Wiki: Square Foot Gardening is the practice of planning small but intensively planted gardens. The phrase "square foot gardening" was popularized by Mel Bartholomew in 1981. The practice combines concepts from other organic gardening methods, including a strong focus on compost, closely planted raised beds and biointensive attention to a small, clearly defined area. Proponents claim that the method is particularly well-suited for areas with poor soil, beginning gardeners or as adaptive recreation for those with disabilities. Finn - my dear, kind husband - says that I have green fingers but that only applies to things I plant outdoors. Anything I grow indoors doesn’t stand a chance. When I was working, I hated being in charge of the pot-plants. “You will have six month to live” I'd warn a new bamboo palm or dracaena and sure as nuts, within six months the poor plant gave up the struggle, drooped and died. Outside though, everything flourishes and I share what I grow with family and friends – and a host of creepy crawlies that chew on the vegetables, chomp through the stems and leave lacy trails on the leaves. I don’t have the heart to poison them so as long as I can harvest a few lettuce leaves, spinach, herbs and tomatoes, I leave them be. 
I am a scrappy gardener. I plant things in old buckets, leaky pots, dirt bin inners and even old galvanised gutters. Because I don’t like planting in the ground, I was intrigued by an article in a friend's November issue of Garden & Home on ‘Square Foot Gardening” (SFG). Planting is done in a wooden frame, placed either on the ground (with cardboard and paper at the bottom to keep out the weeds) or raised (with a plywood base). Your box can be any size, with a wooden grid on top giving you perfect 12” squares (a square foot) to plant in. You don’t use potting soil in the box – the growing medium is one third each of peat moss, vermiculite and compost. This is called 'Mel's Mix' after the retired engineer, Mel Bartholemew who started the SFG movement.
The photograph in the magazine showed a smiling young woman, kneeling proudly next to an immaculate boxed garden, displaying her beautiful herbs and vegetables. I was hooked!The first thing I did was ask Greg - my dear, kind older son who works for a building supplier - to make me a box frame 1.5m X 1.5m X 20cm deep with a wooden grid on top. You can use old timber from a junk yard but its best not to have chemically treated or painted wood on the inside of the box. Finn painted the box for me with 4 coats of linseed oil.
Then the filler. Builder’s Express sell Supaflora peat moss from Germany, vermiculite and compost. I felt like I needed a maths degree to work out how much filling I would have to buy! First I had to determine the volume of the box - 1.5m X 1.5m X 20cm = 450 litres. But, only the peat moss comes in a litre bag, the vermiculite comes in kg bags and the compost in dm bags. It is such a long time ago that I did maths that I struggled to find out how much of each ingredient I would need. So, I used that good old standby - women’s intuition! I bought 4 bags of peat moss (20L) 4 bags of vermiculite (2kg each) and 4 bags of compost (30dm each). Its probably not the real McCoy but it will have to do. It wasn't cheap. Rounded off to the nearest I visited the Farmer’s Market in Shongweni on Saturday morning where they have the best seedlings for sale and bought sweet corn, red cabbage, gem squash, capsicum (don't know what colour) red, frilly and butter lettuce, brinjal (egg plant) and spring onions. I also bought some cucumber which I've planted elsewhere.
There is a planting grid on the Wiki website which shows you that you can plant 1 to 6 vegetable seedlings per square. While I was planting there was a sudden shower overhead so I didn't have to water the seedlings. The next day I found paw prints in the box and one sweet corn plant missing! Carling - our Labrador - had decided to invesitgate this new sand pit and obviously sampled the green leaves of the sweet corn seedling. So, I have planted a red cabbage in the places of the missing sweet corn.
I can't wait so see how everything grows!
I can't wait so see how everything grows!
Watch this space!!
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