Square foot gardening.

[dominic10]

Thank you Lukens for the pics and welcome to the Vine. We've off to make raised beds next week with the idea of SFG in some beds. Let everyone know how you get on.

[Bigmallly]

Nicely made lukens. I am a little confused as to what & why you have lined the insides, do they have bases? If you have put bases on, they are going to rot along with the grass underneath so you would have been better de-turfing under the beds then just building 4 sides and putting it straight on top of the soil. Line the sides by all means to protect the timber but lining the bases just confused me.

[cazp]

Has anyone grown crystal lemon cucumbers in a square foot bed up a trellis and if so were they a success?

I have two seedlings, both looking great adn wondered if I could get away with two in a square... I will be training them up a trellis.

[Bigmallly]

I'll be growing 4 Marketmore up a trellis one per square.

[Kestrel]

I'm growing 3 (Bush Champion), one per square, up a vertcal pallet. Did this last year and it was really successful. 2 per square might work but they could get very tangled. However, give it a go and let us know how it goes.

[cazp]

Thank you for the advice! Today the trellis is going on (bolted to back of beds) for the cucumbers and other climbers - I am going to make them 7ft high.

Thought I would post a couple of pics of how things are growing so far - very pleased with results so far in my first year of SFG.

[Bigmallly]

Nice one Cazp, everything is looking really healthy, I like the hoops.

[Bigmallly]

Just thought I would bob a few up to date pics taken this morning, as the bed is 25' long I had to take them in sections. It's still looking a little sparse at the mo but will fill out in the next few weeks.
----

[cazp]

Looks great Bigmally - nice and colourful with the flowers. How much veg do you produce in a bed that size, and do you plant winter crops?

I havent got flowers in my beds (apart from the peas) because I only have 8ft x 4ft in total and have it all given over to vegetables, plan to put pots with flowers around the edge to brighten things up.

[Bigmallly]

I have no idea how much it will produce, as you will have worked out, there are 100 squares so if I put 9 beetroots per square, that would be a heck of a lot of jam jars................I don't plan the SFG bed, it's used mainly for any spares I may have over or if another holder asks " Do you want a ?" then it just goes in that bed.

[Uber-Uncool]

Cazp, your raised beds look great, may i ask where you got your metal frames from to put over your raised beds?

[cazp]

Cazp, your raised beds look great, may i ask where you got your metal frames from to put over your raised beds?

Hi, thank you! The hoops are 20mm black MDPE water pipe, but the cross bars which help to keep it stable are electrical conduit of the same diameter (the water pipe was too curved).

I posted the way these were made on the following thread if you are interested...

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...tml#post931648

The hoop frames were removed at the weekend - they were just tall enough to contain the largest plants over the cold months.

[lukens]

Nicely made lukens. I am a little confused as to what & why you have lined the insides, do they have bases? ... Line the sides by all means to protect the timber but lining the bases just confused me.

In the pictures you can see, I'd put down some old cardboard boxes, then some weed fabric. The bases of the boxes are then lined with spare carpet off-cuts. Mel in his book recommends lining the bottom of the boxes with weed fabric to stop weeds and roots coming through, and as I was planting on a patch that had only recently been cleared of old and rampant brambles, I felt I'd go an extra step. One box also has a spare off-cut of plywood (which had been sat in the basement for years, and was just the right size) under it, as it was planted where a fairly large buddleia had been removed, so I wanted to be extra cautious. I realise this will rot away, but it'll hopefully live long enough to ward off any regrowth.



What is not shown in the pictures, and why I was extra careful in lining the bases, is that I have set these up as sub-irrigted raised beds (also known as self watering beds, or wicking beds, or sub-irrigated planters), along lines similar to shown here and here.


Here are a few photos of that process:











They are very experimental, so I was holding off talking about them until I'd seen how well they worked out. Of course, there's been little need for self watering over the last week, but the reservoirs in the bottom are filling up very well, which is part of the purpose (I did a lot of research on how to reduce the need to water, as there is no water supply in the garden, and our flat is three floors up, this lead me both to square foot gardening - as I searched to see if anyone had tried adding vermiculite and organic matter to raised beds to improve water retention - and also to wicking beds and sub-irrigation).

[cazp]

The beds look great Lukens. What an amazing system - I had never heard of self watering raised beds before. Would love to hear how well they work during the hotter dryer months - keep posting!

[cazp]

4 new squares have become available for replanting. I am thinking of adding some blood fish and bone to the soil, and then putting in some Kohlrabi at 9 per square... has anyone tried this spacing?