I have lots of space in my yard, but over the years have migrated more toward small block gardening with some emphasis on interplanting. Square foot gardening IMO is one of the best sources for techniques related to intensive gardening. The book has recently been updated and is a great read and is great to keep on hand for reference.
Here is a link to a recent edition listed at Amazon.
You may also want to draw from interplanting techniques, which combine intensive gardening with the idea of companion planting. The two methods give the best bang for the buck, so to speak, in giving the greatest yield in a given amount of space.
Last edited by hendi_alex on Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I will also be trying out the sq ft gardening this year. I've been reading up and it seems to be filled with great ideas and believe it or not I'm finding out that some of the methods are more common sense then anything else. I've been reading and a few times thought well du that sounds smart why didn't I think of that.
Interesting, when I first began researching gardening in limited spaces, square foot gardening was the first to jump out.
However, I dismissed the idea, thinking its suited for gardeners with ample space. It appears to me that a lot of sqft is eaten by the pathways between boxes. Is that not the case? Are the claims that its more efficient than row planting true?
In your garden you have a certain amount of planting space and a certain amount of access space. Actually square foot gardening will increase your planting space by decreasing the wasted space between rows. Since square foot gardening usually uses planting blocks, IMO, access space will actually be reduced. You can have a wide row of perhaps four feet, not too wide to reach the mid point, by whatever length is available, the four foot section will have an access path on each side. The planting blocks can have physical barriers to define the space, but that is not essential. In traditional row gardening, a person can walk down any row. Another way of looking at it is that the four foot wide planting area for square foot gardening would have to be 8 to 12 feet wide in order to contain the same number of plants when using traditional row planting.
Gardening is like many other things however, as it is highly individualized and a person has to stay within his/her comfort zone, and use methods that appeal at the personal level.
Not only Square Foot Gardening, but selective use of John Jeavons' methods as shown in How to Grow More Vegetables... will help.
No need (probably) to purchase these books; check your local library to see if they have circulating copies. Read through them, then decide if you'd like to purchase your own copies for continual reference. (That's what I did last year.)
I just checked out Square Foot Gardening a couple of days ago. It is great for learning new tips and tricks, but there are some things I would rather do my way... like the soil mix. Either way this is a helpful book and you will walk away with a lot of good ideas. For small garden areas, I can see how square foot gardening would be helpful to you.
