensive gardening. There's a lot to be gained from it, but you can really only push it so far. Appreciate the watch and comment, good luck with your garden this year!
I had a very small area for a garden and wanted to grow many things...it probably wasn't very conventional but it worked well for me. I had plenty of tomato plants, but planted basil, and other herbs practically beneath them. I planted onions and interspersed them with lettuces and other herbs...I trellised my snow peas and cucumbers. In looking back, I think I was growing trailing or vining plants up, then tall plants interspersed with bushy plants and things that would grow underground (root type veggies) so that they would hopefully work together because they occupied different spaces and you could plant them closer together. It always seemed to work really well for me and the diversity it seemed to help keep bad insects away.
Excellent! It can work well to interplant a number of things. Sometimes you're just lucky, but often times it takes a bit of thinking that new gardeners don't often have the insight to plan out. To this day, we still heavily interplant, but just manage it a lot more than our early days of SFG. But, you are correct that often that diversity can sort of "camouflage" desirable plants from insects! Appreciate your insight and thanks for the watch/comment!
Thanks, i love that music.
Appreciate the support. I like the music too, but unfortunately, a lot of folks have crummy speakers with no dynamic range. :( Thanks for the watch!
I bought the SFG book nearly 40 years ago. The recommendations of Bartholomew on fertilization is the same as yours. I don't think there is any substitute for mineral fertilizers if strong disease and pest free plants are the goal. In 2024 I am going to do my garden in a sterile (no humus or compost) substrate made of sawdust and sand and the only nutrients will be provided by 100% inorganic fertilizers. I have experience with hydroponics and aeroponics with excellent results that exceeded expectations. What I'll be doing in 2024 is hydroponics without the expensive setup. I expect few weeds, few pests and extremely productive plants.
I enjoyed your video. I'd like to hear more about your fertilizer strategy and use.
Maybe there's a difference between 1st, 2nd and 3rd publications of SFG! I've only read 2nd where he went hard on compost only. Sounds like you have a good plan, I've definitely thought about going full hydro more than once. We do a lot of hybrid hydroponics through sub-irrigation here, I'm hoping to get to at least one video on it this year. (Planning, doing and explaining gardening techniques are all very different things!) Thanks for watching, I have a more comprehensive fert video in the planning stages! Still capturing the season, we're pretty new to YT!
I also read (and still have) the original SFG book. Changed my life by teaching me to love gardening. IMO it was by far the best edition. Way fewer "rules," lots of good sound info, and very easy to adapt to individual situations, just as you show in this video. Thanks for a good video! Happy gardening!
Edit: Steve Solomon's fertilizer recommendations are my favorite
@@emmelia-6068 Cool. I might have to locate the first edition and see how it compares! Thanks for the comment & info, interesting to see there's a difference between the editions.
@@emmelia-6068 I have the original and 2nd edition of Mel's book also. He had a weekly show on PBS as well. I had the best vegetable garden ever when I started using his methods. He revolutionized gardening.
I have only used the first edition also and loved it. I was a little confused when he said Mel didn't recommend fertilizer. I have always used it. I am trying to get away from commercial fertilizers now though, growing lots of comfrey and making "swamp water" out of weeds, etc. Not quite there yet.
Awesome content! I subscribed. Just curious, what region are your gardens located?
Thanks for the kind commment & sub! We have a garden in zone 2 and several in zone 3, very cold climate. Located in Fairbanks, Alaska.
Nice video. Wish the music bed was a little lower though.
Thanks! Our newer videos don't have music, it's just too hard to balance across different devices. Appreciate the watch & comment.
All of my beds are 4x8 sub-irrigated planters and I'm not using individual buckets like you are with your corn, peppers, etc. Do you find that just grouping those larger plants together would be a good approach? I was planning on having a bed dedicated to peppers, for example.
Nice. We probably would have done sub-irrigated beds if it were easier to drain them for winter. In general, as long so you observe plant spacing needs, all your plants in a single bed should be fine. If you're a northerner, you can expect generally smaller pepper plants and use tighter plant spacing (i.e. 12 to 18 inches). Whereas if you're further south with good heat, your peppers will get larger and will need more space, so you'd need more spacing (i.e. 18 to 24 inches). We do generally try to group the same plants together, just to ease spacing needs. But, overall, you can get similar performance between sub irrigated beds and containers, perhaps even a bit better since the plants will have access to more soil. Hope that helps. Thanks for the watch!
What is the fabric you're using on your hoops to cover your beds? Thank you!
It's called "bug netting" or "garden netting." It can be ordered in different sizes to cover different bed sizes, or cut down to fit. We use cheap clamps to secure it to our hoops. The fabric is porous enough to not build up heat, but keeps bugs out. Hope that helps. Thanks for the watch & comment!
@@frostygarden907Thank you!
What is the green thing in what appears to be PVC in the 5 gallon buckets? Is this a watering system? Please explain. Over and under watering seem to be an issue for me. Thx
This is related to our watering system, yes. It's called a GroBucket, which is a commercial kit that allows you to turn a standard 5 gallon bucket into a sub irrigated container. It greatly reduces drought issues when growing in containers, we've been using them for about six seasons now. I have a video planned (soon) on this system, including how it works, why we use it and the overall success we get from them. So stay tuned, I do want to do a deeper dive into the system this year!
@@frostygarden907 Thank you. I look forward to watching the video.
Good info and I have subscribed, but I find the music very distracting and frankly annoying.
Thanks for the sub. We're still figuring things out here. We're brand new to film making, so appreciate folks telling us what they think so we can integrate it into future practices!
I'll just say that even if you are a taller person don't think "Well if little old ladies can handle 4ft wide beds then I can do 5". You probably can until you put up a trellis for your peas to climb or you tomato plants get a bit burley blocking easy access from one side..
True! There's actually a ton of debate about the "right size" of garden beds. Personally, I think 3 foot beds are "best" for access. But, you also sacrifice a fair bit of garden density. A trellis can be annoying, no matter the size of the bed, it's basically a fence in your way! Thanks for the watch & comment.
Imo the big issue is the squre, not the foot. I garden in circles of diameter 1 foot and it works great. Its the corners i think
There's several schools of thought for intensive gardening, SFG is just one of them. You can also think in terms of triangles, too, which is actually the most intensive technique of all.
I may have heard you wrong, but when you were talking about large plants, I did not hear you mention that they take up more than one square, eg zucchini it takes 3 squares. The comment didn’t sound like it was accurate.
Squash do fall into large plant territory. Summer squash will typically use 3 to 4 square feet. Winter squash, however, can take up much more. It can be hard to do winter squash in SFG. If you do, its best on an exterior part of the bed where you can train the plant into an area. They can take 4 to 12+ square feet easy. Hope that clarifies, thanks for the comment!
And for bigger plants, like artichokes, he would leave a whole bed for those!
music way too loud. covers voice at times
We've corrected this issue in subsequent videos, but unfortunately, impossible to fix for all ready uploaded vids. Thanks!
Great content. It would be MUCH better without the irritating music.
Thanks! We've heard that a few times now. Our newer videos forego the background music, it's a learning curve!
Your background music is too loud.
Our newer videos are mastered without the music. Unfortunately, we can't change it in older videos (unless we delete them and re-upload) so it is what it is for now.
the loud music really makes this video hard to follow. is there a way to watch it without?
Our newer videos are mastered without the music as we got a lot of feedback on it. Unfortunately, we can't just update old videos...we can only do things differently going forward! Thanks for watching!
I'm having trouble hearing what you are saying because your music is very distracting. Having no music would be better. I stopped watching at 2 minutes because of it, just so you know.
We do our current videos with no music in the background. Just too many kinds of speakers out there, it's impossible to master audio for every device. But, we can't fix our older videos without deleting them. Thanks!