The Rural Voice, 1993-03, Page 42Gardening
Making use of every square foot in your garden
by Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
I find this time of the year the
hardest to get through. You know
those brilliant sunny days — the
house plants are just oozing earth
scent and sending up new shoots.
They know springtime is not far
away.
No groundhog needs to tell me
when spring will arrive. Swollen
flower buds on my geraniums are a
better indicator. I have left my new
seed catalogues dog-eared and the
orders are already sent to my
favourite seed houses. It is just a
couple of weeks too soon to start
those new seeds indoors. I find a
brisk ski around the bush helps work
out that pre -spring tension. This
winter the snow finally landed on the
garden. No shoveling it off the grass
and onto my perennials to protect
them from those arctic winds.
The garden books from the library
have been advocating "planning" a
vegetable garden before doing all the
hard work of "planting". After trying
out three locations for the vegetable
garden I can attest to the benefits of
planning on paper before digging.
Our present location has been reduced
several years in a row and is now
being expanded. My perennials need
some starting space and the vegetable
garden seems like a prime location.
My friend Lynn, in Parry Sound,
has the best idea yet for her vegetable
garden. Like so many others first
starting out she had a huge vegetable
garden that consumed her whole
summer. From dawn to dusk she was
either weeding, hauling mulch or in
the kitchen putting up the fruits of her
labour. With the coming of number
one son, reality hit hard and the
garden got cut in half with the
addition of a wild garden taking over
where the tomatoes and squash left
off. Lynn's latest project has been
the square -foot gardening concept. I
am going to give it a go this summer
as it looks very promising.
Square -foot gardening is small
patches of garden that produce
38 THE RURAL VOICE
enough food for you to eat now and
not leave you with piles of produce
rotting in the garden. If you want to
expand it further, to include enough
for preserving, then you can do so
comfortably.
Mel Bartholomew wrote a handy
guide called, appropriately enough,
Square -Foot Gardening, published by
Rodale Press. He starts out by
dividing out his garden in four -foot
square sections. Each section is
further divided into 12 -inch -square
blocks. Next divide your seeds in
these categories: vine crops, summer
hot -weather vegetables such as
peppers, eggplant, bush beans, and
the third pile is for cool -weather
crops like lettuce, root vegetables,
and members of the cabbage family.
The first thing you have to concen-
trate on is the vertically growing crops.
Determine how many plants you are
going to put in and then put up verti-
cal supports along the north side of
your garden. Bartholomew offers se-
veral garden plans all based on what
one person or a family will eat. You
have to decide what you want to plant
and how much you can consume. For
a single person Bartholomew suggests
two tomato plants and two zucchini
on the frames. We are a family of
four and that sounds just right for us.
Next you determine what summer
crops you will want and assign space
for them. For cool weather crops you
will be looking for several crops
throughout the season. Included in
the book are some very easy charts to
help you determine how much and
when to plant.
Bartholomew is very firm about
not planting more just to fill up the
space. He recommends that you cut
down rather than expand. The sum-
mer is short enough as it is and if the
weeds get away from you it becomes
a real chore to get the garden back in
shape. A little space left over can be
easily filled with herbs or flowers to
brighten things up.
The last date for frost is a factor
when planning when to plant your
garden. There are some cold weather
seeds that can be planted two weeks
before the last frost date. Snow peas,
lettuce, and radishes are popular salad
favourites that can get an early start.
A rule of thumb my father always
taught me was never put anything
tender out before May 24. If you are
a little more experienced and use
shelter tricks like towers of water
around your plants, you may get
away with planting earlier.
Skinny, early plants like scallions,
radishes or green onions can be
tucked in among the hot summer
plants. They will be harvested long
before they become a space problem.
Here is an example of a simple
one -block garden. Remember one
block is four 12 -inch squares wide
and four 12 -inch squares deep.
Along the north edge, supported by a
single framework of wood or water
pipe are planted two tomatoes and
four cucumber plants. This takes up
four 12 -inch squares. In front of that
there is a square each of Ruby lettuce
(four plants), green bush beans
(nine), Swiss chard (four), and
chives. The next row of four squares
holds Oak Leaf lettuce (four), carrots
(16 at three-inch spacing), Salad bowl
lettuce (four), and radishes (eight
seeds now and eight seeds in two
weeks). The front row contains
dwarf marigolds (four), beets (plant-
ed at three inch intervals), onions and
nasturtiums (four). This garden is a
salad garden. Bartholomew advo-
cates single seed planting. Plant only
what you are going to use.
Sounds simple enough. I already
have my garden planned on paper and
am eagerly awaiting spring. If you
try the same methods or have other
garden plans you would like to share
with Rural Voice gardeners please
drop us a line. I would be delighted
to hear from you.0
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger, in addition to
working in advertising production
for The Rural Voice, raises two child-
ren, and is a skilled cook and
gardener.