Square foot gardening

Mel Bartholomew taught me everything I know about gardening.

I grew up in the suburbs. We had a big front yard that was all lawn. The back yard was mostly lawn, a couple of trees and a swing set. I remember my dad digging a bed for a vegetable garden one year, but although I may have dug in the dirt once or twice I have no memories of eating anything that may have grown there. After grade 5, my family moved to a townhouse with a postage stamp sized yard surrounded by a wooden fence. The fence threw so much shade that it was hard to keep grass alive. All this to say that I didn't learn to garden as a child.

I stumbled across Mel's "Square Foot Gardening" book in the spring that I started my plot at Sweet Willow. I liked the anal retentive attention to detail, like plotting out the space with string to make sure you don't overcrowd the plants. And what he said made sense - you can maximize the potential of a small space by close planting and also reduce the amount of pests and weeds. As an added bonus, close planting leads to better water retention in the soil, since the plants provide cover through the mid-summer heat.

I tried some crazy stuff the first year. I had all my vines - cucumber, squash, snap peas, growing up on netting (looked like a hockey net really...). It worked well for the peas, but the squash got picked off by the squirrels and the cucumber just didn't produce any fruit. I got a lot of comments on the look of the plot - with the strings and the net it looked like some odd science fair project. Sadly, there are no pictures... I was amazed at how big things grew. The cherry tomato plant was supposed to be a compact bush variety, but by the end of July it was as tall as me and took a full three square feet of space. Fortunately I'd planted it in a corner, and it just spilled over the edges instead of pushing out other plants.

I missed Seedy Saturday yesterday but I'm starting to plan my garden for this coming summer. Believe it or not the snow has completely melted from the plots, so I might be cheeky and start planting a first crop of lettuce in mid-April. I've been spending time on Greta's website - she's local and the descriptions & images are very tempting. I'll keep you posted as I decide what's growing this year.