Vegetable gardening SFG?

[TeaSoakedDisasterMagnet]

Does anyone have a small vegetable plot and use the square foot or square metre gardening method? Husband has just built me a 1m squared raised veg bed that is 30cm deep.

I’ve had a go at a few veg before, all grown in pots. But I’d really like to have a go at square foot gardening and try a few different things! Any advice?

I’ve successfully managed courgettes in a pot before. I also have a special potato planter pot so those won’t need to go into the veg bed. I never managed to get peas going at all and my tomatoes in pots are always a big lacklustre. I managed a good crop of strawberry last year but the same plants did almost nothing this year (I didn’t feed them at the end of last season which is probably why).

There’s a Facebook group, and a book ‘All new Square Foot Gardening’ by the creator of the concept, Mel Bartholomew.
The key feature is the correct mix/growing media.
I’ve grown peas, mangetout, spinach, courgette, peppers, radish, salad greens, potatoes and shallots this year.

Fantastic! Thanks, I’ll look up both. I just happened across the idea on the organic garden website.

I don't do square foot gardening, except that I have large number of pots which happen to be 1ft square. So that's effectively square foot gardening with the added advantage it's easy to change soil mid season when an early crop comes out and a late crop goes in. In each of the 1ft square pots I can grow either one cabbage/purple sprouting, tomato, courgette (although these are markedly better in a bigger pot), cape gooseberry, possibly two cavolo nero, 4 climbing french beans, runner beans, beetroot, chard, 6 broad beans, 8 sugar snap or mangetout peas.

The key is not trying to cram too much into one square. It doesn't feel like it at the time, but putting that extra seedling in doesn't get you a bigger crop.

And precursor to that is not to sow too many seeds - if you do, the temptation to plant them all up is overwhelming.

Strawberries can cope in an 8 inch pot which keeps the fruits off the ground and a bit further away from slugs. I also grow my lettuces in 8 inch pots in the cool end of the greenhouse, and that works well for me.

Share seed packs via local gardening sites. I seed pack will be too much and although they can keep 2 years the germination rate isn’t as good.

That’s great, thank you. Interesting about the seed share and swap I’ll definitely look into that.