Square foot gardening: anyone here do it?

I tried Seed Sheets and it worked wonderfully

I have 3 8'x4' landscape timber raised beds. Just planting tomatoes in two of them we get more than we need. We can/freeze a bunch of sauce and give away a ton of tomatoes. I grow a lot of stuff in pots as well.

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Is the "juice worth the squeeze," meaning is your harvest worth the amount of work and initial costs it takes to get the bed built,

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If you're looking at it from that perspective, no. It's never worth the time/money you put in. It's something my wife and I enjoy and as far as hobbies go it isn't expensive.

What all do you grow? Have you had any success with taters?

I have done Square Foot and yes it does work just fine.

To me, Square foot is a combination of Raised Beds and French Intensive gardening. Spacing plants close has a lot of benifits.


Potatoes would not be a good fit for Square Foot. Check out growing taters in a barrel. Much better use of space.

That’s the tricky peice, you really need 4 beds and tomatos get rotated due to disease issues. It’s actually a big reason I do the flowers - so I’m not tempted to plant too many tomatos.

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What all do you grow? Have you had any success with taters?

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I haven't tried taters.

I grow a few different types of tomatoes and peppers. I'll add in random others like green beans and okra. I keep a few different types of greens growing as well. I have a bunch of swiss chard mixed in to my landscaping that grows year round.

I tried growing broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots this year but my dogs had fun with them before I was able to harvest anything.

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climbing green beans

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Putting in some raised beds in the next few weeks. Can you learn me on how you are set up for this?

Go the 8x4 route and make more efficient use of your wood

Get some 3/4” metal emt conduit, elbows, connectors, pieces of rebar and make a trellis.

I buy 25 ft of 5 ft wide trellis netting and tie it on the emt with a string, another string on the bottom.

Take a stick and make a trough at the bottom, tell my kids “try to plant them in the trough” they end up all over.

Once they sprout I’ll toss a bunch of leaves in the bed to keep the weeds down.

It’s one of the easier things to plant and grow. Oh and buy purple ones - you can see them in there easily once it’s all overgrown.

Red potatoes are very easy to grow. No need to mound them over either. This year we ate potatoes until we were sick of them and I still had about 5 pounds left. Used 2 pounds to plant a fall batch and tossed the rest.

I have four 4x8 beds. This year I planted two of them with potatoes before sweet potatoes and green beans and made way too many. I'll go back to doing one bed of potatoes next year.

I grow tomatoes, a few peppers, a few eggplants, heavy crop of zucchini and tromboncini squash, winter squash, bush snap beans, yard long beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, garlic, onions, radishes, and a lot of basil. One of my beds also has 9 asparagus planted under everything and they are primed for a massive crop this year.

Be sure to look into companion planting. Ever sine I started growing petunias in my beds I've had zero aphid issues, after getting rocked by them the year before. Plant basil and onions with tomatoes. Plant borage and nasturtiums to attract pollinators. Plant rosemary, thyme, and other herbs to repel pests and enhance vegetable flavors.


Enjoy