>This was the first year we spent more time harvesting crops than weeding...

I thought that this method requred no weeding.

I actually had a little weeding to do myself ;) My neighbor doesn't always mow their yard on a timely basis... and... well, needless to say, when they do mow they blow stuff over into my garden.

I think what I've had the most problem with this year (in my new beds that are next to the chain link fence that separates our two properties) is Cardinal Climber. Oh man! It's something else! That stuff seeds like crazy and grows about a foot or so a day. I've pulled and even gone so far as to apray some RoundUp to kill it. And, I know that next year will be even worse. But, luckily, it's easy to pull. But, when I plant vegetable seeds in my beds, I have to kinda "wait and see" to make sure what kind of plant comes up before I start pulling LOL

Howdy, Mountain Curmudgeon.

You said, "I thought that this method requred no weeding."

Well, basically you just described greenhouse hydroponics in a cleanroom environment....

What classic squarefoot gardening does is reduce your weeding to something ridiculously pathetic, like the 1 pitiful thread of weed per 3 blocks (48 sq ft) I averaged in my 25 x 25 garden each week. No hoeing, no jungle to hack back if you miss weeding for a week or two. How is this possible? Weed seeds need sun and water, just like the next plant. If you don't provide both sun and water, seeds generally don't sprout much. Both mulch and water control are good sprouting inhibitors. That translates as less work in the garden--a position I generally favor. *cheeky grin*

Now a lot of folks use watering systems that may wet bare soil around their growing plants, and maybe they used genuine dirt and/or cold compost (sources of weed seeds) to build their beds. They will have some weeding to do, but still nothing like a typical backyard "jungle garden." This is just the price we are willing to pay for the convenience (or necessity) of using a squarefoot variation.

Then there is the case where, through no fault of the gardener, the fertile garden beds are exposed to abundant trash. In this case, with old-fashioned methods, a garden would have probably crossed the line from "troublesome" to "failed" long since.

Just clarifying.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ye Olde Cleanroom Environment

What can I say? Weeds happen. Though at no where near the level they do in our flower beds :-)

SH

WOW... some transition from "Tallying up the harvest" to weeds. I do NOT recall seeing anywhere that squarefoot meant NO more weeding. I will simply say if you do not want to weed - DO NOT garden. I will admit that MY garden weeding was remarkably reduced - mainly due to the mulch & shading of the close by plants. I also managed to grow MORE plants in the same space I had my row garden in. Much easier to harvest, too. Enuff said.

Now I would like to transition back to the topic of this thread - "Tallying up the harvest". Was I the only one confused by the column headings? I have to say -without understanding the column headings, the rest of the numbers meant nothing. Especially the zeroes. Ex. Corn, 0, 0, 11
If you have zero plants how do you get any fruit? Can someone explain what the column headings (Crop, Plant, Leaf, Fruit / Pod) mean?
Thanks,
Gumby_CT

Sorry about the confusion. The numbers following each crop refer to how many plants, leaves, fruit (or pods) were harvested, in that order. Some crops, like our winter squash, were a complete bust. Others, like the tomatoes, were amazing (over 100 fruit per plant), well amazing for us anyway :-)

Hope this helps,

SH

> I do NOT recall seeing anywhere that squarefoot meant NO more weeding.

"How would you like a garden filled with beautiful flowers, fresh herbs and luscious vegetables, but NO WEEDS and NO HARD WORK?"

Just silly hyperbole from the SF website, I guess.

SH - that is what I thought. What I couldn't understand was for example - Tomatoes, 0, 0, 715
if there were 0 plants, 0 leaves, but 715 fruit/pods?? how?
What am I doing wrong?

Gumby, the numbers are the harvest, not plants. So 0, 0, 715 is no plants or leaves harvested, just fruit (715) Look at spinach: 9, 53, 0. The harvest was 9 plants totaling 53 leaves, but zero fruit. Get it now?

ahaa...YES, got it. The numbers are ALL about the Harvest. I was thinking the plant column was the # of plants (planted). Confused the hey out of me. Not hard to do, ha. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I had taken the spinach entry to mean 9 whole plants (maybe small ones pulled as thinnings) + 53 leaves from plants left in ground.

As for the weeds--there is a difference between "no weeding" and "no weeds" -- they don't lodge and grow into part of the garden, as is so common in row gardens, where the jungle of weeds overwhelms the poor average row gardener. (This is more obvious in the book's description of the pitiful community gardens that Mel first observed.)

If I wanted to be *really* curmudgeonly, I could grouse about the "hard work" of harvesting all that delicious food--but this is a thread about harvest totals, so I'll exercise restraint, heh. Instead, I'll congratulate slaphead again for a mighty fine job--and hope for better results next year in the winter squash department.

Jacque,

Thanks. You had it right regarding the spinach. We harvested 9 whole plants plus 53 leaves.

SH