Greetings from Los Angeles!

I'm Andrea, and I moved with my husband to Los Angeles from Las Vegas about 8 months ago. I'm fortunate to be renting a really great house with a huge backyard, and to have a landlady who supports our somewhat pieced-together gardening efforts!

Although we're not doing the traditional square foot gardening method this year, we recently read the book and are incorporating many of the methods and suggestions into our garden. I'm especially looking forward to the vertical method of growing tomatoes, but like most new gardeners, I fear I have been overambitious in my grow list

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to having a place to come to for advice and answers to the many questions I'm sure I'll have this summer!

Welcome Andrea!

You will indeed enjoy the SFG website and gardening.
Everyone is very helpful here.

Dunkinjean

Welcome to the SFG forum.
The folks here are really very helpful.
I don't know what I'd do without this site.
This will be my 3rd spring and I'm still learning.
Good luck and happy harvests.

Andrea,

We look forward to helping you if you have questions.

So glad you have had a chance to read the All New Square Foot Gardening Book. I am one of those that started out using the original SFG book and using amended soil in my garden. Since reading the All New Square Foot Gardening book, I have already changed from amended soil to Table Top Gardening using Mel's Mix. I have found that using the information from the All New SFG book has a lot of merit. When you can, try some of the methods from the All New Square Foot Gardening book, as you will find there are great advantages including increased yeild and less work.

That said, we all do what we can and work with what we have. The main thing is enjoy gardening, it does not have to be a big chore.

Vertical gardening is great because it gives you the opportunity to use your space more effectively, and perhaps increase your yield. Please let us know how it works for you

Enjoy your gardening, ask questions when you have them and feel free to comment on other forum members questions if you choose. We absolutely photos so please share your experience with us.

Again,

Welcome to the forum, Andrea.

Last year was the first time for us to use trellises for tomatoes, and we loved it. So much easier than our previous methods of stakes or cages. We also grew butternut squash on trellises, and found that the stems on the squash grew much thicker than normal to hold up the heavy squash. We are adding twelve more feet of trellis this year for more tomatoes, pole beans, and tall peapods.

If you get a chance, you might try making a small SFG box and compare it with your hybrid method. We did that last year, and now I prefer the boxes while Hubby still likes the raised beds with grids on top, especially for larger crops such as corn, okra, and watermelons.

Welcome to the forum

Aw! You ought to at least put in one box as an experiment. It is not hard at all. I just put mine right on my lawn over the grass and they are doing fabulously. However I have good grass, not crabgrass and that would need a barrier. I figure when I move I will either lift the boxes and bring the soil with me or rake it out and throw down some grass seed.

Enjoy the garden!