jkolive
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Garden Plot Layout for Square Foot Gardening

Here is an image I drew up of my plot layout and what I would like to grow in each section. Based on the idea of the square foot gardening. I am no where near the amount of plants he says I can put in each section, but his amounts seem insane! I'm not sure what I would do with 36 onions in 1 foot of space.

Please give me your thoughts opinions and feed back! Thank you.

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imafan26
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I think you have a few errors in the plan.

The broccoli spacing is 18-24 inches. The broccoli should be positioned on the vertices of 4 blocks. That would give you 12 inches in all directions from the center.
I would also put the spinach in the blocks between the two broccoli. It will be harvested before the broccoli need the space.

Watermelon also takes up a bit of space. If you are going to let the vines trail outside of the garden fine or if you are using an icebox watermelon like sugar baby, you could trellis it to take up less space. The spacing for watermelon is 24 to 36 inches. An untrellised watermelon would actually take up 3/4 of your garden which is close to reality.

The square foot garden plan eliminates the space between the rows but still follows the recommended spacing between plants. Remember each block is 12 inches. Divide the recommended spacing on the seed packet by two and and that will be the center of where you plant your seed. It is actually easier to see the spread if you use graph paper and a compass to draw a circle around each seed placement so it is easier to see how far the plant spread is. You will get a more realistic picture.

I had a hard time seeing it the first time I did it too. I actually ran out of plants before I ran out of room. I also knew that in reality that really would not work. SFG plan does not allow for interplanting of quick maturing crops in the same space as the slow ones, which is how I maximize space.

When I put a cucumber on a trellis, I put 2 cucumber seeds in block.

Over time, you will know how many plants will actually fit in the space and it will make more sense.

There is a guide to vegetable spacing at the end of the article. Dwarf, bush, vining crop spacing may differ if they are trellised or not. So, you need to take that in to consideration and follow the advice on the seed packet.

I would put the cucumbers, tomatoes, and if you have ice box melons on a trellis in the back.

You have plants with different watering needs and different likes in soil type and pH in the same bed, which is ok if you are hand watering and you have a well drained, near neutral soil. I would put the herbs, some of which are perennial either in their own bed or in pots instead. Strawberries need protection in the summer, so I usually plant them where they will get some shading in summer, otherwise I mulch them. They will send out runners and make lots of babies, so I usually give them more room. They are also perennial.

https://www.extension.iastate.edu/Publications/PM819.pdf

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applestar
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It's better to have an all annual bed that can be completely cleared at the end of the season. So yes, I would consider planting strawberries and the herbs in a separate area.

As it is, strawberries will attempt to take over the two square rows on either sides this year, and most likely nearly fill the bed next year.

One idea would be a square or circular raised bed with the four herbs planted in LARGE pots in the middle, which will provide drier, well draining soil, surrounded by the strawberry plants on the ground level.

I'm not sure exactly what the climate conditions are in central coast, Ca. So can't speak to the suitability of what to plant now.

Broccoli, radish, and lettuce, spinach are planted in eary spring and will finish up by summer. This will provide room for the watermelon and tomato to spread out. The pepper is not in an ideal location since it can get overwhelmed by the watermelon. You might be able to plant it in the radish block after they are done since pepper is likely the last to be planted.

jkolive
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All right thank you both for the advice! I'm going to spend some more time researching today and will draw up some new plans :)

I might be able to put the strawberries and the herbs in a 4x8 plot all on their own which would be nice :)

I have no clue what icebox watermelon is so I will have to go google that today. I just found trellis cucumber yesterday on accident and got excited so how cool I can trellis watermelon too! I will try and get some graph paper, but I'm not to sure I understand what you mean about drawing it out on that.

In the SFG it says I can plant 36 carrots in one 12 inch square. (Doesnt that seem like a lot of carrots) Or am I really under doing myself with only planting 8 in a 12 inch section?

Thanks for the info on the strawberries! I had no idea! Okay honestly I have no idea about any of this stuff :) It will be easy enough to mulch them though :)

Thanks for the input guys and I will add another design layout later!

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applestar
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Just previewed before posting and saw that you had posted -- you can start with 36 carrots 6x6 so 2" apart, but you will be thinning them every other one as baby carrots, so you won't be harvesting 36 full sized carrots. Carrots will eed more room as they grow, and it will depends on variety -- thinner longer carrots vs. fatter stubbier carrots.

...they don't always come up where you intend for them to and they don't always all come up either. To get the exact precision you want, you need to sow extra so there will be ones that are growing exactly where you want, then thin the rest mercilessly. It can get pretty wasteful.

--- rest were previously written so may be non sequitur ---

Just an idea -- there's a book called "carrots love tomatoes" and beans are generally good to plant at the outskirts of cucurbits like watermelon. And as you said, you may not need a full square of onion and maybe not radish either?

How about planting the carrots in the square you indicated for radishes?
Radishes and green onions in the next square up, then plant two squares of bush beans. (autocorrect is being REALLY funny today -- it replaced "radishes" with "RadioShack" :roll: )

Radish can also go in the far ends of tomato double squares. Mustard family like radish are good to plant before tomatoes in crop rotation.

You could plant the hot pepper in the radish/green onion square especially if the green onions are to be completely pulled -- start clearing the middle of the square for the little pepper plant to go in and finish up before the pepper needs the rest of the square. If you are planting perennial bunching onions, then this is not the right bed for them.

The current pepper square is also a good spot for ephemeral lettuce and spinach. (Gone by the time watermelon needs the room)

:lol:... This is another one of the reasons I don't do square foot gardening -- I obsess when armchair planning as it is without worrying about the garden beds in square foot sub parcels. :roll: :wink:

imafan26
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Sugar baby is one of the best known icebox watermelons. It is the size of a bowling ball about 11 lbs with a thin rind. The vines of icebox melons only go out about 6 ft. vs std watermelons which will take over the yard if you let it.

When you use graph paper, then you can draw your plans to scale. By using a compass you can place the seed in the compass pt and the circle would indicate the spread of the plant. You could even use one or a half sheet of graph paper for each block. That way you can move the blocks around on the floor until you get the best placement. It also helps to annotate things on each block like days to maturity, height, and planting dates for your area. It helps with planning placement and succession. After you have grown things for a while, you will find that you can picture the plant at maturity, where and how far apart to plant them. The Iowa ext. pub has a graph section. You can download the graph instead of buying paper. It is also good for general landscaping to show the placement of the garden beds, compost pile, etc in relation to the house and direction the garden is facing.

You can use plain paper, but you need to know that one block = 1 foot. Plants that fit in one block are not a problem. It only gets complicated when plants like broccoli, watermelon and squash and other spreading plants because they need multiple blocks.

When I plant eggplant, it takes one block, but the height is up to 5 ft and the spread 3 ft., so I can only plant short, understory crops next to it. In Hawaii eggplant is perennial and can last for years although I replace them after 2-3 years because production declines.

Broccoli will take all of its' block and parts of another because it spreads 18-24 inches. So you would need to plant only short crops in the surrounding blocks that can be harvested before the broccoli takes over the space. Squash, watermelon, tomatoes unless they are trellised will all sprawl out. Even one zucchini will spread bigger than one block.

A few of the limitations of SFG plans. They only allow one kind of plant in a block. I could do half a square with lettuce and half with beets instead. I would also plant green onions with peppers. It is also hard to show succession plants like lettuce or radish you can plant under slower growing spreading plants and harvest before the space hog needs the room. It is two dimensional and you have to think about the ultimate height and spread of the plants. Not all of them will stay within the block.

It is a good tool for the beginning gardener, but it does take a lot of thought and planning to work it out. It means researching a bit about the requirements of what you are planting or you could start with a preplanned sfg plan and substitute appropriately. Gardeners.com and BHG have pre designed garden plans.

I usually plant big spreading plants in pots. Kale, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, perennial herbs are mostly in pots(18 gal). I can move them apart when they need more room.

I trellis beans, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash vines. I use the garden for smaller crops, that can handle crowding and a few larger plants like peppers.I plant Asian greens, mustard, lettuce, spinach, daikon, swiss chard, green onions, cilantro, basil, parsley, dill, beets, and some bush beans. I also include some marigolds and nasturtiums.

I use an overhead trellis or the fence for opo, kabocha, and chayote squashes.

https://www.territorialseed.com/product/ ... melon_seed
https://home.howstuffworks.com/designing ... garden.htm
https://www.extension.iastate.edu/publications/pm612.pdf
https://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware. ... Preplanned
https://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/
Last edited by imafan26 on Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:01 pm, edited 4 times in total.

cynthia_h
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jkolive wrote: In the SFG it says I can plant 36 carrots in one 12 inch square. (Doesnt that seem like a lot of carrots) Or am I really under doing myself with only planting 8 in a 12 inch section?
And you said "36 of 'em" about onions, too. I'm confused; I have the 2005 edition of SFG, and in my book Mel recommends the following:

--16 carrots per square (page 201)
--16 onions per square (page 215)
--1 broccoli per square (page 198), so you could have two of them in the drawing you showed originally, placed in the center of each square

Is it possible that there's a typo somewhere?

Herbs can be perennial in regions without winter freezes. I'm not sure where you are on the Central Coast, but the Sunset climate zones available from Half Moon Bay down to Malibu are 17 and 24 (on the coast proper) and 15, 16, 14, 18, 20, 21, and 23 somewhat inland. If you're as far inland as Paso Robles or Atascadero, zone 7 comes into play. Of all these zones, only 7 and 15 regularly see sub-freezing temps.

So I definitely agree with the recommendations to give the herbs their own "perennial" home, maybe a large terra-cotta pot. Strawberries like to send out runners, so they need a different home, too, away from annual veggies.

Since this is your first year gardening, I suggest putting the "cool-season" veggies at one end of the box and the "warm-season" veggies/vines" at the other. Give the "warm-season" veggies the better sun position and let the "cool-season" veggies grow in the shade of the "warm" guys. That way, for this season you only need to find/build

--one full-on 4x8 with anti-squirrel lining
--one large terra-cotta pot for herbs (plastic will do, but I'm a traditionalist....)
--one home for strawberries for this year; maybe build a second full-on 4x8 with anti-squirrel lining later this year or early next year

Remember that, even though Mel says his system will work "anywhere," his information is actually geared to four-season gardening zones, which you and I and a lot of other gardeners do not live in. His recommended 6-inch depth is too shallow for many veggies, esp. in California adobe clay soils, and he leaves us on our own for fall/winter planting. When I last checked online, his address was in Utah.

But gardeners in the southwest deserts (Arizona, SoCal), ocean-moderated winter climates (Pacific Coast), Florida, parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast...these people need different information, and beginning gardeners who follow his schedule for "when to plant" will wonder why their tomatoes don't work and when/if they can plant anything in the fall, and his book won't give them the answers. :(

I used Mel's SFG system my first year back into gardening (Spring 2008) after a 10-year or so layoff due to a car accident, but the second season (and the late fall of 2008), I blended in Jeavons' biointensive system with the raised beds, and I've done my veggie gardening this "blended" way ever since. :)

Cynthia

imafan26
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I looked up broccoli in my square foot garden book. It does say one plant in the middle of 1 block. It also says the way that the broccoli is kept in bounds is to cut the leaves off. That is how it was made to fit. If you do that it will save space.

If you give the broccoli the room it wants it will go over the line.



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