Square Foot Gardening: A New Way To Garden In Less Space With Less Work [Anglais] [Broché]

There is no reason to create a monster patch of garden if you are only going to have to give away those hundreds of zucchini (people in our town make sure to close their car windows in August, lest passersby fill their auto with their surplus squashes.) The square-foot garden method uses square plots, starting with a 4-foot square, that's all. This book gives you the right number of plants per square to put in each for a typical family. We love lettuce, so devoted more squares to lettuce; and you'd be surprised how few tomato plants you actually need. A married couple with no kids can actually garden in a 4 foot square, which is also helpful for those living in condos or doing terrace or balcony gardening. This method is somewhat related to French intensive agriculture, where a huge crop can be grown in a relatively small space.

Another reason to square-foot garden is to have enough compost to enrich the soil. I never ever have enough of this black gold, even though we compost all our vegetable scraps and grass clippings. (A friend went so far as to strike a deal with the local organic vegetarian restaurant for their scraps to have enough.) And weeding is a lot easier in a small square than on a long, endless furrow.

This is one of my favorite garden books. It's really fun to read, especially in the dark of winter as you plan your summer salad and tomato bounty for the coming summer.

"Square Foot Gardening" has done away with the old traditional method of raising vegetables, especially, the plant thick, thin later approach. The first year I used the square foot gardening method I couldn't believe how many carrots I grew, and each carrot was picture perfect. What a difference square foot gardening made for our family garden. No longer is it like fifteen little carrots then one big one. The same is true for all the other produce. My radishes were the biggest I'd ever grown and not a hollow one in the bunch.

Each plant gets undivided attention in an easy almost carefree enviornment. Also, in arid areas such as Utah--where I live. I use only a fraction of the water with the square foot method. It's all explained, and more, in Mel Bartholomew's book: "Square Foot Gardening".