All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space! [Paperback]

I've been really wanting to get into gardening for quite a while now - especially vegetables & fruit. I am by no means green fingered, have little time, and have felt somewhat overwhelmed or bewildered by the gardening books which I've read. This is most definitely the exception. It has inspired me to try this kind of gardening, and I've made a start with it now. so far everything has been simple, quick, and very easy to understand. Of course, it's too soon to see whether I successfully grow things with it :-)

I used an online converter to convert the feet and inches to metric, and cubic feet to litres for the soil. Someone commented that they'd found vermiculite (a necessary component of the soil in Mel's system) difficult to find. Here in the UK it is very, very easy to get. Any garden centre has it, and many mail order garden supply companies (eg Thompson & Morgen) stock it also.

Just one tip: My husband carefully made the necessary raised beds for me, which I then had to carefully paint, avoiding any area that the soil would touch. And then discovered that we could have made them with link-a-board kits much more easily and cheaply! I'll order these online for any future square foot beds, and just make the grid to go over them.

As mother of a 3 year old who loves to 'help' me in the garden, I really liked Mel's suggestion that one or more of the square feet sections be given to a child as their garden, with their name written on the grid, making it managable and exciting for the child.

One last point. At the time of writing this review (and when I ordered), Amazon is bundling this book with Cubed Foot Gardening. I ordered the bundle and was very disappointed. The other book is simply an older, much more difficult to follow version of this book. The only difference (apart from ease of understanding and applying) is that this one contains a token reference to flowers, to show that you can grow them also using this system. Save your money - just get this book.

By a happy accident, I stumbled upon the 1982 copy of Square Foot Gardening. I was very pleased with his concept. However, having a full acre but not a tiller, I was even more pleased when I came across his All New Square Foot Gardening. "What an ingenious method!" thought I. No $50 fee for a tiller and borrowing a truck and all that mess! That's until I tried to actually put it into practice. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic concept, and it works very well and you should get this book if you want to garden smarter not harder, but there are a few hiccups I wanted other readers to know about before they got started.

For those of you who have not perused the book or are familiar with the new method, I'll sum it up for you: you build these four by four boxes--no tilling required--cover the bottom with weed blocker material, and then fill it with a particular mix that Mel says works like a dream. The boxes are easy, the method is brilliant, but the mix was a different story. 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite, agricultural gauge, which means chunky bits of vermiculite, not fine.

And the vermiculite--at least for stateside gardening--has proven very hard to find. He makes it sound like a breeze, but it wasn't. I had to finally order the finely ground vermiculite from a pool supply company. They use it instead of sand to cushion above-ground pool bottoms instead of sand. (I am anxious to hear from anyone in the UK who has looked for this material and how difficult it was to find).

Other than finding the vermiculite--which we finally did in fine grade for $28 for four boxes--I've rarely seen a more reader-friendly book! It comes complete with layout pages, very consise planting guides, even planting time tables for your area and the amount of time you can store your seeds! If you have never gardened before or started a garden that eventually left you frustrated, then this is the book for you! I just think that you should check your area for agricultural grade vermiculite before you buy the book. But once that little snafu is over, you are going to be amazed at how brilliant and easy this book makes successful gardening.

I highly recommend this method for busy people and parents like myself. It is wonderfully easy to maintain, makes loads of produce, and looks very attractive. Two green thumbs way, way up. I especially recommend it to UK gardeners because of the small gardening space that is available to them. It is extremely compact and works quite well in small spaces.

To see my boxes and my experience with the All New Square Foot Gardening method, check out my frugal/tipping blog at http://moness.blogspot.com.

Many people who want to use the Square Foot Gardening special mix seem to find the 'chunky' vermiculite difficult to find. Do NOT use the fine stuff. I searched and found that what you need - in the UK anyway - is NOT agricultural grade, but INSULATION grade, Nice and chunky, much cheaper, and available from builders merchants. I got mine from Travis Perkins, and if you join up as a 'Trademate' member you get it at internet price and DELIVERED FREE!!
I made my raised beds 80 cms high as I am partially disabled and find 'waist height' very convenient - no bending. I used 3" square posts to support the sides, which were made out of disassembled pallets (which I also got Free from T P. Just made a donation to the Devon Air Ambulance!) I hung black polythene down the insides of the beds, stapled to the top, and with a cover strip round the top. Outsides are painted with a garden paint. No sign so far (5 years) of them rotting with this protection.
My 'soil' level is about 4" down from the top, so that I can put a lightweight framed panel of fleece on until the crops are 2 to 3" high. This enables much earlier sowings as it gives some protection from frost and full protection from wind and heavy rain.
The other advantage of this method is that weeding is a breeze. Don't go out to weed 'the garden'. Go out to weed 2 or 3 squares - and before you know it you've done the lot!! There is just no pressure.
I would be interested in other peoples results. I get much more in the space, almost a 12 foot row of carrots in 4 squares, and not a weed in sight!!