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SFG – Day 1

Posted by BLin on December 6th, 2009

I’ve always wanted a garden, but my lack of usable land kind of gets in the way.  I stumbled on the Square Foot Gardening technique a few months back, and that’s when I got excited.  I waited until a more manageable season to start, which, ironically, is the winter here in PHX.

The gist of the technique is to divide a small area into individual square foot sections, and within each “square,” you grow one crop.  Depending on the size of the crop, you can fit 1, 4, 9, or even 16 plants per square.  This allows you to squeeze an abnormal amount of plants in a very tight space.  It also lends itself very well to succession planting, which is much more useful for a normal person (unless you like the idea of 8 heads of lettuce maturing at the same time).

In the upper left square, I’ve planted some swiss chard.  It’s a 4 per square plant, so I’ve elected to hold off on some and only planted 2 so far.  Lower left will be some lettuce (4 per square, same deal as the chard), and upper right will be spinach (9 per square).  I’m saving the lower right for more lettuce, which I’ll plant in about 4 weeks.

I’m excited about some fresh lettuce, so hopefully it’ll go well, and I’ve got some pretty ambitious plans for spring/summer (corn and sunflowers!).

I’ll keep y’all updated.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Some Pulp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

5 Responses to “SFG – Day 1”

  1. December 8th, 2009 at 1:18 am

    choof says:

    What a great system, it’s so efficient. Are you going to be growing any tomatoes?

  2. December 16th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    choof says:

    10 days, how’s it been going so far?

  3. December 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am

    BLin says:

    Got some wee little sprouts. Update post is coming…

  4. February 23rd, 2011 at 3:25 pm

    choof says:

    I just ordered the book. Going to be doing a 2×2, 3×3, or 4×4 this year. Looking forward to it. How was your overall experience? Worth it?

  5. February 24th, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    BLin says:

    Yeah dude. I should have kept up with the updates. Maybe I’ll do another soon. I’ve got lettuce and broccoli going right now. I had some corn growing decently (4 ears) last summer but I killed it when I went on vacation (no water).

    It’s a really nice way to grow in small spaces, and it really does work. I did find that I still had to feed plants that require a lot of nutrients (lettuce, broccoli, corn, etc.). Fish emulsion is pretty good (and relatively organic). Smells terrible, but whatev.

    I’m planning on building a substantial SFG when we buy a house at the end of the year. I’ll def be sharing that.

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