Square foot gardening.

**Russ** · 03-14-2011, 07:06 PM

Who's done it and what are your thoughts?

I have some success with it but there are things that I personally did not like. Below are my results.

Tomatoes - I HATED it. The plants grew in to one another and picking the tomatoes inside was a PITA!
Beans - see tomatoes. I wound up breaking a lot of the plant to get the beans.
Beets - worked perfectly.
Onions - worked perfectly
Broccoli - worked perfectly
Cabbage - worked perfectly
Cauliflower -worked perfectly
Carrots - worked perfectly.
Peppers- worked fairly well.

Common theme: Huge plants make difficult picking, which equals aggravating!

So,lets hear it.

**MsMarieH** · 03-14-2011, 07:55 PM

I pretty much found the same.

I grow my tomatoes with Texas Tomato Cages, which I *LOVE*. so much better than regular tomato cages.

**craftypam** · 03-14-2011, 09:06 PM

what are texas tomato cages?

Russ, please don't burst my bubble. I can't be in the sun so the weeds have been overtaking my garden and despite adding new soil every year my garden has been the pits the last few years. Could you add tomato cages to the plants to make it better? How about planting them fewer and farther apart. What kind of beans did you grow? Mine don't seem to get to the size to be a problem. Were the beans and tomatoes the only problems you had? Any advice to fix the problems you had?

They talk in the book about most tomatoes being a vining plant and to tie them up. I never thought of tomatoes as vining.

**Russ** · 03-14-2011, 09:22 PM

I'm sorry Pam, didn't mean to dissuade you from using the method.

I use it for the things listed above. It works great.
If you are going to do beans, I would suggest using pole beans and something for them to climb on. I raise Blue Lake bush beans.

Tomatoes are a vine and they should be supported. I would suggest wider spaces for tomatoes, maybe 2 ft.

FYI, here are Texas tomato cages

**pat in east texas** · 03-14-2011, 09:28 PM

This year, I am only planting 3 tomato plants. I'll start by using osmocote and my crushed eggshells in the planting trenches, which are 4 feet apart. Lay the tomato plants in so that only the top few leaves are showing, water them well and put the heavy-duty cages around them. Then wrap floating row cover around the sides of the cages. Keep that on until the plants are around halfway up the cages. Keep them evenly watered, and once a week use Miracle Gro as a foliar fertilizer. My instructions say to use ammonium sulfate as a side dressing as soon as the first fruits form, but I don't know if I'll do that. I'm afraid it might acidify the soil too much. I've been told that this method produces lots and lots of tomatoes.
Good luck with your garden. I love my SF Garden - very few weeds and so far it's been very productive.

**Ceashels** · 03-14-2011, 09:40 PM

Forum : Square Foot Gardening I'm a member and have found the support and ideas helpful.

I have my vermiculite purchases (probably more than I'll need initially) but plan on making several beds in the back yard and swapping Mel's Mix into the front beds. I just haven't built my stamina back up to get it done now that the weather is finally warming up.

I haven't plotted out what is going to go where just yet. But I'll let you know how it goes.

**frugalwarrior2** · 03-14-2011, 09:45 PM

Russ, See if you can get hold of a copy of Dick Raymond's "Gardening Year". Out of print. He does salad rows.
You can water less because of the grouping. His root cellar to die for. He stores his potatoes in dirt in bins-genius!

I grew sweet millions tomatoes (very tiny tomato). The grew into something out of a fairy tale of vines. 6' tall and I planted 6. 1 would have been plenty. Anyway-Trellis only way to go.

This year I got 4 of the upside down hangers i got at a drug store clearance. we will see if those will work better.

**madjen** · 03-14-2011, 10:04 PM

This probably won't work for most people but it was the solution for our tomato problems in past years. Cucumbers were on another section of the fencing.

39844_1526157920317_1425731992_31372712_1761325_n.jpg

**craftypam** · 03-14-2011, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Ceashels

Forum : Square Foot Gardening I'm a member and have found the support and ideas helpful.

I have my vermiculite purchases (probably more than I'll need initially) but plan on making several beds in the back yard and swapping Mel's Mix into the front beds. I just haven't built my stamina back up to get it done now that the weather is finally warming up.

I haven't plotted out what is going to go where just yet. But I'll let you know how it goes.

Can you tell me where you got the coarse vermiculite? I am having a hard time finding it.

Thanks, Pam

**frugalwarrior2** · 03-14-2011, 11:46 PM

CP-bought mine at ACO Hardware. Don't know if it's only a local chain. Got my peat and lime there too. And my dehydrated moo poo too!

**Ceashels** · 03-15-2011, 06:40 AM

Originally Posted by craftypam

Can you tell me where you got the coarse vermiculite? I am having a hard time finding it.

Thanks, Pam

I found it at a local specialty garden store... a big one at that. On the square foot gardening site there is a vermiculte database sheet where I found the entry for the local store. It is NOT at the big chain stores. I bought enough for my finished garden plan... I hope.

Vermiculite Database

**MsMarieH** · 03-15-2011, 08:20 AM

You can google texas tomato cages. They are very expensive,but hubby bought me a set for a birthday gift several years ago. They use a super heavy gauge metal and come in sections that collapse. Mine are 6 feet tall and 24" across.

A cheaper alternative would be something like rebar. I saw someone make a cage out of thin pvc pipe and connectors that worked great - they just built a simple box structure.

**Birdie** · 03-15-2011, 08:31 AM

You can create 4 foot tall tomato cages using the sheets of concrete reinforcing wire and zip tying the short ends together. Or buy a roll of 5 foot concrete reinforcing wire and make cages that are 2-3 feet wide.

I work in in an organic demonstration garden and that is what we use for our tomatoes. The plants routinely grown to 7 feet tall with the proper support.

We use the regular tomato cages to support peppers and eggplants as they are too small to support tomatoes.

**tervsforme** · 03-15-2011, 09:52 AM

I think I am going to try this for this year. I don't need much, it is just me, but I can share with my mom. I just have to figure out how to keep the bunnies out of my yard, you would think with 2 big dogs, they would stay out, but no they don't!

**craftypam** · 03-15-2011, 11:58 AM

funny you say that about the bunnies tervsforme; I had 2 big dogs and the bunnies would come in my yard and never bother my garden. Now we don't have dogs and they are having a feast everyday.