Small Space Gardening
Introduction
Everyone should be introduced to basic garden principles using the square foot method. The elderly, the physically impaired, the time-limited person, and those who hate weeding will all find gardening enjoyable again using the methods discussed in this course. This method will allow those urban dwellers with tiny yards to grow their own flower, herb or vegetable gardens without having to tear up their entire lawn.
Square foot gardens are very attractive if you follow the ideas presented in this course. They will be easy to maintain and weed-free. In addition, good principles of gardening, such as rotating your crops will happen automatically. You’ll also save space, money for tools and seeds and, most important of all, time.
Square foot gardening is based on the idea that no one needs more than a 4 foot by 4 foot garden space to raise enough vegetables for one person for one gardening season. You will come to understand that you really need to plant only enough seeds for the number of plants you actually need; you won’t be planting entire seed packages just because you feel a need to empty the package. This tactic alone will save you hours of thinning out unneeded seedlings. Your plants are spaced the proper distance apart at the very beginning. All you will need to do is keep the plot watered, and pull the few weeds that may appear.
Urban gardeners are often faced with compacted, poor soil. Adopting the use of raised beds as the author of Square Foot Gardening suggests will eliminate the problem of poor soil completely. You’ll follow his soil recipe and practice of amending soils as he replants crops throughout the season, thus eliminating the needed for doing this in a traditional garden. As the book author stresses, everything done in the square foot garden takes minutes rather than hours. You’ll even wind up with a nice looking garden that your neighbors will envy.
The square foot garden can be easily adopted for a physically impaired person or even a person confined to a wheelchair. This is the primary reason this garden method attracted my attention in the first place. Those of us with limitations can not keep up with the labor required of normal garden beds. The square foot method eliminates the majority of the problems for us. Bartholomew even suggests raising these beds to waist-level so a gardener may do all their work from either a wheel chair or standing position. If arthritis makes kneeling difficult for you, this method is the answer.
My teaching philosophy includes not teaching another person to do anything I won’t do myself. When I move to a smaller townehouse, I can guarantee you that I will be using this method. The only problem I foresee is finding something else to do with all the time I’ve spent weeding, fertilizing, and maintaining my gardens in the past.
May I welcome you to the Gardening the Square Foot Way class? You will learn something here whether you are a seasoned gardener or a beginner. May I encourage you not to spend any more money on gardening supplies until you complete this course? It will save you both time and money.
Lessons
Click here to see course syllabus
