# Square Foot Gardening



## Capt Worley PE (Nov 26, 2012)

We got this book: http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1353937257&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=square+foot+gardening

We are probably going to try a couple of these boxes for the 2013 season. Along with continuing a small bit of out fence garden, for climbing crops (worked awesome for cukes last year).

Has anyone done this, and if so, any thoughts and tips?


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## OSUguy98 (Nov 26, 2012)

We did a little 4x8 raised bed garden last year. We grabbed a couple 4'x4' cedar raised bed kits at Home Depot fairly cheap. We planted WAY too much. We started seeds in my window here at work and planted (to the best of our knowledge) the layout which seemed logical. We definitely learned a few things:

We didn't do enough pruning/etc of the tomatoes, the 2 or 3 different kinds we planted all went crazy...

We planted 8 or 10 cukes, assuming only a few of the plants looked healthy enough to survive, 7 or 8 did, and they took over...

Strawberries went well, grabbed a few before they were too shaded by other plants... they have since taken over the entire 4x8 layout... they've been tilled under...

Our peppers (hot and bell) were too shaded by the tomato plants and didn't produce well...

The different lettuces we planted did well, but we didn't stagger them enough and had alot and then nothing...

The onions did well, both white and red...

MrsOSU found a site that you could give a size and pick your plants and print a map... It also told you how many seeds/seedlings to plant in that square foot. But we may have put too much thought into placement (these plants will provide shade/etc) and with our lack of pruning and knowledge, we ended up snuffing out a few plants...


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## blybrook PE (Nov 26, 2012)

The g/f got a similar book for christmas a couple years back. Still haven't setup the garden area properly to do it, but it's a great idea. I've started to keep my eyes open for some 55 gallon plastic drums to utilize as well (http://easiestgarden.com/barrel-garden/) It's similar to the sqaure foot garden, but in a vertical application.


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## csb (Nov 28, 2012)

Capt Worley PE said:


> We got this book: http://www.amazon.co...+foot+gardening
> 
> We are probably going to try a couple of these boxes for the 2013 season. Along with continuing a small bit of out fence garden, for climbing crops (worked awesome for cukes last year).
> 
> Has anyone done this, and if so, any thoughts and tips?


I totally applaud this and we've done some gardening, but CW posting this along with my recent watching of Doomsday Preppers is cracking me up. I'm imagining you in a bomb shelter, surrounded by canned goods.


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## Capt Worley PE (Nov 28, 2012)

csb said:


> Capt Worley PE said:
> 
> 
> > We got this book: http://www.amazon.co...+foot+gardening
> ...


Except for the bomb shelter, that's kinda where I'd like to be, but I haven't been gathering canned goods like I should.

Where I grew up out in the country, having a basement or root cellar stocked with canned food was a fact of life.


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## engineergurl (Nov 28, 2012)

That television show gives preppers a bad name. Just saying.

Edit: Although it is funny....


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## Capt Worley PE (Nov 28, 2012)

engineergurl said:


> That television show gives preppers a bad name. Just saying.
> 
> Edit: Although it is funny....


That's my take on it. They seem to be gearing their entire lifestyle towards some global end of the world apocalypse, instead of preparing for local, much shorter term emergencies.

I suspect the most anyone would realistically see is a national event on the order of magnitude of the Great Depression, or locally something like a hurricane or the Rodney King riots.


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## engineergurl (Nov 28, 2012)

exactly... sun flare ups, the apocalypse (zombie or other wise), economic down fall, government take over... the fact that all of them on there are preparing for one specific incident shows that they aren't really prepared. People should be prepared for things like unemployment, short term natural disasters and fairly local general civil unrest... chances are, martial law will be declared if needed and the feds will step in and start bailing people out anyway.


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## snickerd3 (Nov 28, 2012)

mr snick was watching on of those prepper shows ho he had survival holes throughout the propert y wuth food and ammo for a couple days. they did an update just as the credits were rolling the wife divorced his ass and won all the canned good in the divorce settlement...but she couldn't get to the house to collect them because the husband was armed and protecting the property.


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## engineergurl (Nov 28, 2012)

ahhh, that was the one where the lady was diabetic... and they were preparing for tornados...


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## csb (Nov 28, 2012)

I liked the guy in NYC who was prepping for the Yellowstone Super Volcano to explode.

I always joke that in the event of crisis, we'll start looting the local Mormon families that have food stored.


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## Capt Worley PE (Nov 29, 2012)

engineergurl said:


> That television show gives preppers a bad name. Just saying.
> 
> Edit: Although it is funny....


Oddly enough, that was a recent thread on a prepper site: http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=271550


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## csb (Nov 29, 2012)

I like their comment about overarmed. In the episode we watched, the guy had a ton of guns and talked about how everyone should know how to shoot and he was teaching his young sons. During the episode, he slipped his thumb down and it darn near got amputated. In fact, the NatGeo paramedics team had to step in and help him. He passed out. I'm thinking that means you're not prepared for a crisis if you 1. almost take off your own thumb by not shooting properly and 2. no one in your group knows how to handle the first aid for that.


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## engineergurl (Nov 29, 2012)

I haven't seen that episode, well I believe that any house hold that has guns in it, the children need to be taught the basics of safety and proper handling but until they can comprehend the actual consequence of the use of a gun, it's the parents responsibility to keep it out of their hands... I have seen episodes where they are equipping 4 year olds with AR-15s and turning things into a 'game' for their family.

People like that give gun owners a bad name...just saying...

(wow, I feel like I'm turning into that old man that yells 'get off my lawn!' ldman: )


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## csb (Nov 29, 2012)

My seven-year-old will get his first .22 this Christmas. It will live firmly in the locked gun cabinet. His entire life has been about gun safety and he can repeat back all of it to us. While watching Doomsday Preppers, I said, "I just don't think I could kill a person," and he agreed. That was when I realized that the show can be really scary for a seven-year-old to watch and think about. Totally agree that gun nuts are much different than gun owners.


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## Capt Worley PE (Nov 30, 2012)

That's the thing with the prepper sites, you kinda have to ignore the gun nuts and EOTWAWKI crowd. Theit both pretty easy to ID though, as the gun nuts et into endless AK vs AR arguments and the EOTWAKI crowd pretty much sticks to such subforums.

That site I linked to has a really good gardening, DIY, and financial subforums. The things I found in the woods, and spooky things in the woods threads are pretty entertaining brain candy, too.


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## Lumber Jim (Nov 30, 2012)

csb said:


> My seven-year-old will get his first .22 this Christmas. It will live firmly in the locked gun cabinet. His entire life has been about gun safety and he can repeat back all of it to us. While watching Doomsday Preppers, I said, "I just don't think I could kill a person," and he agreed. That was when I realized that the show can be really scary for a seven-year-old to watch and think about. Totally agree that gun nuts are much different than gun owners.


Kids and guns seem to be a touchy subject for a lot of people but it is my belief educating them (like you have done) is way safer than "protecting" them from it. I know that I had a great deal of respect for firearms at an early age and therefore the dreaded "kid playing with a loaded gun and have it accidentally discharge" scenario was not going to happen in our household. Hope that I can instill the same amount of respect in my kids.

In regard to the original post. We tried "straw bail gardening" this past year but were never dedicated enough to the water and fertilizer schedule. I would make the statement that anything elevated will require much more water than you would normally apply to a conventional garden. This seems pretty obvious in hindsight now...


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## cement (Nov 30, 2012)

we started a container garden on the deck last year. we have several large plastic file boxes and old recycle bins and we can't garden in the yard because there is no holding back the elk and mule deer without building a structure that the F&amp;*(^ng HOA would not allow.

I was lazy and bought starter plants from a nursery and brought home leaf mold with them so my vines were pretty much wiped out before I figured that out. The tomatoes, peppers, green beans and lettuce did well and it was nice not to have to weed so much.

it was a dry year and the squirrels kept eating my strawberrys. I must have trapped a half dozen tree rats. I let them go 10 miles away in the woods, maybe I should have painted them orange to see if they were returning?


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## csb (Nov 30, 2012)

My friend studied squirrels and part of her research involved painting them. I'm sure it was some special paint, but seems like some orange from work would work just as well.

Has anyone grown anything inside? I'm thinking of an herb garden (not the Colorado kind  ), but not sure if I want to bother.


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## pbrme (Nov 30, 2012)

The container garden is a nice idea that wouldn't work well for our chickens. Those feathered hogs would destroy everything. My late winter project is to add a fenced in garden in the back of our yard to keep those buggers out.


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## mudpuppy (Nov 30, 2012)

My girlfriend tried the square foot garden thing and it was a disaster. . . the tomatoes took over everything.


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## engineergurl (Nov 30, 2012)

I was going to say that about a friend of mine that did it... hmmm. She got some nice veggies out of the garden though...


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## mudpuppy (Nov 30, 2012)

It didn't help that she planted like 12 varieties of tomatoes. . .


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## csb (Nov 30, 2012)

pbrme said:


> The container garden is a nice idea that wouldn't work well for our chickens. Those feathered hogs would destroy everything. My late winter project is to add a fenced in garden in the back of our yard to keep those buggers out.


We had some bantam chickens this spring and took them to my mother-in-law during the summer. The poor frizzled we had has been plucked clean by the other chickens.


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## pbrme (Nov 30, 2012)

csb said:


> pbrme said:
> 
> 
> > The container garden is a nice idea that wouldn't work well for our chickens. Those feathered hogs would destroy everything. My late winter project is to add a fenced in garden in the back of our yard to keep those buggers out.
> ...


Poor bird. We had a chicken plucker situation going on for a little while after we introduced bird 3 until the pecking order was reestablished.


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## YMZ PE (Nov 30, 2012)

Mother plucker!

PS. I have nothing else to add to this conversation, but I kind of want to buy the book now and give it a go.


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## Capt Worley PE (Dec 3, 2012)

mudpuppy said:


> It didn't help that she planted like 12 varieties of tomatoes. . .


Tomato, cucmber, and pepper plants produce a LOT of food.


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## Road Guy (Aug 28, 2015)

Couldnt find the other gardening thread....

We didnt plant this but i first thought it was a pumpkin but now i think its a watermelon? Just sort of showed up (free). We have about 6 of them so far-but the rest are all orange &amp; smaller?

What say ye?


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## P-E (Aug 28, 2015)

Can it be fermented?


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Aug 30, 2015)

Type of squash? I mean a pumpkin is a squash.

We went and bought cedar boxes, bought and put up a greenhouse (pole and tent type), bought tons of garden soil, and started seedlings last spring. We got so much rain it killed our seedlings and tore apart the greenhouse (we received record rain amounts last spring). We are just now talking about trying again on gardening.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Aug 30, 2015)

http://whatscookingamerica.net/squash.htm


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## Road Guy (Aug 30, 2015)

We planted everything in late May after the last snow, but my tomatoes didn't start coming like gangbusters until last week.


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## goodal (Aug 31, 2015)

Only thing left in our garden is okra, green beans, an eggplant that refuses to die and a basil plant. Everything else gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. It was a terrible year for tomatoes in West KY. Even the people that usually have a beautiful crop had a hard time with them. Either the curse of the 17 yr locust or the 45' of rain got them.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Aug 31, 2015)

Okra!!!!! Got any extra


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## Supe (Sep 1, 2015)

Okra: Nature's booger.


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## goodal (Sep 1, 2015)

A couple of years ago we started grilling it. Two words: AWE SOME. Cut it up fresh into bite size pieces. Place in a tin pie pan or even larger if you have alot. Smother in butter and a little Lemon Pepper. Grille until crisp and enjoy. If you cook it long enough the slime goes away and you can eat like popcorn. The pan rarely makes it to the table before devoured.


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## SNAPE/SMOTT PE (Sep 2, 2015)

goodal said:


> A couple of years ago we started grilling it. Two words: AWE SOME. Cut it up fresh into bite size pieces. Place in a tin pie pan or even larger if you have alot. Smother in butter and a little Lemon Pepper. Grille until crisp and enjoy. If you cook it long enough the slime goes away and you can eat like popcorn. The pan rarely makes it to the table before devoured.


And you can cook it down until the slime goes away and make gumbo with it!


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