I Think I found a SFG Home...

I'm thinking that I pretty much belong here, in the non SFG forum. I love SFG, and have long practiced many of the tenets of cramming as much gardening goodness into a small space as I can, along with companion planting, but I have double dug, raised beds in a couple of very large gardens. I hope I can hang out here...

Welcome. I don't see any reason that you wouldn't be able to.
I had double dug and amended raised beds and did intensive planting up until this year, and decided to take it to the next level. Lots to learn here, including information on plants, bugs, compost... the list goes on.

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

Of course you can hang around here.

welcome

along with our SFG we too have several new raised beds and we also have a few self watering containers

as i once was told....several here enjoy many differnt ways of gardening

hugs

rose

Welcome Thornesworld.

I used to do what you've done for 45 years .

Then one day after seeing Mel's original book I learnt some sense .

I played at the original idea for several years and in Nov last year discovered he'd totally revamped his first idea and moved to the soiless growth medium in frames/boxes .

It is all found in his 2006 edition of all New Square foot Gardening.

Now that is real sense , it's a lot less hard work once the initial labour is done. I look forward to your exploits and seeing you take up ANSFG . Have you looked on the home page at the paragraphs for experienced gardners in the top right corner and visited the pages by clicking into them from the last line ?

Thank you all for the warm welcome.
plantoid, I'll be taking a look, but I find it hard to imagine that any type of raised bed/box structure wouldn't have a rough time producing here in our desert heat. The times I have experimented with raised beds here, even with buried soaker hose the roots of the plants get too hot to be happy. No matter, I'm sure there is much for me to learn here either way!

Welcome! I'm in SoCal, so I know how INTENSE the heat is where you live. Kudos for even giving it a shot.

I'm a total gardening novice and have learned MUCH here. Bonus: Everyone is SUPER NICE!!!

Don't dismiss Mel because you think your environment was not taken into consideration. Growing veggies in the desert requires water and there is, as you know, no pretending it doesn't. But the mix has peat moss and vermiculite just for that eventuality. And the compost also helps it act like a sponge. It is the best and easiest method I have ever encountered and I have the high heat no rain also (not as much as you). Did I mention the ease? So maybe you want thicker wood or the addition of mulch, but I would look very hard at Mel's book before you dismiss it as not something that will work where you are. Everyone says that! (My area is: too rainy, too hot, too humid, too dry, too cold, too dark, too sunny, etc, etc, etc)

Thanks again for the welcome! Nota..., So far I love this forum. Plenty of cool and knowledgeable peeps! Another wonderful resource that I have used for many years is davesgarden.com. The plant databases are awesome! Chopper, It was not my intention to sound dismissive in the least. As I said somewhere around here, I used to SFG and do indeed plan on looking into the 2006 version. It must needs wait until whenever I can afford the book, hopefully I'll find it used on amazon. As it is now in my little corner of desert paradise, my lovely double dug beds are well established (7 years and counting), and require nothing more than a turn with my fresh compost each year, and occasional repair of a soaker hose. Puttting in new beds is, of course, somewhat labor intensive but I think I'm set now with my 1K sf kitchen garden and my 3K sf vine garden. (nothing but hills out there).
On my budget, I have become accustomed to the fact of life that labor replaces $$. LOL. I am lucky in that my small town feed store lets me haul away all the manure I can shovel for free! I need to get a few hundred pounds this week in fact, to add to my compost bin (6' x 6' x 4'). I'll be starting a long term pile this year as well, (I'm nearly out of sufficiently composted horse manure, although my chicken poop looks to hold out for this season!) of pure manure, that I'll just let nature compost for me- letting Mama N do some of that labor is a happy thing for me.

I hear you loud and clear about finances. I got my first copy at the library. If you have one near, remember that your whole county is at your fingertips. My favorite things is ordering books from other libraries. Makes me feel powerful. LOL.

Chopper I LOVE that I can order books online to be delivered to my little local one room library! We have come up in the world a lot out here. When I first came to this tiny town as a teen, the library BUS came once a month! LOL. Then we graduated to a small shop (about the size of your average used book store) and then about 10 years ago got a real library!

Just make sure you dont get the black and white copy..it is condensed and not as useful.