What is Square Foot Gardening A Brief Overview

Our little homestead is located in a suburban subdivision in southeastern Michigan.  That basically means we have a short growing season and barely anywhere ideal to plant a conventional garden.  Most of our backyard is taken up by our pool and the septic field.  Sooooooo, raised beds it is.  But even better than that, square foot raised garden beds.  Why, you ask?  Here is some information that caught our attention and sold us on the idea to be square foot farmers.


Square Foot Gardening is very intensive.  You can plant more veggies in a smaller space than in a conventional garden.  There is also little weeding (yay!) and because the special soil mixure retains water extremely well, we have less of a chance of killing our plants (we need all the help we can get).


Here are the key elements to square foot gardening:


1.  Raised Beds:  Garden box frames should be no wider than 4 feet x any length, and 6 to 8 inches deep.  We opted for 3 x 6 raised beds.  Todd built ours using free pallet wood, click here to learn more about that process. 

2.  Special Soil Mixture (Mels Mix): 

1/3 coarse vermiculite
1/3 peat moss
1/3 blended compost  (your backyard compost pile is the best option for blended compost, otherwise, you have to obtain several different forms of compost)


3.  The Grid

1 foot by 1 foot grid and must be permanent.  On top of each frame place a permanent grid that divides the box into one foot squares. The grid is the unique feature that makes the whole system work so well.

4:  Plant Spacing:  Depending on the mature size of the plant, grow 1, 4, 9, or 16 equally spaced plants per square foot. Choose fruits and veggies that make sense for your family and for the intensive planting style of the Square Foot Garden.

Here is a great resource for knowing how many plants to plant per square.  Numbers will vary slightly depending on which website you use.
http://plantandplate.com/p-downloads/PlantandPlate-SFG-planner.pdf


TIPS

Here are a few tips that really helped me when planning and planting our gardens:

1.  Plan out your garden first on paper.  I planned out our two beds on this piece of paper. 

This helped me determine how many seeds to buy and start indoors.  Which leads me to the next tip,

2.  Start your seeds indoors, especially if you have a short growing season.  We also got a great jump-start on our tomato plants by using the cloned clippings from the plants in our aquaponics beds.  We started out with plants almost two feet tall!  Learn all about that easy process here.  Best way to start tomatoes in my opinion!


3.  Plant the tallest plants on the north side of your square foot garden beds, especially the veggies that need trellises or supports to grow.  This helps the shorter plants get all the sun they can. 


4.  And here is the most important tip, the tip I read and forgot about, and did not follow.  So please dont be like me.  Water your soil BEFORE you plant your seeds!  I know thats a good idea in any garden, but this soil mixture is the thirstiest, spongiest soil you could ever hope for.  It took me FOREVER to water after I planted, especially since I didnt want to wash away the fragile plants I had just planted.


Learn more and meet the inventor of the Square Foot Gardening method: 
http://www.melbartholomew.com/what-is-square-foot-gardening/






This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, The HomeAcre Hop, Natural Living Monday, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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Aquaponics System Design Overview of System Upkeep and Maintenance

How much time does maintaining an indoor garden take? Check out this video to see some of the ways in which I have found to keep upkeep of the indoor aquaponics system to a minimum.

When I first started thinking about setting up an aquaponics system in our basement I had a few reservations. After all, this was kind of a big commitment! Once you have fish and plants growing you cant just decide that you dont have enough time to maintain it and let it all go to heck. So, when designing this system I had that thought in mind.

The first concern I had was leaks and preventing a catastrophe if something sprung a hole. The way that the system is setup no matter what happens the fish tanks can never drain of water. There is no chance of a siphon with the solids lifting overflows and the bulkhead adapter goes though the barrel just a few inches from the top making that the lowest point the water can drain if the rest of the system losses all water. The plants can survive for 24 hours or more with no water so no matter what I was safe from any unforeseen issues.

The next thing that I was not looking forward to was topping off the system with water all of the time. If you add too much it might overflow when all the beds drain at once, too little and the whole system stops functioning as the bell siphons cant start. The solution was the automatic top off system. I installed a small float valve in the bottom of the sump tank a few inches from the bottom. This float adds water only when the level drops below the float during the fill and drain cycles of the sump tank. This setup prevents me from ever having to worry about the water fill in the system, it is always at the correct level, automatically, with no intervention by me. This setup has worked flawlessly and saved me so much hassle!

The next thing was cleaning. I did not want to have to spend a whole lot of time each week or month cleaning tanks and grow beds. The first thing I knew I needed was a swirl filter. Once that was in place I also wanted an easy way to clean that! I added a "pool vacuum" inspired hose to the filter so that I can open a valve on the bottom and then siphon off the waste from the bottom of the filter ever couple of weeks. I can send it off a floor drain or save the fertilizer for the gardens or indoor plants. This setup has saved me so much time and made siphoning off some nutrients for the garden so easy!

When I first started I didnt know much about water quality and testing and wondered how often I would need to test the system. I have learned that once the system is setup there is not really much to do as far as testing for Ammonia, Nitrite, or Nitrates goes. I have barely ever used these tests at all since the first few weeks. I do use the pH test kit the most and the system does need to be checked every week or two. This only takes a few minutes and then if needed I can add some egg shells to adjust the pH up a bit when needed. This has proved to be very easy and does not consume much time at all.

At  first I was manually turning on the grow lights in the morning and back off at night. I quickly realized that a timer was necessary after leaving the lights on over night and forgetting to turn them on a few times. Luckily I had an old lamp timer laying around and made quick work of settings this up to control all four grow lights. This automation has proved to be a requirement.

I added compost worms to the grow beds a few months back in the hopes that they will help take care of cleaning any organic matter that gets through the swirl filter into the grow beds as well as roots and other plant material. This should help increase the time between having to clean out the grow beds and I am hoping to be able to go a couple of years before that will be needed.

These are just a few of the everyday upkeep and maintenance tasks to think about when setting up a system. I hope that I have given you a few ideas to help make running your own setup easier so dont hesitate and get starting growing your own food today!

Float valve - http://amzn.to/1Ffpqj1
LED light bulbs - http://amzn.to/1FfpAXv
Light timer - http://amzn.to/1FfpDTi

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