Square foot gardening.

[Chalk_Heart]

Hey, sorry if this has already been brought up, but how many brussels sprouts to a square foot would you say? It'll be my first time growing them this year if I manage to get the beds in, so any advice would be appreciated, but mainly I am curious about spacing. Thanks xx

[Bigmallly]

Have been loving your photos too Bigmally!! Brilliant, love the windmills too, my boy is obsessed with windmills so I'll get some too.

That confused me a little rabbit then I remembered it was in a previous life.........

[Patchninja]

Rabbit, can you add your locatiin, please?

[rabbit]

I was just gonna make a point rabbit but you seem to have it in mind, make sure your tallest plants are at the most northerly end of your bed to reduce shadowing as you are planning on growing tall stuff.

If there's one thing I've learned from pouring through all 28 pages of this thread is that tall plants are to be Northerly! The rest seems to be up for a fair bit of discussion!

Now, if only I knew which are the flipping tall plants (I'm guessing not carrots )

Have been loving your photos too Bigmally!! Brilliant, love the windmills too, my boy is obsessed with windmills so I'll get some too.

[Bigmallly]

I was just gonna make a point rabbit but you seem to have it in mind, make sure your tallest plants are at the most northerly end of your bed to reduce shadowing as you are planning on growing tall stuff.

[rabbit]

Hmm. I think I'll try this this year. I have four 6ftx3ft beds and I'll try on two or three I think. I have lots of flowers to interplant so I think it'll be pretty.

I have good (heavy) clay soil, the area has been a veg plot for years (not by me, I've just moved) but I hope not too much has leached out of the soil as it was empty except for weeds last growing season.

I wonder how many sunflowers I could get in each square?
Are summer squash equivalent to courgette in the scheme? How about winter squah?
I'll put little trellises up to try and contain them I think.

Now, need to buy some string, try and scrounge some water pipe or electrical pipe for cloches (pidgeons, cats, deer and slug-o-rama round here) and to work out which is north.

Also, I've read this whole thread and I'm very tempted to add sweetcorn to my already stupid list of seeds I've bought.

[BertieFox]

I guess the main difference here (with tubers going green) is in variety. Bigmally says he grows King Edwards which are a late variety with lots of dense foliage (I think... don't grow them myself) while I grow earlies which have sparse (relatively) foliage which dies back early on, exposing the tubers to the summer light. I must try a late variety and see how that goes. I will cover my earlies with straw this year.

[Sheneval]

I'm growing King Edwards saved from last years harvest. I did not earth up at all last year however I did cover with straw when frost was forecast & left it there until ready to lift. Maybe that helped.

Ta much

[Bigmallly]

It shouldn't make any difference Paulie, my squares.......... are gonna be 1'x2' this year.........

[Paulieb]

After scrapping 6+ inches of snow off my raised bed I've just measured and its 4'6 by 6'11. So I'm planning my first square foot adventure for this year. Planning 24 squares, so will it make much difference if the squares are 13*13 or 14*14. I guess I'll just need to make sure each square is 'full' to limit weed growth?

[Bigmallly]

I'm growing King Edwards saved from last years harvest. I did not earth up at all last year however I did cover with straw when frost was forecast & left it there until ready to lift. Maybe that helped.

[Sheneval]

Earthin up?........never heard of it, just dig a hole with a bulb planter 9" deep add a few chicken pellets & drop yer tattie in the hole, cover & leave.

BM - If this works for you I might give it a try over part of my plot - my main advisor on the allotment curses the time, sweat and effort involved in earthing up to such an extent he is reducing the numbers to be planted this year. What type are you growing?

I would like to grow Rooster and Sarpo because of their Blight resistance.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Bertie, I'm a long in the tooth gardener as well. I've found that some varieties are worse than others for throwing tubers out of the ground which then become green. In a sfg set up, the shaws (perhaps haulms to you)will perhaps be packed so tightly as to keep out the light?

[BertieFox]

Sorry to disagree with you, Bigmally, but can you really say you don't get lots of tubers turning green doing that? Every time I've never got round to earthin up (and I don't do it for fun as it's damn hard work!) I end up with lots of tubers round the neck of the plants which are turning green. As the 'tubers' are swollen leaf stems, not roots, it seems natural that that should happen.
Any way of avoiding earthing up or keeping light out and I'd love to know but I've been gardening for almost 40 years and have found it to be necessary over and over again.

[Bigmallly]

Earthin up?........never heard of it, just dig a hole with a bulb planter 9" deep add a few chicken pellets & drop yer tattie in the hole, cover & leave.