A Picture Perfect Garden
By Sally Hansley Odum
A picture-perfect Square Foot Garden is attainable with just a few pointers. Start with the ideal location and the ideal growing medium. This gives your garden the best possible foundation for success.
Location
As in real estate, the first rule for gardeners is Location, Location, and Location. Choose a location that gets at least eight hours of sunlight daily. Select a location that is easily accessible to you so it won’t be a chore to walk to it, water it, and tend it. Put it somewhere close to the house – like right out the back door, or even on your front lawn. A sunny side yard might be a good idea. If you are limited in land space, you can locate a Square Foot Garden on your roof or up on a balcony, deck, or open porch. Your location should be clear of overhanging branches or structures that will shade the garden too much. By selecting the ideal location in the beginning, you won’t run into problems later.
Mel’s Mix
Fill your Square Foot Garden with the ideal growing medium. Mel Bartholomew recommends “Mel’s Mix.” The not-so-secret formula for Mel’s Mix is as follows:
- Five blended composts make up 1/3 part of the mix
- 1/3 part coarse vermiculite
- 1/3 part peat moss
The “five blended composts” are important to get the right balance of nutrients for your growing plants. If you want a manure-based compost (such as cow, horse, turkey, or chicken manure), let that count as only one of your composts. The other four should be comprised of different matter than manure. The perfect compost, of course, would be one that you make yourself, composed of vegetable and fruit scraps, and other vegetation. Homemade compost offers the best balance of all. However, if you can’t make your own, or if yours is not ready yet, opt for the bagged composts; just choose five that have different ingredients. Mel’s Mix does not need any additional chemical fertilizers or amendments – everything necessary to aerate, feed, retain moisture, and in general, to keep your plants happy is already in the mix.
Maintaining Your Garden
Once your garden is established, it is a simple matter to maintain it as it grows into a lush, healthy little wonderland. Water each plant daily with one cup of sun-warmed water from a rain barrel. This is the watering method preferred by Mel Bartholomew, inventor of the Square Foot Gardening method. It conserves water too. Trim away any brown or dead leaves to make your garden picture perfect all the time. When you harvest one plant, fill the area with fresh Mel’s Mix, and plant something else so that you have a continuous progression of vegetables and flowers.
