Square Foot Gardening (Merged Thread)

mardatha

Bordercars, I'm up in the hills miles from anywhere We are plotting how to make the sons do it. One son is good & helps a lot, so I don't like asking him. the other one is a PITA. (must take after his dad ...)LOL
TY all for lovely help.

bordercars

Have you thought of landshare, it's been started by Hugh F W from river cottage, the idea is you let someone grow on your land they give you some produce or help or you go on their land and help them, link to landsharew at bottom. worth a read if nothing else


http://www.rivercottage.net/landshare/

mardatha

but everybody up here has tons of land of their own... and I'm a fat lot of good to anybody !! Actually I'm now looking at tubs to grow tatties in --3 for £14.95. They look promising, along with a small plot for the carrots & onions...

Rummer

I know you have all said that you are better off making raised beds but does anyone know of a fairly priced supplier of ready made ones? I was hoping for wood but are the plastic ones the better option in the long term as I want to buy three beds each year until I have 9 and I want them to last. Thank you in advance for all your help.

ZCC72

Hi all, I am new to SFG - kind parentals donated wood (fresh oak! Looks lovely!) and put up sturdy beds in the garden. I am now trying to source coarse vermiculite - can anyone suggest good suppliers?

I have got seeds in the propagator, on the windowsill in readiness. I have potatoes chitting (these will go in a separate planter), and the tomatoes will be in a hanging basket. I am a single lass, and hope to grow all my own veg and salad for this year - I am planning carefully to ensure that the beds are as fruitful as they can be, but any advice or assistance would be gratefully received!

Re Rummers question on plastic/wood, I was looking (before parental intervention) and recall finding a plastic bed for about £18. Can't remember where though, sorry!

Larumbelle

ZCC72 wrote: »

Hi all, I am new to SFG - kind parentals donated wood (fresh oak! Looks lovely!) and put up sturdy beds in the garden. I am now trying to source coarse vermiculite - can anyone suggest good suppliers?

If you have a hydroponics centre near you, they are normally pretty cheap, you can buy 100l of horticulture grade for about £15 at my local one, which works out a lot cheaper than the garden centres. If you've got lots of beds and need more, you can buy insulation grade from a builder's merchant but MAKE SURE IT'S GUARANTEED ABESTOS FREE - asbestos seams are common in vermiculite, and a lot of the stuff sold to builders contains it :eek:

zaffre

I have built myself a 6ftx2ftx1ft deep container...... unfortunately, I didnt think very far ahead.
I now need good growing soil, I dont own a car, so a bit puzzzled as to what to now do (short of sneaking around the council estate at night, wearing a balaclava and carrying a shovel ).

Any suggestions would be welcome.

lightisfading

zaffre wrote: »

I have built myself a 6ftx2ftx1ft deep container...... unfortunately, I didnt think very far ahead.
I now need good growing soil, I dont own a car, so a bit puzzzled as to what to now do (short of sneaking around the council estate at night, wearing a balaclava and carrying a shovel ).

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Some councils sell off their compost (made from the brown bin recycling etc) cheaply, and may deliver - a friend in Manchester had a couple tonnes dumped on her lawn for not too much money

Apart from that it'll be the garden centre I should think! I'm sure some will deliver.

gingernutbizkit

Hi all,

I have decided to use the square foot method for my new raised vegetable beds and am after a bit of advice.

Firstly, the soil mixture requires large quantities of vermiculite - where's th cheapest place to get this?

Secondly, 1/3 of the mixture is suppose to be peat moss but I'm not really wanting to use this due to the environmental reasons. Is there a suitable alternative?

Thirdly, what success have other people had with this method? Is there any crops it doesn't work for or anything worth knowing?

Many thanks, Ging x

Lucycat

I did a very much 'make & do' form of square foot gardening last year in my raised bed (i.e. - liked the sound of it but picked and chose which bits to do) - basically I divided up the bed with string but just used regular multi-purpose compost, lol! :rotfl:

Planting was brilliant, very easy to keep track of what went in where, and similarly very easy to keep on top of weeding, thinning, etc. & if I'm honest we had a great first year of proper veggie growing.

My bed's prepped again the same for this year (but with home-made compost this time - see, I'm getting there!) Peas, beans, courgettes and toms will be going in different parts of the garden this year to make them more manageable (they got very big and shaded too much or ran roughshod over other veggies.)

Hopefully this will allow room for more of everything that did well - spinach, corn salad, beetroot, basil, rocket (all the neat things!) - I sowed flowers & veg in successional squares for an experiment in complimentary planting & used some squares as a nursery.

Lots of new things too (garlic, onions, spring onions, chives, more flowers.) Can't wait to start getting things in - it's a great big exhillarating learning curve!

Good luck with your veggies!