Have you ever wanted to grow a large vegetable garden but don’t necessarily have acres of land to work with? Most gardeners don’t know that you can grow a ton of veggies in a small amount of space using the Square Foot Gardening method. This method is one of the easiest ways to grow an herb and vegetable garden in a raised bed. Below you will find helpful instructions on How to Start Square Foot Gardening.
How to Start Square Foot Gardening
First, you have to build out a large square frame. Using 6-inch wide untreated lumber works the best, but any material can be used. Make sure to put down a weed barrier so weeds and grass don’t grow up into the raised bed. The best size for a square foot garden is 4×4 feet. You can be creative though in your design, but 4 feet across is best for adults and 3 feet for kid’s gardens as their arms just can’t reach that far. Here are 10 raised bed garden ideas.
The soil that you put into your square foot garden needs to be full of nutrients and is best when it is a blend of different materials.
Here is a great garden soil recipe for your raised bed: Equal parts of potting soil or compost, vermiculite, and peat moss. For the potting soil, I often will mix a few different types together with compost to give a good variety of nutrients to the mix. Make sure to water down this mixture until you can squeeze a handful of it and no water drips out – that’s how you know that it has been completely absorbed.
Once you have the soil in the planter box, add a 12” grid on top using tape or string, so you know where to plant.
This guide will help you know how many plants go into each square:
Small: 16 plants per square for 3” spacing
Medium: 9 plants per square for 4” spacing
Large: 4 per square for 6” spacing
Extra Large: 1 per square for 12” spacing
Here are tips for marking your square foot garden.
Use the seed packet as a good guideline to know how many seeds to put into a square. Many people love to grow tomatoes and since they are heavy nutrient eaters, one per square works best. The same goes for pepper and squash plants. Smaller plants like radishes and carrots can have 16 per square, sometimes more depending on the varieties chosen.
There is very little weeding that needs to be done using the square foot gardening method. If you want a natural way to keep pests out of your garden, plant a few marigolds in the squares with the other plants as they are a natural pest deterrent – this is also called companion planting. Another great companion planting is to plant corn and green beans together and let the beans grow up the corn stalks instead of having to stake them. I will also plant garlic throughout my raised beds as they keep away a lot of bugs too!
Experiment with your square foot garden and try different plants together. This concept of gardening is a lot of fun to do and easy to get the whole family involved in!
More Square Foot Gardening Resources:
You can read more about square foot gardening in All New Square Foot Gardening
by Mel Bartholomew.
More Gardening Tips
How to Prep Soil for Vegetable Gardens
Tips for Attracting Bees to your Garden
How to Make Fast and Easy Compost Pile Using Hay Bales
Thanks to Kristi Trimmer of DragonflyRunning.com for sharing her square foot gardening tips.
Amanda @ The Kolb Corner says
Great information! I can’t wait for it to be time to plant. Thanks for sharing at Merry Monday!
Grandmas House DIY says
This is awesome – gosh I can’t wait for spring!! We would love to have you at our To grandma’s house we go link party, it opens every Wednesday morning 🙂
Roseann Hampton says
Great information! I was thinking about adding on to my garden and might give this a try!
Vineta @ The Handyman's Daughter says
I’ve been thinking of building a raised garden for the parking strip in front of our house. A square foot garden sounds like the perfect idea!
C.Lem (creativeclementine) says
Thanks so much for joining us at Idea Box link party! Your bright idea is one of my features this week. Can’t wait to see what you share with us this week! 🙂
Angela @ Setting My Intention says
I’ve done a square foot garden program before and I loved it. I’m going to do it again this summer. I need to dig it out and put new soil in since stray cats have been using it as a litter box! Yuck!
Lisa @ Cooking with Curls says
What an awesome idea Alea, now I just need a yard to put it in! 😉 Thank you so much for sharing with us at Best of the Weekend. Pinned to our party board!
Heidi Kay says
Intriguing. I may be able to do this even with my black thumb of death lol.
Marie says
Hopping here from My Turn For Us…love your site. Your page of different types of raised gardens was inspiring. I’ve always wanted to do it. Blessings to you and yours. Marie
Sami says
thanks for the great instructions. We have a small garden on the side of our house but it isn’t this organized. I love this and can’t wait to try it this spring. Ahhh, thanks for the reminder that spring will come again! 🙂
Adelina Priddis says
Since we’re apt living this year, I’m helping my mom with her garden. She has the boxes, but I don’t think she’s ever done the square foot planning.
Thank you for sharing this on Foodie Friday
Deedra says
My Daughter and I have started my garden, I would love to do this in a raised bed that is empty. It just needs a little work.