Square Foot Gardening

I've recently posted a few comments in the Fruit and Veg forum concerning Square Foot Gardening and the excellent results I'm getting, so I thought it might be a good idea to open a new thread just on this topic. Gardening is a fascinating pastime and it would be nice to share ideas.

I bought a book by Mel Bartholomew a couple of years ago about SFG and it does go into crop rotation, although I must admit that some of the Americanisms are a bit nauseous! The 'growveg.com' garden planning software that I've recently started to use is a great help with rotation and remembering where things are planted. It's also an extremely good programme in its own right.

Last year just as experiment I mixed up all of my old veg seed, then sprinkled it across several large beds. I realise that this isn't quite the same, but the results were very impressive. I had less insect/slug attacks, all crops flourished, and what I didn't have time to pick and use, I just left to run to flower. This in turn looked fantastic and also served to help the local bee population out. 

Even now, I am still using the leaks, onions and parsnips.

The system may or may not work if I tried it again, but it's still a good way of using old seed and worth a try.

I have 3 smallish raised beds and have been considering SFG. It might be something I start next season as I missed the boat this year.

At the moment I have 4 squares of 9 parsnips, 4 squares of 16 radishes, 6 squares of 8 petits pois, 2 squares of 16 carrots, 1 square of lots of spring onions, 2 squares of 16 onions and 1 square containing an asparagus that I planted early last year. All are doing beautifully, touch wood! Apart from the onions, all are under 2 cloches each 4' x 2' that I bought from my local Wilkinson for £11 each.

I'm doing this with my 4 year old son - he loves it!!!!  So far we have raddish x 2, spring onions x 2, beetroot, salad leaves, peas, dwarf beans - every week we plant a new couple of sqaures to keep him interested - it's great!

Brilliant. Not only does it keep him interested but you can eat the end products!