The Benefits Of Square Foot Gardening

Square foot gardening was the brainchild of Mel Bartholemew. It is a type of intensive gardening where it is believed that conventional home gardening with its wide rows of plans are a complete waste of time, energy and resources. Mel Bartholemew firmly believed that even more vegetables can be grown in lesser place as compared to conventional gardening.

In the method of square foot gardening the space is divided into equal beds of 4' x 4', 16 sq ft or 120cm x 120cm, 1.4m² gardens being recommended and separated by paths. The beds are further divided into smaller squares of 1 foot each and planted with vegetables. The most common setup for larger plants is one plant per square. The larger plants normally grown are broccoli, basil, etc. for medium large plants like lettuce, the setup is four plants per square and for medium sized plants like spinach, it is nine per square. For small plants like onions and carrots it is sixteen plants per square. The beds are weeded and watered from the pathways so that the garden soil does not become compacted.

Let's us delve further into the benefits of square foot gardening.

1) More Harvest in Less Space - This is the most common characteristic of square foot gardening. Square foot gardening removes all unwanted space and increases the harvest due to the rich soil mixture.

2) Lesser Work - Conventional gardening requires more efforts and more tools in comparison to square foot gardening. In the case of square foot gardening, the soil is never compacted and the soil remains loose and loamy.

3) Savings in Water - Due to the particular nature of the soil and its water holding capabilities, square foot gardening does not need frequent watering. Water is placed very close to the plants; as a result water is saved.

4) Little Weeding - Due to close planting, the vegetables form a living mulch and shade out many weeds before they begin to grow.

5) No use of Pesticides/ Herbicides - Square foot gardening uses natural insect repellants like pest repelling plants to keep away the insects. One of the most common pest repelling plants is marigold. Also a large variety of plants in a small space leads to lesser chances of plant diseases spreading to other plants.

6) Accessibility - Square foot gardening can be made accessible to elders also. For example a plywood box can be attached to the bottom of the box and the box can be placed on a raised platform for the elderly people to use.