I did, I tilled the soil, added compost, green sand, lava sand, cornmeal, molasses-this is what the howard garrett book I have reccomended and If your tilling it doesn't matter to throw stuff on top. I tilled with a garden fork. I then laid my grid on top and have been gardening in it. I like using the earth for growing, put that's a personal choice-I like digging in the dirt. I don't see anything wrong with doing it the other way either.

SFG isn't anymore 'just so' than any other technique really. I think the only 'requirement' is the grid, which I would suggest you try (string/rope is fine) because it really helps you keep space allocated and used well, especially as the season progresses and you have empty squares. I have a second herb/tomato bed next to the SFG and it has huge spaces that need to be filled and I would never let that happen with the SFG cause those empty squares just stare you down.

SFG is another way of saying intensive planting. Nothing in gardening is hard and fast. If you look down in the posts, you'll see, I'm modifying the technique to use double stack tires rather than a square grid. I've laid out a grid based on spacing of intensive plantings; or rather than closely planted rows, I'm using closely planted circles. I will also use a framework over the beds that will carry drip irrigation tubing; serve as a frame for hoop houses and supports for trellis materials. Basically, we are all bending the specifications to fit our needs and tastes. That's one of the fun parts; we share ideas; we experiment.

If SFG was the common way to do most planting and row planting or another style was introduced then that might seem very technical.
Just a few pointers to the why.
Soil Quality for opimized growth.
The main part is to have a ver fertile growing medium, the Mix are there to make it easy to start.
No hard digging (ex. Double digging), or any other way to try and enhance the soil quality but if yuo like digging etc. then you can enhance almost any soil with enough compost.
The Grid and plant spacing for optimized planting:
Easier to optimize the plant density for every plant and to manage empty spaces in a grid than in the open non formalized way. If one Square(1) is opened you just add some compost and plant again.
You could exchange the formal 'hard' gridlines for more informal looking fixed markers that can blend into the garden but you stil need them or another easy measurable way for optimal planting. The paths could be informal stepping stones or something similar but you will need them for easy access to all areas of the garden. The borders could be rounded but must then be treated as a cutted Square.
Size for easy reach:
The size are optimized for easier reach. Most people can reach 2' with fair ease, but start stretching on more than that.
1 - a measurable managable small area of a fixed size where 1 of the 'large' plants can grow in.

As Rain said we all are bending the specifications, using it as guidelines to fit into our space/needs/requirements.

Rain I love your tire Idea (read more about it in a different thread)

Howdy!

Kris, I love how you put it: the empty [marked] squares just stare you down!

Seat, I know a new method can seem complicated, but each of the parts of squarefooting are there to SAVE US FROM OURSELVES. Heh, heh.

Now think about it. Row gardening is even more complicated than squaring, actually--and very wasteful of time, water, and other resources. Just check the seed packs! Rowing involves marking out the rows, intensive planting (often dumping out seeds until the pack is empty), thinning to a certain distance between plants (different for different species), then maybe thinning a second time to get the correct spacing between plants--all without any more guide than (maybe) a piece of string or stick that marks the row.

Then you have a huge, constant job of weeding, watering, fertilizing, and whining to maintain all summer long--which many people can't (hence the whining chore). Then, if you get a harvest, it is everything of each veg type ripe at the same time. Who eats 20 cabbages in the same week?

But first, you have to keep up the constant work all the way through until harvest, or the mess quickly grows too nasty for most people to fight. All you have to do is get sick for a week, and the row garden can become a wasteland or a jungle. I have found squaring to be much more forgiving when something goes wrong with the body or calendar.

It helps to check Mel's Web site. He lays out a few simple steps that start you on a "forever good" gardening track. If you can't afford every part of Mel's ideal setup, the folks on this site will cheerfully advise you on cheaper ways that work well.

My major difference from Mel is to modernize the starting mix. Coir replaces peat and expanded shale replaces vermiculite. Otherwise, I just have to allow for the local climate and growing conditions as I plant, just like any other gardener, anywhere in the world. The complete system is efficent, cost-effective, and gives consistently good results for minimum effort. What's to hate?

Jacque- can you tell me more about expanded shale? How does it compare, in performance and price, to verm?

I don't want to use peat moss again in my next beds, so I am going to probably replace it with just compost. Coir is just too expensive for my blood.

Btw, I see that you are in Texas; feel free to check out the Texas SFG group I run on Yahoo.

Here is a link that might be useful: Texas SFG list.

Howdy, reptilegrrl!

Thanks for the invite. My move is delayed again by project slippage at work. *sigh* Maybe I can get a gardening fix there, heh.

I started a new thread called Expanded Shale Facts. It is mostly links, showing how it works, what it works best on, how it is made, and some ad-type info.

If there is enough interest in the compost-exp. shale mixes tested by the A&M University and others, maybe this can be *expanded* into a FAQ. *grin*

Hmmm. I think I'd rather not get so involved in it. My bed is well amended, and I have always planted intensively, never paid attention to the recommended spacing. In fact, my favorite thing to plant is "three sisters" method.

I think I'll try to grid, though, even though all the special amendments would be a little hard to find here, and probably wouldn't work in our soil in Florida. We need lots of organic matter for nematode control.

Howdy, seat--

Hmmm. Are you talking about the old list of goodies from the book? That is obsolete, although the publisher reprinted the outdated stuff with "purty new pitchers."

See Mel's Web site for the Dirt Simple (snigger) modern method. This is a fast, efficient read, heh. (See the buttons on left "What is SFG" and "How To..." - or print your own brochure.)

The reason SFG exists is its fast, easy, and uses far less resources than most garden methods. The grid (physical or marked along the border) gives you the most efficient soil use. Plant sensibly and rotate your squares, and SFG is still simple.

As for the spacing, that too is dirt simple. You can print out a 1-page "cheat sheet" table of spacings for average garden plants from several places--probably from this forum's FAQ. Then you mark corrections for your local conditions, and maybe share that info on the Web for other local gardeners. This makes a simple, easy memory jogger for your own needs. (I keep one in my garden notebook, but I've memorized most spacings. Remember, the only time we "overplant" is if we are planning to eat the thinnings, heh.)

As for organic matter, Mel's mix is 66% organic amendments. Modern squarefooting just ignores the subsoil "dirt" that most American yards offer--with good reason, since the developers scrape off the growings surface when they build new houses.

I gather from the forum that most of us don't even bother with the 3-part modern Mel's Mix. Most of us are gardening in pure compost, with maybe a dash of peat or vermiculite. How does it get more organic? Heh.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mel's site

For many years, I have used a method 'trench composting' in the garden. The soil here is sandy loam with plenty of rock, but very little organic matter. I will screen the soil thru a 1/4" screen then add it to the organics. This has worked well, but is a slower process. Maybe I have a different approach to compost, but adding dirt to the mix has always been part of the mix for me. Growing up my Dad would spread manure on the garden then till it in. Always worked well. Right now the compost tumbler has a mix of leaves, kitchen scraps, dead plant matter and dirt.

Howdy, Rain!

That mixed compost you are cooking sounds like Garden Gold. Bet it will work fabulously well.

About the dirt, well... Dirt is ok, but the stuff Ray and others use is far better than the improved clay I worked so hard on (and spent so much on) back when I set up an "improved dirt" garden.

When I built a cinderblock bed for the neighbors, we didn't even bother to mix the ingredients--just poured in thin layers, ruffled the top few inches with a hand rake, moistened well, and planted into the compost/manure/vermiculite/peat mix. (That was before I found that coir and expanded shale are better.

The actual side-by-side growing plants showed us that my raised improved-clay SFG was better than the in-ground deep-tilled row garden. But the raised varied-compost SFG garden was even better than my raised SFG.

I have limited space for a veggie garden--I covet other people's large, lush plots, but in my yard I'm limited to several, rectangular raised beds. That's why I use a modified SFG method. I say modified, because I use the book as a general guideline, not a Bible! I trellis tomatoes, cukes, pole beans, etc., and plant all my crops in squares, using the recommended spacing (ex. 4 lettuce plants/sq. ft., 9 bush beans, 1 pepper, etc.) I made square wire cages for things like the bush beans. Squash plants and potatoes get their own square yard. Weeding, watering, crop rotation, and harvesting are all really easy. However, I don't use the Mel's mix recipe or anything like that. Just garden soil, mixed with generous amounts of horse manure, compost, shredded leaves, decomposing mulch, and what-not. Works for me! Mel is correct in stating that a very small area can be more than adequately productive for the fresh-eating needs of a family, and I grow enough of some crops to freeze. It's easy to multiply the amount of squares you want to devote to any crop (Love beets?--grow 6 or 8 square feet of them!), or to try just one or 2 squares of something new to see how it grows or if you'll like it. The crops can be intermixed any way you like (companion planters take note) and it's really easy to rotate crops (except the trellised ones). I've been doing it this way, at 2 successive residences, for 15 years, and I continue to be impressed with the results!

Echoing the others in saying that yes, you can do a less technical SFG, and many of us do. I consider myself a master at "winging it" with what I have laying around at the time I'm building a bed (with the occasionally plotting to fetch 8-12 cubic yards of compost from the local mushroom ranch to fill new beds and top off my existing planting areas.)

On the soil mix/preparation you will be ok as long as the top 6-8" of your planting medium is mostly (60%+) organic and has enough minerally stuff (vermiculite/expanded shape/perlite/sand) to either hold some water or assist in percolating it up.

For the plant spacings there isn't much wiggle room, but you will find yourself making adjustments for your climate and preferred varieties for things that are "borderline" in a particular planting pattern. Still, if you are in an uncharted region, the listed spacings are a great starting point.

Regarding bed or trellis construction, as long as you mimics what the structure is supposed to do it doesn't really matter how you build it or what it looks like. It doesn't even have to be rectangular. I would suggest making sure that one uses materials that are not potentially hazardous (treated lumber and RR ties or old lightpoles) or have a habit of becoming annoying when they decompose (landscape fabric).