Square foot gardening.

[Jungle Jane]

French marigolds are nice compact plants that can go between the tomatoes to keep whitefly away. Courgette like a lot of water,I don't know if the garlic would be too wet,maybe garlic with carrots & onions,lettuce with courgette. Are you planting garlic & onions now because you can if you want
Edit to add are you netting the kale,turnip & broccoli from cabbage white butterflies,they might be better together under one net?

[monkeyboy]

Okay here's attempt 3:



I've left a few gaps for expansion of tomatoes, aubergine, courgette and cauliflower. I've added calendula as companion planting. Other companion plants like basil, mint etc will be put in small planters next to the beds.

I've used this website >clicky< to create the layout. If anyone wants to try a layout, I'm more than happy. Tomatoes are on the left as that's the north end. Radishes and lettuce are at the south end.


Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.

[lolie]

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome. This will be my second attempt into vegetable growing. My last attempt resulted in a tomato plant with blight

That's a lot of spinach plants. If you want to freeze or juice a ton of spinach, that's fine but otherwise you're sacrificing a few squares to something which will continue to produce as you harvest it. I'd probably plant a few less squares with spinach and dedicate them to something which requires successive plantings and/or something which is a space hog.

[Lumpy]

Like you said MB it might be better to decide what you really want and then add in a flirty 'never tried before' plant to see what happens.
How about sugar snap peas? Either up some canes or cut the bottom off a bucket and let them grow down (I grow mine in a wall basket) then you could plant a variety of oriental veg like chinese cabbage around the base of the bucket as they bolt if they get too much sun but the peas would give them shade. It might be worth thinking about dwarf french beans or dwarf runners as well.

Good Luck.

[monkeyboy]

Not going to be miffed at all Lumpy. I appreciate the help. There's so much I don't know which is why I wanted to tap into the forum knowledge. The above diagrams are only two configurations I thought of. TBH I was at work and getting a bit stuck as to what to plant. I will ask the wife later what she wants (she loves kale and celery).

Companion crops seem to vary according to source, which can be confusing.

Cauliflowers - the leaves can grow huge

Yup I read this and should know to put it in a corner.

Chives are perennials (they come back every year) so it might restrict your growing plan in the future. Try and shove them next to your carrots as they help stop carrot fly.

Chives were really meant to be companion crops for broccoli. I don't use them in cooking.

Anyting from the Mint family will run rampant

There's space for a couple of sacrificial plant pots of mint around the beds.

Celery needs alot of water but basil does not (as a Med plant) so you could end up with dismal basil but wonderful celery or vice versa.

Basil was meant to be a companion crop for the toms.

Melon - needs lots of heat and depending upon the variety lots of space.

I had three squares left and ran out of ideas.

I'll have another think about the layout and post something up.

[lottie dolly]

I agree with Lumpy,ref chives and mint,cellery could be grown in a flower bucket sitting in a water trough,the melon,if you have no greenhouse,try growing it inside near a patio door,again with water holder,you can hand pollinate,

[Lumpy]

Lovely plan MB but I (and I can hear the Vine laughing) might adapt it a bit.
Cauliflowers - only 1 per 12in (are they worth it) and the leaves can grow huge so if you want them it might be worth putting them on the edge of your plan so 2 sides can be trimmed to help light getting to other crops.
Chives are perennials (they come back every year) so it might restrict your growing plan in the future. Try and shove them next to your carrots as they help stop carrot fly.
Anyting from the Mint family will run rampant if left unchecked - they are beter planted in containers or buckets etc.
Celery needs alot of water but basil does not (as a Med plant) so you could end up with dismal basil but wonderful celery or vice versa.
Melon - needs lots of heat and depending upon the variety lots of space. I (and in my opion only) is not suitable for SFG.

Please don't be miffed with what i've written......................have a go and see what happens.
Good Luck

[monkeyboy]

Right! I've built my two 2m by 1m vegetable beds. The soil's been prepped with a mix of compost and soil. I didn't have vermiculite but I've managed to find some in homebase. I want to plan things out for next year.

My issue is knowing where to plant what. I've looked up a little on companion planting and a little on heights of plants. I've come up with a couple of ideas below.

Though the diagrams show 12x3, in actuality they're two 6x3 beds since I was trying to get it all on one page. The spinach will be in bed one if that helps with understanding things.

Layout 1:


Layout 2:


Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome. This will be my second attempt into vegetable growing. My last attempt resulted in a tomato plant with blight

Elsewhere in the garden will be a couple of potato buckets and maybe a strawberry plant in a container. I've already got coriander and mint growing in separate planters ATM.

[Martin H]

OK, I'll be giving this sfg lark a go next year. My new raised veggie bed in the back garden is four feet wide so it seems to be almost ideal, even though the gentle curvature means that the squares won't actually be mathematically square.

It will start in a few weeks when I plant out overwintering onion seedlings and garlic.

I was thinking of using strimmer cord to mark out the squares: held into the sleepers with galvanised tacks and short canes to stabilise the interstices. Any better ideas?

[plotman]

moon planting? lol

[chris_m]

Well, I've started. When the last of my current crops are finished I'll get the rest of my part-raised part-sunken beds made, the poor quality sandy soil dug out to about 3 feet down, lined with weed barrier and filled with a mix of what came out plus a load of manure and decent topsoil on top. Two of the beds will be netted with veggiemesh and the other two left for plants that don't suffer too much from pests and/or need insect pollination and/or need to grow higher than 2'6" - that's the height of the netting frames I'm making.

That'll give me just over 100 square "feet", although 78 of them will actually be "square feet and a bit", being 12" x 15". I've got most of what's going where planned out and have already occupied nine of the "squares" in Bed 1 with kale and over-wintering onions.

[monkeyboy]

Whew!
Made it through all 93 pages in 24 hours. Lots of interesting posts though it was a bit difficult because I couldn't see pictures and I don't know if it's because of the server crash or because I'm a newbie.

I've noticed a drop off in posts in this thread especially 2016/2017. Are people losing the love for SFG? Have you all moved on to a different system? Or are you all just busy with growing and harvesting?

I've made two 6' x 3' beds and I was looking at what to plant. In my head, I'd divided them up into four quadrants but SFG shows I can plant a lot more.

Hopefully next year I can start off in the right way but plan to plant a few small things to try my hand this year.

[SaraJH]

Lesson learned from last year - even mini caulis and cabbages don't like to be packed in 4 to a square! 1 per square this year plus some in pots.

[Scoot]

Sowed my purple sprouting broccoli the other day.

[Marb67]

Well, after following guidelines here is my poor results. Poor, small Alisa Craig onions and Bolthardy Beets as well as most carrots not forming. Chard is ok but one cut in the spring hasn't produced a single new leaf

I had to have the whole bed under enviromesh all season because of the pests like flea beetle,onion and carrot fly and leaf miner so this may have hindered the growth but what can I do ? I have no choice.