Hello to Andrea,

Thanks for your comments on SFG - tearing out your 6" of soil. I'm just getting started with plans for some raised vegetable beds next spring - like the idea of SFG, but had my doubts about the six inches. I'm planning on 12" and now hearing your feedback, I'll stick with the deeper beds.
So excited about this new venture. I've been a passionate gardener for years, but haven't had a vegetable garden in ages. Reading up and making plans.
Thanks for your comments.
Cappy (Cappy is short for Capella)

Interesting. Last year I had my raised beds, made from 2x10's, sitting on top of gravel and I had a great harvest. Soil depth was probably 8 to 9 inches at most. But this coming year, we're rearranging some things in the backyard and will place the raised beds on top of our (already pretty good) native soil so if the the roots want more depth, they can take it.

Andrea - I think it's sad that you're gonna abandon the sfg method. All you need to do is make your boxes deeper, and the yield will be increased. So far this year, I've gotten over 400 lbs. of harvest from my 210 sqft., and my box is 8" deep. This next year, i'll increase the depth to 14", because the plants will do better during our extremely hot summers, and the yield should increase by at least another 100 lbs. for the year. Your problem is not the method - it's the depth.

EG

EG,

400 lbs. of produce doesn't mean anything. If it is basil leaves, that is better than fantastic, if it is tomatoes it's below average. I had 750 pounds of toms from 210 sf of regular garden space and several, (as many as half?) were really poor producers.

I do think six inches is not near enough depth for many veggies. It would not be that hard for the soil to dry out in a few hot, sunny days in summer.

My Fair Project is a raised bed and I plan on using two rows of concrete blocks so I should have at least 14" of depth.

Mike

Andrea,

That is sad to hear about the SFG for you. When I built mine, I did make them a foot deep as well. I did notice that in the newer Square Foot Gardening book, Mel mentions only six inches is needed. I have always had my doubts with this myself.

I have two beds sitting on my driveway (concrete). One of them is two feet wide by 16 feet long. I grew all of my carrots in this bed and had a good 17 pounds of 9" + long carrots.

The second box I made half-way through the season and was a bit late - especially with the cooler temps we had this year. I still tried to plant some bush beans in the 4 foot by 8 foot bed, but only got a few pounds before the weather turned bad for them.

Otherwise, all of my other beds really are just raised beds - that sit on top of existing soil. All of those are doing great as well.

EG - I'm impressed you got that many pounds of produce in that space! I have close to the same amount as you but only got about 250 pounds of produce this year. I estimate about 270 square feet for all my garden areas - so I yielded less than a pound per square foot.

Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

wordwiz - I don't have an area for a traditional garden, because the entire property is sloped. Since my first season was merely 100 lbs. from 136sqft, I was elated to get this year's harvest.

bsntech - thanks. I agree, Mel's suggestion of 6" deep is ridiculous.

EG

I'm amazed at how much food EG and Mike are getting. I will aspire to that. I did want to add that I use tongue and groove fencing for some of my boxes. I can change the top level higher or lower, depending on the crop I want to plant. Before sfg I couldn't depend on anything to succeed because I have bermuda grass, large trees, horrible soil and of course the kids, dogs, and critters. Almost everything I plant now is successful and I am grateful to all of you who have taken the time to share your knowledge on this forum. Thank you

Kath

Hello Andrea; This is not the first time I have heard of low production being a reason to not square foot garden. Is it because you like market gardening? And will you use square foot spacing or row spacing in your big garden? I square foot garden and love it (weed control close to house), But am putting a 4 foot by 28 foot non-raised garden back in my old garden spot (over 100 foot from house) for some of the vegetables that take further spacings. Things like potatoes, Winter squash and a few low maintenance plants. These will be put in on loose square foot spacing not on row crop spacing. I also want to try multi-planting a friend did last year with Brussel Sprouts, Broccoli and cabbage and I liked the results.

Curt:-)

Kath,

I used row gardening but found the stuff I have heard concerning spacing for 50 years is not the only way to do it. We always set tomato and pepper plants close to three feet apart in rows with ~34" wide. This year, my plants were 18" apart in 20" rows. I used the Florida Weave to keep the foliage tight. My potatoes were about six inches apart in 15" rows. For crops like green beans, carrots and onions, the rows were less than a foot apart.

Mike

Hello,

Wow I wrote this and haven't been back. Busy with holidays and such.

Thanks for your questions and responses. I've been on here an hour this evening looking at methods for getting a garden tilled and ready this spring. I kind of hate the idea of this too b/c I love the way the beds look and I have put time,energy and money into them for 3-4 years now.

I would say after reading all of your replies that a lot of my problem is the depth. I have, I think, 10 beds and and they are all 6 inches except one and it's about 10 inches.

My beds just don't supply near as much produce and all of you get.

I will throw this out there and tell me what you think. I would also say a problem I had this year was I grew heirlooms. Don't get me wrong it was great growing these and having different tomatoes when I got some, but there is something to be said for hybrids. I grew hybrids in '08 and had no diseases, etc.. and this year lost 1/2 my tomatoes to blight, etc..

In '08 I grew super sweet 100's,early girls and some yellows and they did well.

I'm just at a crossroads. Do I forget the beds and take up traditional gardening or do I add to my bed heights and give it another go?

On another note, peas and beans do well for me. As do onions and other easy things like herbs and greens.

Andrea- I'm new to this forum, but I have a suggestion. I think you're right 6" is too shallow for tomatoes and other vegetables with long roots. Maybe you can keep some of your beds towards the front or one side and tear out the others and make beds the same shape. This would give you the same appearance, but you could make the new beds much deeper and still frame around them with the wood to match the beds. If you put in some flowers and a few raspberries along one side, it would be very much like a potager. I don't know if this appeals to you, but I think it's a very nice way to grow a lot of vegetables, but still have a very attractive garden :)

As for the heirlooms, if the other tomatoes did better for you, I'd stick to what works. I had some beautiful tomato plants last year, but they didn't have a long enough season to get ripe. Disappointing, but this year, I'm trying some different types. Super sweet 100's sound good, as do early girls. I hope you get some good ideas for your new garden. At least winter is a good time to do some research and planning and come up with an even better garden next year!

Hi Andrea. For some vegetable plants, the six inches in depth is plenty (radishes, lettuce, etc). But for other plants, I agree with EG - you do need more depth.

Most of the root crop vegetables (like potatoes, beets, carrots, etc) are going to take a deeper raised bed to perform at their best. Then you have some plants like tomatoes, corn, okra, etc that just have massive root structures. These definitely need deeper raised beds.

I do have to say in defense of the raised beds, they are so much easier to maintain and deal with pulling weeds, etc than the traditional row garden. I just couldn't keep up with the last row garden we had. Also, I had never been able to grow carrots in our soil either. But, last year I grew some really nice carrots for the first time - and it was in the aerated Mel's Soil Mix...

Here is a link that might be useful: Judy's Square Foot Garden Blog

Very brave post title. But for a reason. It was not working for you. Due to really bad weather my garden produced no tomatoes or peppers but great salad greens this year. So even if you had planted hybred tomatoes your regular way they may not of worked this year as they did not work for may gardeners this years. I wanted to let you know that the first years I gardened the garden over ran itself. When I found the square foot garden method helped hugely. I did not have the means to build boxes but I had 6X18 patio blocks I made 4X4 gardens out of with 18 inch paths. Just the spacing without the raised boxes gave many of the benefits of square foot gardening. Now that I can get scrap wood I am trying raised boxes with no bottoms. I have not used Mel's mix but lasagna fill. The jury is still out. Probably if I had let the leaves compost even a bit it would of worked out better :-) Experimenting in the garden is fun. Even Mel's book has improvements to his original idea. Let us know if you find a way that works better for you so we can try it too.

Heirlooms have nothing to do with it, unless heirlooms are unable to cope with inadequate soil depth like all the others.

Inadequate soil depth. That is the problem. But if you want to give it up to go back to gardening with adequate soil depth, great! Just put your plants closer together when you get adequate soil depth.

Dan

Andrea,

You can do away with the raised beds and go with a traditional garden, but if it only has six inches of soil, you will get the same results, maybe worse, regardless whether you grow heirlooms or hybrids, unless the hybrid is bred to grow with very shallow roots.

I'm presuming (not assuming!) that you have very good soil since you have been growing in the beds for three or four years. So why not add another six-eight inches of lumber, blocks, whatever and add more medium?

As I wrote, I don't do raised beds because I have great soil, a flat yard and want to use every bit of space I can, plus I don't see any need to spend money and time building beds. But the basic idea is the same - put plants in a good medium where they can grow to their upper limit, provide them with the weather they need (or try to compensate for what Mom provides) and practice good growing habits and you will have a fantastic harvest.

Mike

The reason I came to the forum is that I had questions about the new Square Foot Garden book. When I read that tomatoes were in six inch beds, I thought that sounded odd. I was thinking of growing some in containers last year and my Mom said my 8" container was too shallow, since the roots can grow quite deep. Why are there bottoms on these beds anyway? Can't you just take the grass out and put the beds right on the soil?

I have fairly good soil and access to lots of aged horse manure, so I really am more interested in plant spacing, but again the measurements seemed really close on some of the plants. Do the measurements in the book work for all of you?

the measurements seemed really close on some of the plants. Do the measurements in the book work for all of you?

I have the very old edition, I don't have the new one. I take the measurements as guidelines and not gospel. I think you'll see a combination of experience and education will allow you to take Mel's ideas and run with them on your own.

Dan

So, does that mean the measurements do not work for you? Are the vegetables too close together? I was hoping to avoid a few mistakes, by asking help from those more experienced :)

Some do, some don't. There are so many plant varieties that a standard spacing can't work for every variety. I have some peppers that work, some don't. Same with tomatoes and spinach and cabbage. And I have markers for every foot in my bed, but I'm not a robot to them and my beans and peas get more than a "square". The bigger peppers go toward the back and the smaller ones go around elsewhere and the tall beans go in the back but they aren't confined to a "square". The tomatoes do not get a "square". Cantaloupe and cuke and squash on the trellis take little space at ground level. Carrots get a "square" near the toms and onions get a "square" if there are some left, else they get tucked in here and there. My ability to manipulate space and volume might not be shared by everyone, so YMMV.

Nonetheless, the book is a good place to start and gets the noggin' in the right place, but if something doesn't work the first season learn from it and adjust - doing something over and over again to get the same result isn't productive in any sense of the word. If you were to look at my veggie garden you'd certainly see evidence of my having read the book many years ago (and it comes off the shelf occasionally) but no evidence of slavish devotion, esp as I live in a place very different than where Mel gardens (semi-arid, very windy, 5700 ft) and the kid wants something different seemingly every year and we're doing more potatoes and onions and garlic this year. All depends. You must adjust.

Dan

You have kids that help in the garden? I'm only asking, since my vegetable garden is shared by my nieces and nephews. I'm always looking for ways to get them more excited about gardening.

My garden is more a combination of beds in a kitchen garden type of layout. I was going to do mainly flowers, but the kids really want to try things they can eat. The square foot garden ideas seemed like they might let us get more produce in a fairly small space (24' x 28') but I don't need a lot of any one thing. Corn, potatoes, beans, peas, tomatoes and asparagus seem to be the most popular choices...and of course, mini-pumpkins.

Thanks for the advice and I'll try to use the spacing as a guide, but not an absolute :)

Both of us have hort degrees and I have a masters in env planning, and you can't go thru the day in our house without some sort of fun demonstration or lecture or explanation, so it is "natural" that she wants to help in the garden. She has a little area for her carrots and snow peas that she waters with her can and eats as soon as she picks, and spots in the landscaping for annuals and a couple perennials that she waters and picks flowers for, and sunflowers of course (the variety we grew this year is 'Mammoth', so she can eat Mammoth seeds at the Mammoth game). And we go out to the cold frame to check the greens and take soil temp readings that she has to mark down with air temp in her field journal and and and...

Start 'em young.

:o)

Dan

That's great! How fun to have a field journal and learn all about plants, with your own vegetable and flower areas.

My nephew is 10 and my nieces are four. One of the girls comes out more often and loves the roses. She always has to take one home to smell in the car. I'm getting her a little gardener's set for this spring, but it's plastic, so she'll have to have her own little raised bed or planter. There's no way those tools are going to work in our clay (LOL)

I know several people who grow almost everything, including huge tomato and pepper plants in containers, usually a seven or eight gallon one. The seven gallons I have are 14" wide by 11.25" deep and they can set next to each other. If plants will grow in those - and I've seen pictures that prove they grow very well! - then they will grow like that in a garden if the soil and amount of nuits available are the same. Instead of getting 15-20 plants in a 30' row, I set about 24. Using the Florida Weave method for staking the plants I can also use 24" rows rather than 34-36" ones.

An experiment I am trying now is to grow six tomato plants in eight square feet of room (or eight in about 10 sf if a 400 watt HPS provides enough light). I'm curious to see what kind of harvest I can get.

Mike

Hello and Happy New Year all,

Thanks for the replies and great responses. I would change the title if I could :)

magnolias4ever: your absolutely right, I was thinking I would raise all beds, but I won't. My lettuces, greens, and other things with smaller roots do well and always have.
Also, yes, weeding is not something I am looking forward to. With trying to do a market and selling plants from the house and just daily life w/a 5 yr old sf is something I really want to succeed.

dan: I really did think that most of my problem was that I grew heirlooms. I started a business this year and am selling at market and named it "Heirlooms and Blooms" and was thinking that was a bad idea. I also have been making a new list of what tomato varieties to grow this year and was going to stick to hybrids but instead I will give them another go using higher beds of course.

lavendarlass: what I have now is a potager of sorts and I do like it. I had flowers mixed in last year(marigolds) mostly and loved the colors they gave and look of my garden.

equinox: thanks for the words about tomatoes and peppers doing bad this year. I know lots of people didn't have great crops this year. I just thought it was my varieties and believed that if I had done hybrids that maybe I would have been ok.

wordwix: Loved your 'Mom" advice :) My yard is clay, yet another reason I chose sf when I started all of this.

I also have a source this coming year for horse manure and am excited about this so I can get truckloads and not buy bags, although I get most of my bags of dirt from lowe's when they are marked down when busted.

This has become a great thread. Thanks all for your words to make me think it's worth another go around and not hastily tear everything out I've done.

I need to remember that it was a bad year for a lot and that even in 6 inches, the past 2 years I had a decent amount of stuff come out of the beds.

Andrea

Andrea,

Sounds like an A #1 resolution to me!

Mike

Laverder Lass "Why are there bottoms on these beds anyway? Can't you just take the grass out and put the beds right on the soil?"

raised beds do not have bottoms,or they would be containers

The bottom of my beds are just grass, which I covered with cardboard when I first installed. That's most of you did as well, right?

Andrea

I'm just going by the SFG book I checked out at the library. It seemed like they had bottoms and I thought that made them containers too!

My mom (big gardener) always says to dig out the grass, then put in the bed, so the deeper roots can get down into the soil. I'm no expert, but if you don't dig out the grass, how long does it take to rot? I'm taking out the grass, mixing in tons of aged horse manure (okay, maybe not tons, but I have six horses) with the clay and hoping for the best :)

I mainly came over to this forum to check out plant spacing, which also seemed a little tight in the book.

I'm growing tomatoes in containers (basically, the same thing as a raised bed) and each one takes up just bit over a square foot. The key is providing enough nuits to each plant as well as having good soil, of course. I'm a big fan of watering every other week with a cup of compost tea per plant. I also loaded up the containers with green and brown leaves, a layer of tomato-tone fertilizer, and a decent amount of used potting mix along with the dirt.

Mike

No longer willing to till, ammend, and weed a row garden, I started my 150 sf garden mid season last year. I used 2x10 and filled to 6-8 inches. I noticed some settling and have decided to increase the depth of most of the boxes to 8-9 inches to give some plants more root depth. Even though I thought I mulched enough, this past summer had way too many +100 days. Production was good except for the Heirloom tomatoes, my Sungolds produced tons but I didn't get a single ripe Cheroke purple. The combination of a late start and high heat made it tough on the heirlooms, which in my experience need a bit more attention than the hybrids. What was surprising was the harvest of Purple Viking potatoes I got from just 6-7" of soil. Best mashed potatoes ever. I'm picking Arugula,Lettuces,Baby chard and spinach, from my first winter garden ever. That would not be happening in my old row garden. As others have said, Mel's book is a great start but you need to improvise as to what works for you and what doesn't.

Hi swarthhog,

My potatoes did well year before last as well in 6 inch beds. I did red potatoes and it was lots of fun for me and my 5 year loved finding them :)

I think your right about the heirlooms, now I got some cherokee purples out of mine, not many. Non of my cherries did well. Super sweet 100's did great for me in '08, a hybrid I know. I liked them, except for me I thought the skins were a little unedible at times.

I'm trying to get a list of tomatoes for this year together, not sure which way to go.

Andrea

What swarthog said.

I used to live in Sacramento and it took a couple of years to find which toms took to containers in that place (Green Grape! Yuuuummmm!!). I have ~200 sf raised here in Colorado and the same with the heirlooms in containers (SWCs) and raised bed, and some vars I've abandoned because they just don't produce in our season window and low RH. I've also abandoned pole beans and certain lettuce vars and my "sunbox" design is much different than the old Mel book as are my trellises and some spacing is modified so I can put in something to retain heat and and and. And I have lots of greens over the winter because raised beds take longer to freeze solid here at 5700 feet zone 5 (Sunset 2b).

You must take your knowledge and experience and apply it to your situation, as it is likely different than the instruction books' - this is true in many more things than just gardening.

Dan

I mistyped about the Sun golds, They were Sun Sugar (F1) and while I prefer heirlooms, I'm not opposed to a few hybrids here and there. For some the taste might not be up there, but a home grown hybrid is still miles ahead of the grocery store varieties.

Andrea, I just placed my order for tomato seeds last night after much research and space allocation. Here is what I decided on this year.

AMISH PASTE, The only other tomato to do well last year for me. Wonderful for salsas,
BLACK FROM TULA, new for me
BOX CAR WILLIE, another new one
BRANDYWINE TOMATO, RED, I only got a few last year but they were heaven, best tomato I have ever eaten.
CHEROKEE PURPLE, giving it another chance
BRANDYWINE TOMATO, YELLOW new to me, but even better than the reds? we will see.
KELLOGG'S BREAKFAST another new one for me

I might add a couple of more later if I build a new box or two, but for now that's it for space. I also wanted to comment on Mel's vertical methods. The rebar/conduit/nylon netting is da bomb! So much so that I'm giving up on bush beans this year and going to poles, that will be placed to give a little shade for my less heat loving veges.

I am new to square foot gardening. I just got my planter boxes. I saw your post and I thought sf means San Francisco gardening. LOL. I am from San Francisco. I just worry about the soil quality being not so safe for crops, and also my knee and back find a benefit to a raised bed. I have some small dogs that walk on things and also poop, so I can see a lot of benefits.

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of one of my planter boxes

Hello!
The title scared me, since I am just beginning SFG!! But I kept reading and it all sorted out.

My plans are made for 4 8'x3' beds with 10" wide boards. DH will till one last time, and I will pull out the old grass and weeds. Then, I will put many layers of newspaper or cardboard down, and the boxes will then be added. They will have rebar at the corners and down the sides, so hoop row covers can be added.

Then, the paths will be laid out, with cardboard on the grass and weeds, and 4 to 6 inches of freshly shredded pine mulch, which should have enough heat to continue to kill the weeds and grass.

After all that is in place, the beds will be filled with Mel's mixture probably just to 6 inches this year, and then more will be added each year.

Besides that, we will have sugar snap peas on a wire trellis, since they can be started now or in a week or so.

I am so tired of weeding and dragging the water hose, this method should be a relief.

I surrendered my square foot garden when I moved from our suburban home out to the country. Now that we have the space, I have a more traditional garden using raised beds (without the enclosure wood) and hills. For the 2010 season, I will be setting up a small square foot/kitchen garden close to the house for the things that really did well in the square foot gardens: lettuce, spinach, peas, beans, and herbs. For everything else, the 'production' garden is much better, especially root crops like beets, carrots and leeks.

Every gardening system has it's time and it's place. Don't get caught up in the Mel's salemanship: traditional gardening is far superior when you reach the 200sf and over mark.

I'd like to just pop in with a word about tomato yields this past summer: here in the northeast (and I believe this was true for many other parts of the US as well) we were hit with a lot of cool wet weather all summer. This not only compromised the amount of sun the tomato plants could get, but also encouraged a great deal of disease, ie tomato blight. We got literally ONE healthy tomato out of 8 heirloom plants (which were grown in a traditional garden). The rest were all blighted and horrible and just a mess. Even at the farmers markets and grocery stores, tomatoes were in very short supply and prices were high.
I'm saying this to say that I wouldn't necessarily automatically blame either the SFG method *or* the use of heirloom plants/seeds for a lack of yield during summer 2009.
The good news is that two cool, rainy summers in a row is pretty unusual, so I have high hopes for summer 2010! :-D This will be our first year of SFG en masse (the past two years I did smaller experiments with SFG methods), so it should be fun!

I'm in Cincinnati, which had more than its share of cool, wet whether. Yet I had one of the best harvests, not just from maters but also hot peppers and potatoes, and green beans than I have had in years. Maybe the reason for the tomatoes was that I used a Florida Weave on them which kept the plants from sprawling, but that doesn't explain the other veggies. I blame, or credit, that I tilled the roots of winter wheat into the ground a couple of weeks before planting. It seemed to help the soil to drain better in very wet weather but retain moisture in the couple of three weeks early in the year when it was dry.

Just my 2¢ worth and YMMV,

Mike

Andrea,

I'm glad to read about your change in heart. I've been changing my "traditional" garden towards more of a SFG for about 3 years now. I don't use the whole SFG method. I have a variation on the mix, but not the true "Mel's Mix".

As others have stated, my tomatoes took a beating this year (all heirlooms) because of cooler, cloudier conditions. However, a tomato that might be worth trying is "Sub Arctic Plenty" (SAP). I tried them for the first time this year in an effort to get earlier tomatoes. Their claim is to be much more effective at cold temp fruit setting. Well, I can tell you that this year these tomatoes easily outperformed ANY of my other plants. In fact, they produced more than ALL my other tomato plants combined. I had 6 "SAPs", 8 Giant Beefsteaks, 7 Amish Pastes, and 6 Pink Oxhearts. The SAPs more than doubled the production of the other plants. In fact, I was shocked at how truly prolific they were. These tomatoes are "determinate", and I had planned to pull them and replace with a second round after their first harvest, but things got busy last summer. I never got around to it. I just left them in the ground. And they put out tomatoes in spurts from July - November. It was AWESOME. Just something to try. (Note: their size is a little bit smaller than a baseball.)

Even a few of these plants could help your production if we have another cool summer.

I also had a problem last year with...what is it called?...where the bottom of the tomatoes turn black. ALL of my container tomatoes did this. But the ones that were started from seed (heirlooms) in the "raised bed" did pretty good. I think my harvest was rendered to too less soil. I think my soil settled to below the 6 inch mark. I am planning on adding some Epsom (or is it Epson?) salt to the soil where the tomatoes will be planted (NOT in containers but in the garden) to ward off this problem.

Also, I was going to till up the earth underneath the boxes. Does weed cloth hinder root growth? Sounds like a dumb question but I wonder if tomato roots (and others) were strong enough to go through the cloth since my Bermuda grass (WEEDS is more like it!) made it through. Since Mom has been successful in the past with growing tomato plants directly in the old garden without much amending to the soil (it has been worked for YEARS), then I would block off square feet, plant with a tad more space than Mel suggests (with bigger paths!! He wasn't kidding on that part) and grow "easy" plants there and "raised beds" for the other things. But I just wondered if I should skip the weed cloth to give them more growing room (oh the weeds will be TERRIBLE).

jengc,

Blossom end rot.

It's typically from a lack of calcium.

You might want to consider kelp meal. Kelp meal contains all sorts of the micronutrients that different plants need that many fertilizers don't have.

So epsom salt doesn't help? I also read where Tums with calcium would work. I hate to go out and buy MORE soil amendments when I can just use something from the house (poor economy and all). But if that is the only thing that will work....DEFINITELY then I will do it.

jengc,

I am NOT saying that epsom salt will not help. Anything that has calcium will help with bottom end rot. Although hydrated lime is probably preferred.

I am merely suggesting that the addition of kelp meal is a near perfect amendment for the soil. The kelp (especially if it is harvested fresh, not the stuff that washes up on shore) contains all the micronutrients that plants need to be fully healthy. The bottom end rot is a single symptom of a single deficiency in the soil. All plants have certain elements that they need to have available to produce fully nutritious and healthy plants. If the soil does not contain these elements, the plants that grow there cannot either. Sometimes you will not be aware of these elements missing, because there is no glaring symptom (like the BER for tomatoes). Other times the plants will be more prone to insect pest attack, because the insects tend to be attracted to plants that are stressed.

My suggestion of kelp meal is that adding this amendment to the soil will help promote the healthy growth of all your plants, because it contains the micronutrients that they all need. It should also help your BER problem as well.

If you can't afford it, just get the remedy for BER, but if you have a little extra, kelp meal can go a long way to keeping ALL your plants happy and healthy. Happy, healthy plants produce more and have less pest problems than stressed plants. Just something to keep in mind.

Since I live no where near the ocean (but that WOULD be a good excuse to go! heheh), I assume that I can get this in bags at my nearest garden center? (I was thinking Walmart but not sure if that would be the HIGHEST quality).

And by the way, thank you so much for your suggestion. I hope I didn't come off...rude :D

jengc,

There are a lot of sources for this. I am not sure if your local garden center has it, but there are a lot of online sources, as well. One thing to be careful of is to try to find a supplier that uses fresh cut kelp, rather than old dead stuff. The live kelp contains more nutrients than the dead ones.

Personally, I use the stuff from Gardens Alive! The price is nice, and they do offer some nice discounts... occasionally they have free shipping offers, they also do a $25 coupon on orders of $50 or more from time to time. There are a lot of other suppliers as well. Shop around to find the best price.

And no, you didn't come off as rude. I try to garden as cheaply as possible as well! That's why I start my own seeds now, I can't afford all the transplants I would need for my garden! I would love absolutely LOVE to put in nicer looking raised beds, with uniform sides and all. Instead I use whatever is available. Also, I would love to have an unheated greenhouse, but can't afford it yet. And the list goes on and on and .... ;^)

I read in a couple of books that eggshells, crushed and placed in the planting hole with tomatoes will help with BER. I go through dozens of eggs, so this is cheep, cheep, cheep. LOL.
Keski

That's right! I forgot about that. Would both egg shells and epsom salt be over kill? We go through eggs like crazy too. Plus a friend of mine raises chickens and is ALWAYS giving us 1 1/2 dozen of eggs. She said she just has TOO many! I say, bring it on!! lol