Square Foot Gardening

There are many reasons people garden.  Some of us want the taste of fresh, chemical free food.  Still others want to save money. For some it is a way of life, a comfort to be free from the large scale food factories. In the era of fast food, we yearn for slow food. Whatever the reason, gardening is a popular leisure activity.

What keeps a gardener returning to the soil year after year?  Success!  But for all the starters in the spring, not many are finishers in the fall.  In fact, the percentage is not encouraging.  If your garden stays producing, stays weed free and gives you bragging rights into the frosty days of fall you are in the minority.  Full time jobs, vacations and household responsibilities all chip away at the time we have for leisure.

courtesy of blog.mindbites

One man’s slant on the answer to this challenge is square foot gardening.  Mel Bartholomew has gone to great lengths, including a three hundred page  book, to tout the virtures of this method. I think he needs to be heard. Square foot gardening works well in small spaces.  No more seeding a whole packet of seeds in a twenty foot row, only to spend hours thinning the seedlings so others can reach maturity.  From the first snip of spinach in the spring to the last plucked pickle in the fall, the project stays managable with reduced attention. 

Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew from Rodale Press is still available on the internet and in many bookstores.  If you are challenged with only a small growing space or little time, yet long for fresh food, take a good long look at this method of getting the job done.  Thousands of gardeners are hooked.

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