Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi, this is my first post so please go easy with me. I have a couple of 1m sq raised beds in my garden which is not very big but gets lots of sun and I have been growing a few veggies in them but I am thinking of trying the square foot method. Has anyone tried this method and if so did you have much success.

My beds are 1.7 m in the garden at home. I section them off using onions and grow different crops in each square.

In the squares themselves, I'll sometimes pop say tomatoes as the main crop, and other crops in between; I'm thinking here of herbs, and fast or slow growing ones that can take over after the toms are done.

It's not square foot gardening as such, but the same sort of principle.

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Andrea :wavehello

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...logs/zazen999/

moon trials completed:
tomatoes
[46% increase in crop per seed sown and 10% increase in crop per plant]

currently underway:
calabrese
garlic

Hi welcome to the vine Steve.

My brother is an advocate of the square foot method. He used this book Play.com (UK) : Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work : Books - Free Delivery as his reference (I'm sure you know it well).

My own raised beds at the lottie are 2m long by 90cm wide, and I don't seem to be using them as efficiently as I could. Perhaps I should buy this book too...I have sort of tried 'three sister planting' this season, with mini sweetcorn underplanted with beetroot and courgettes which seems to be working quite well.

Best of luck, and rest assured - the grapes will come up with all sorts of advice for you.

Thanks for the welcome.
My first bed should be empty within the month when i pull the carrots,so i will be trying square foot from next month. My only concern is what to start this late in the year as i tried overwinter onions in the bed last winter and i know i should be rotateing crops.

You could start some spring cabbages? They can be used as 'spring greens' (loose leaf-ish) or left to form hearts, which means you could plant slightly closer together and use alternate plants, leaving the others to grow bigger. Or buy in some plants of swede or kohl rabi (Also in the brassica family). If your local garden centre don't have any, try here; Roots, squashes & pumpkins - Fentongollan Flower Farm, Superb flowers and bulbs by post
or here; Dobies: Broccoli, Cabbage & Cauliflower Collection: Delicious, great value winter veg!
or here; Marshalls Seeds - Vegetable Seed, Onion Sets, Seed Potatoes, Fruit Trees, Vegetable Plants.

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Sarah

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”