by KIM HILSENBECK
If you’ve heard the term square foot gardening, you may be familiar with what it is and how it works. But if you’re like some of us at All Around Hays – okay, specifically this writer – you have no idea what SFG is or how you would go about creating such a thing at your home.
The concept of square foot gardening (SFG) is simple: uses fewer resources such as space/dirt, water and fertilizer, in a way that requires very little work, yet produces a crop equal to a single row garden five times its size.
Created more than 30 years ago by Mel Bartholomew of Utah, SFG helps gardeners around the globe produce crops for themselves at 40 percent of the cost in 20 percent of the space with two percent of the work.
Mel Bartholomew, author of “All New Square Foot Gardening,” also has a show on PBS called “Square Foot Gardening.” Bartholomew created the Utah-based Square Foot Gardening Foundation, a 501(c)3 nonprofit.
His ultimate goal is to end world hunger; he reasoned that since the planet is running short on usable land, adequate fresh water supplies and funds to help support populations with high rates of malnutrition, SFG offers an ideal solution to the problem.
To help explain and demonstrate, we spoke with Halley Ortiz of Manchaca about her efforts to take the concept of SFG from nebulous to fabulous.
Ortiz started her SFG project more than a year ago with about five raised beds – SFG uses a four by four raised bed construct that allows for 16 square feet of gardening.
She recently added three new beds and a greenhouse to her property.
The Hays Free Press caught up with Ortiz as she was finishing work on the new beds.
“The basic concept of square foot gardening is to know how much space and resources each plant needs to grow,” she said. “For example, you can get 16 radishes and carrots in a foot. But tomatoes should be planted one per square foot.”
Likewise, Ortiz said beans and peas can have about eight or nine per foot while lettuce, chard and bulb onions should be about four per square foot. But scallions can planted 16 per square foot.
The other advantage, Ortiz said, is the ability to use the vertical space, too, for sprawling veggies and fruits such as tomatillos, cantaloupes and squash.
“You can train the vines to go up instead of spreading outward and taking up a lot of valuable garden space,” she said.
Another benefit, says Ortiz, is that the right amount of planting in a square foot, so long as you water and compost, will grow appropriately and help with weed control.
An important piece of the equation, Ortiz said, is the quality of the soil used in the raised beds. She uses Hill Country Blend and turkey compost (from turkey poop), both from The Natural Gardener in Austin’s Oak Hill area. She said the knowledge and experience from local nurseries and garden shops like that one, as well as It’s About Thyme in Manchaca and Reid’s Nursery near Kyle are extremely helpful in the process of learning about square foot gardening and other issues.
One thing she has seen on most websites about SFG is a wooden grid placed over the beds. She doesn’t recommend that route, however, because it can prevent gardener from accessing the soil as much as they should.
“You need to get in there. You should be tilling in some organic fertilizer, you should be top dressing with compost. That grid prevents easy access to spaces,” she said.
Ortiz decided to use hot pink masonry twine in her beds. She put nails in one-foot increments around the beds and tied the twine to them, making them easily moved when needed.
To aid in creating better soil, Ortiz also composts in her backyard.
The results of her SFG efforts have been mostly positive, with some failures.
“It’s all a learning process,” Ortiz said.
Be sure to read the April issue of All Around Hays for more gardening tips and how-tos on everything from organic composting to attracting butterflies and hummingbirds. Visit www.haysfreepress.com and click on Online Editions.
