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Post by daylilydude on Jan 7, 2011 8:38:27 GMT -5
Does anyone do this type of gardening and tell us some of your secrets.
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Barton
Junior Member
Zone 6a-ish Lake Erie influenced climate
Posts: 70
Joined: December 2010
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Post by Barton on Jan 7, 2011 12:42:08 GMT -5
I've read both editions of the Mel Bartholomew SFG book. I have enough space that I don't practice square-foot methods, but I did glean some ideas from the books. I like to steal and modify. For instance, I use a modified trellis design and some inter-planting suggestions.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2011 15:21:27 GMT -5
I've read both editions of the Mel Bartholomew SFG book. How different are the editions? There are used copies of the older version that are quite cheap on Amazon, but I'm not clear on whether there are significant differences? The only difference Amazon lists is that the newer edition is "freshened with new illustrations." ..wait, then there's the "all new" square foot gardening book. Is that what you meant by the other edition? *ahem* so I guess my actual question is "Is there any reason I shouldn't get a used copy of the edition published in 1981 rather than the reprint?"
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Trudi
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Post by Trudi on Feb 7, 2011 19:46:25 GMT -5
The book is worth the money if simply for the spacing diagrams. It's one of the few garden books I own that I paid full price for a long time ago, if you can get a used copy on ebay or amazon then go for it.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Joined: January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2011 10:29:32 GMT -5
The book is worth the money if simply for the spacing diagrams. It's one of the few garden books I own that I paid full price for a long time ago, if you can get a used copy on ebay or amazon then go for it. Are those in the 1981 edition too? When I first read what Barton said, I thought by "both editions" he meant printings ( this one vs. this one, but that was before I saw the All New Square Foot Gardening book, which looks like it's out of print, as Amazon isn't selling new copies dirrectly, and the ones available through them start at $65 (!! looks like the list price for that one is $19, and Barnes and Noble's website does have it in stock, though.) Anyway, though, the 2005 version of what I take it is the original book says that it has new illustrations, but I don't know if that's additional illustrations or just redone illustrations, or whether there are advantages to the newer version of the same book? Sorry to get nitpicky.. I don't want to order the older one only to find that I should have ordered the newer addition of the same one, but at the same time, I don't want to pay more for the newer one when I could get just as much out of the older one. And WHY would someone put out a bunch of printings of a book, including an updated version, and then come up with a totally new book with almost the same name?? In a world where "new and improved" is used willy nilly, "all new" is a very vague statement.
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Post by izitmidnight on Feb 14, 2011 12:02:35 GMT -5
I have both books. I found more useful information in the older book. I borrowed the older one from the library. Then bought the newer version. Had to go back and buy a used older version to get the information I wanted.
But that will be a personal preference. I suggest you borrow a copy from the library to see if you want to buy it.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
Joined: April 2018
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Post by caesg on Apr 23, 2019 13:22:12 GMT -5
I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea of using just 2 sqft of space between each winter squash plant and each melon plant. I'll be trellising. So, I'm not worried about pests or disease from crowding. I'm worrying about sufficient... nutrition?...root competition...? What are your thoughts, NJTers?
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Post by brownrexx on Apr 23, 2019 16:13:14 GMT -5
It's interesting but it sounds pretty crowded to me and space is not limited in my garden so I have no interest in Square Foot Gardening.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Apr 23, 2019 16:30:42 GMT -5
I'm having a hard time swallowing the idea of using just 2 sqft of space between each winter squash plant and each melon plant. I'll be trellising. So, I'm not worried about pests or disease from crowding. I'm worrying about sufficient... nutrition?...root competition...? What are your thoughts, NJTers? It IS tight, but if you're trellising so that the vine grows up a trellis, it's doable. Make sure you feed your plants a decent fertilizer every once in a while and stay on top of any weeds that try to crowd in and suck up some of your precious space.
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Post by paquebot on Apr 23, 2019 22:17:45 GMT -5
Tried it when first on TV about 35 years ago. When you stop to look at it, it's a combination of short wide-row and container growing. I have many 7-gallon pots which are about one square foot That would not work if grown in the soil, mainly due to root requirements.
Martin .
The truth is more important than the facts.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Apr 24, 2019 10:14:23 GMT -5
caesg , an important concept behind square foot gardening (which is also applicable to SIPs) is that you are maximizing yield per square foot, not yield per plant. So you closely space the plants, and maybe each plant is smaller than it could get if it had more room, but you end up with more yield per square foot. That's crucial if you are space-limited. As a hypothetical example, say you give each squash plant half the room it would get in a conventional garden, but you get 3/4 of the conventional yield per plant. So since you have twice as many plants in your space, your yield is 2 times 3/4 = 1 1/2 the yield of planting conventionally. Congratulations, you came out ahead! I don't technically do square foot gardening, but I often use SFG plant spacing charts to plant my raised beds. In practice, I think SFG generally works well, but it works better for some vegetables than others. You have to be extra-careful which plants you put next to others. A summer squash, for example, is going to shade out smaller vegetables next to it and take all the space it wants. You'll get a great yield from the squash, but nothing from the lettuce, bush beans, carrots, etc., you planted next to it - I've been there, done that. So you want to keep big, fast-growing space hogging plants in their own beds and let them duke it out with each other. (However, you can usually sneak in a fast spring crop like radishes, leaf lettuce, spinach, or other greens to be harvested at baby leaf stage by planting them a little earlier than your space hog plant. Just sow them all around where your space hog will be planted. Then you harvest them as the space hog gets big and takes over.) But an example of where SFG works really well is combining vertical crops with other crops to get the most out of a bed. You can trellis one side of your bed and grow vines up it - peas, pole beans, and even cucumbers need surprisingly little root room to thrive if the soil is good and you keep up with watering. A 6" wide swath along one side of the bed is enough for pole beans or cucumbers. Seriously, I have gotten 30+ lbs of cucumbers out of 4 square feet of dirt in a raised bed - a 6" wide swath along the side of a 4' long bed. In that space I plant 8-10 plants and provide a tall, strong trellis. (However, cucumbers will need a LOT of water if planted that closely. Mulching deeply once the vines start to run helps, too. If you can't provide the water, you will need to plant at much wider spacing.) Just be sure to position the trellis so it doesn't shade the rest of the bed, and then you can use almost the entire surface of the bed for other plants. I would avoid planting big, heavy feeders next to the trellis, though, especially if you're planting densely. Pole beans and cucumbers are not going to like the root competition. Lettuce, carrots, smaller herbs and greens would be better neighbors for the trellis. Climbing peas need a little more space, not for their roots, but because they get bushy as well as climb - probably give them more like a 1' wide swath or they will get their tendrils all tangled up in the adjacent plants. I haven't tried trellising melons or squash yet, so I don't know how wide a swath along the side of the bed you realistically need for their roots. Either way, you'd need a STRONG trellis for those. Also, you'd need to make slings for melons so they don't slip off the vine too early. I also wonder whether a trellised winter squash will be less vigorous and fruitful since they can't root along the vine to take up more water and nutrients. More importantly, if you live in an area where squash vine borers are a problem, trellised plants don't have the chance to put roots down anywhere except at the base. So if SVBs were to bore into the vine close to the base, you'd lose the whole plant. But if the plant were in the ground putting down roots at each leaf node, you might only lose part of it. Another thing square foot gardening is great for is "cut and come again" greens. You don't get big beautiful full round heads of lettuce, but you do get huge harvests of fresh young leaves and you can harvest over and over. Carrots and small radishes are also fantastic for SFG. Peppers don't mind being a bit crowded, either. But you may notice some loss of fruit size on large-fruited varieties. And some varieties are a lot taller and more vigorous than others, so they may shade out the smaller varieties. My gut feeling is that the recommended SFG spacing for bush beans is too close. But I haven't done any controlled experiments to compare yield per SF at different spacing. TLDR: Square foot gardening works well overall, but in my experience it's better for some plants than others.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on Apr 24, 2019 12:47:23 GMT -5
I watched Mel back in the day. Raised beds were not my thing until last year. Things grew great in them, but I like patch farming cause I like to walk amongst my plants and shake them. It's a habit.
I think greens grown in a raised bed are nice.
Tomatoes I like a patch!
As for spacing, I'm not big on crowding anything, but if you have a small space, you do what's necessary.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
Joined: April 2018
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Post by caesg on Apr 26, 2019 13:14:35 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, Thanks for the thorough response. The sfg/container gardening comparison makes a lot of sense. Often, I'm going more for variety than production. With a family of just the 2 of us, many plants produce more than we can/will eat. I really like the insight about squash having the ability to root themselves in multiple places and thus perhaps take up more nutrients. If I recall correctly, we don't have squash bine vorers but do have "squash bugs" which are the stink bugs. I'm planning to plant a trap crop for them, and need to get on that, ASAP. I like the idea of using cattle panels for a frame trellises. I'm a little concerned about them getting too hot in our beating sun here, though. Also, about transporting them without a truck. I could maybe take bolt cutters with me to the store to cut them down to size and then zip tie them back together at the garden. Hrm. I'm going to reference this thread as I place the finishing touches on my garden planning map. I've got all the tallest plants to the north of the plot and the shortest to the south. I bunched together the spring/fall medium height plants and also bunched together the tall and medium height plants that are heat loving. We'll see!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Apr 26, 2019 14:26:12 GMT -5
Sounds great!
You could probably paint your cattle panel white to keep it cooler, but that would be a pain and I doubt that it's necessary. I don't think it would get too hot. I use metal EMT conduit for trellis frames, and my vines routinely twine all around the metal. I am in Florida, so the summer sun is pretty intense here. Maybe some others can chime in, but I think the cattle panel won't get too hot as long as it is the normal light gray/silver color, and not painted black or something.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
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Post by caesg on May 5, 2019 16:07:28 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, I thought of your comment, here, yesterday while moving around these new-to-me aluminum cans. The aluminum cans are shiny and bright and get reeeeeeeeeeally hot. The cattle panels are mor of a dull grey color. I guess that makes a difference!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 5, 2019 18:13:04 GMT -5
I'm surprised that the bright and shiny cans would be so hot - I would have thought that their high reflectivity would keep them from heating up so much.
I have read that one thing folks in desert climates do is wrap planters with styrofoam. It's not pretty, but it keeps most of the heat from the blazing sun from getting into the container and soil.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
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Post by caesg on May 6, 2019 15:18:30 GMT -5
I'm surprised that the bright and shiny cans would be so hot - I would have thought that their high reflectivity would keep them from heating up so much. Huh. Yeah, people put aluminum foil up in their windows to reflect the heat. I dunno! They were definitely hot, though. Like how an aluminum pan will get hot. I have read that one thing folks in desert climates do is wrap planters with styrofoam. It's not pretty, but it keeps most of the heat from the blazing sun from getting into the container and soil. t and shiny cans would be so hot - I would have thought that their high reflectivity would keep them from heating up so much. Huh. I haven't seen that out and about. I see a lot of folks with arbors built over their boxes and they hang shade cloth there. The thought of stacking straw bales around the containers to help insulate them has come to mind before.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 6, 2019 16:38:57 GMT -5
If you have the straw bales available, that should help.
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