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Square Foot Gardening

Will this work?

17 years ago

Year after year I SAY I'm going to garden. Darnit, this year I mean it!

I have an idea for a small layout. Will this work?

The feet may be a bit off. The gray thing in the middle is a clothesline pole I'd like to use as the trellis base with string or trellis or something attached for the veggies to climb. I know they say put the trellis to the north, but if it runs east/west, won't everything get sun all day? Pink squares were supposed to be red and are the peppers. The plan is to use patio or cherry tomatoes in cages or just staked. Should probably swap the carrots and herbs, because the carrots won't get any light there.

Thoughts?

Comments (5)

justaguy2
17 years ago
Yes, that will work. One of the challenges in intensive growing is to get everything enough light.

The zukes and pepper are the crops that will get some shade from the cukes and pole beans, but they are going to get east morning light and evening light and will do OK. Shadows tend to be very short in summer which is when these crops will grow.

Peppers will do fine and I don't think you can plant too few zukes ;-) They are incredibly prolific.

Just go ahead and do it. Worst case scenario is your peppers take longer to mature and the zukes don't inundate your friends, family and coworkers. For that there is always next year. ;-)

I think you have a strong plan for this year.

One thing is for certain, you will get far more yummy and nutritious produce from your current plan than if you let analyzing the plan paralyze you from just doing it. ;-)

Happy growing to you.
lilion
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks - looks like we've been on the same boards today! :)

I may be the only gardener in the world who has never successfully grown a zucchini. In containers they never made babies, even though I pollinated them with a paintbrush! In the ground I had a spot that was too shaded. And then there were the cucumber beetles. The less said the better about the cb's! Maybe this year will be the year!
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Eddie Sounds like you've been very, very busy! Don't work to much harder! Great sounding stock list you have & may they produce many, many new varieties! :) We do NEED them! lol! Good luck with your surgery - hope it goes well for you. And I & a few others here understand the pic 'borrowing!' I think it's happened to a few of us! And stop in more often & let us know how things are going with you & the plants! Take care Eddie! Mike
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Ken, the yellow weeper is 'Boyko's Sundown'. Some are more golden then others, this one I hand picked because it had such great bright splotches. It also seemed fairly narrow which is good considering it's spot! As for the property line, this is probably the best aspect of my piece of earth, it's both vague *and* heavily forested. I am next to a corner lot(their backyard extends to my left side yard) and there is a greenbelt behind me for about 150 yards. It has been designated native habitat by the county and thus without serious zoning changes can never be developed. Most of the large, existing trees on my property are huge already. There are hundreds of doug-firs exceeding 50' and many well over 100' tall with the only thing visible to the gardener or visitor are the elephant trunks shooting upwards. A few of my younger doug-firs out front are about 10-15 years old and still have limbs to the ground. These are what I mean I will slowly trim up, exposing new spaces for conifers that take some shade or part shade. Dougs grow like *crazy* here, so in 15-20 years I'll be surrounded skyward by plants exceeding 150' at which point the only problem will be trees dumping branches and needles in storms and the occasional large tree coming down(a scary thing indeed). Long term, many of the plants that it becomes apparent will be much too big to stay will end up in the local botanical garden which I am helping to design. Almost 100 acres of space, over half undeveloped so there should be plenty of space for these trees to settle in for the long haul. We've worked out a nominal trade/price of about $5 cash/$10 trade per year per plant. Not a lot of money, but that's not the point anyways. Finally, I *welcome* the day I run out of space. It'll be good on my back, budget and nice to know I have a 'complete' garden, with plants that are really nice to have around. Two or three years, I'd guess! -Will
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Those are very nice. I had one and appreciated the fact that it could go under the bed. Glenda, I didn't use it for a few months, and then when I wanted to use it again, it was dead. Maybe the battery, I'm not sure, but the replacement battery was expensive and I didn't want to buy it and find that it wasn't the battery. So the lesson is, use it regularly! Nice gift you got there!
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Yes!! I got your message...Good to know it is back...Hope to hear soon from the other members I messaged earlier... Check you message box... Hehe Not sure what is going on.. the email reminder thingy is still not working ..I have set it to receive emails for all events. I still emails on things like; someone posted, liked, but none for messaging. I will redo the settings again and see if I get the whole thing working again properly. Want to have the exchange thing ready and set for the swap. I need to set things aside for folks..
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justaguy2
17 years ago
If cuke beetles are a problem go get some Safer's BioNeem from the local garden center or online. Spray plants immediately and every 7-10 days thereafter. Neem oil is approved for use in organic gardens and is used in health food type store products intended for use on the skin and ingested so it isn't toxic.

It must be used *before* the pests arrive to be effective.
blackgumbo
17 years ago
I do a similar layout. Mine are 4' x 8' and I have three, side by side with a 2' walk between. I made the mistake of shading my garden with a tall lima bean trellis my first year, I arrange my climbers on one end now, oriented north south to minimize shade. I get a lot of shade off some tall pear trees to my west which really stinks, but I don't have a choice to chop them down, so getting all the sun I can is important. I grew corn in the shade of the beans on one side and the trees on the other and the corn produced, but not well. This years garden is layed out with sunshine considered. I'm no pro, still a newbie to all this, but I think it will work better than before. Shoot I'm growing beans IN my corn this year, which is more in the spirit of square foot gardening anyway. I didn't do that last year.
lilion
Original Author
17 years ago
Maybe I'm thinking about North/South and East/West wrong. In my example, is my trells facing North/South? I could put it at an end, I just really wanted to grow on both sides and I think it will fit the available space better if I put it in the middle.

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