Square foot planting template

ribarr4 3/15/2011, 7:43 pm

Last week I was faced with planting 512 carrots from seed so I came up with a template that marked out the squares and made 16 small holes for me to drop the seeds in. I posted a "How To" for making them for those interested. I also made one for planting 9 per sf and 4 per sf as well. It really made a difference in time and easy for me. Hope it can help someone else as much as it helped me. Let me know what ya'll think.

Square foot planting template Templ

windrider1967 3/15/2011, 7:53 pm

That is one heck of cool !!! I am only planning 9 total beds this first year, but I can really see how it would come in handy in a larger situation. That is one of those DIYs that you want a patent on - seriously. You may want to present it to the folks at the SFG store and see if they may be interested in manufacturing something like it.

dixie 3/15/2011, 8:24 pm

It should work like a charm. DH made me one back in the 80's when I was gung-ho into wide row gardening, but he used nails instead. I would place it on the ground & wiggle it around for my holes. Your design is much nicer & would make seeding easier. Your instructions are very clear. Way to go!!!
cheers

ribarr4 3/15/2011, 8:51 pm

Thanks so much. I've been wanting to do something like this for a long time, but the thought of that many holes for seeds finally pushed me to come up with something simple with parts that are easy to find and cheap. I think Laziness is really the mother of invention.

dixie 3/15/2011, 9:20 pm

Have you checked our weather forecast? 79 on Friday!!

Everything in my hoop house is growing well, I noticed the celery and rhubarb are up today.

ribarr4 3/15/2011, 9:29 pm

I know and I am so ready.

I've got spinach, cabbage, kohl rabi, broccoli and cauliflower coming up here.

Good gardening,
Richard

**Furbalsmom** 3/16/2011, 12:43 am

Great tool Richard. Especially for someone who is growing your volumne of veggies. Very clear instructions.

I just looked over a bit of your blog and was impressed with the amount of food you get from your garden and your greenhouse. I plan to take a bit of time later to really go thru the blog. Thanks for sharing.

ribarr4 3/16/2011, 1:21 am

Thanks so much. We love to eat fresh local food and you can't get more local or fresh than the back yard.

miinva 3/16/2011, 8:46 am

That's really cool! I bet I could talk my husband into making a couple of these Smile

Thank you for sharing and I love your blog. I'm not very good at keeping mine up to date, sadly.

FarmerValerie 3/16/2011, 9:17 am

Furbalsmom wrote:
I just looked over a bit of your blog and was impressed with the amount of food you get from your garden and your greenhouse. I plan to take a bit of time later to really go thru the blog. Thanks for sharing.

Grab a cup of coffee or a glass of tea first, you will be there a while, they have a wealth of info on there. I really loved the hog story, I can still smell fresh bacon.

I just got your blog update in my email Richard, enjoyed having coffee with ya'll this AM, I was on my way back to the forum to make sure you posted a link to this handy tool too. Great job!!!

nancy 3/16/2011, 9:26 am

How cool!! I seem to make holes too deep - this would be perfect! Thanks Richard!

ribarr4 3/16/2011, 11:43 am

It is easy to make. That is one of the things that took me so long. In my mind I had a more complex and harder to build design.

I think Terrie is going to post more about the pig. It was much more than we expected and she just sliced up the last 14lbs of bacon. It took us three weeks to finish up, but when it's gone we will do it again.

It does help me make the holes the right depth and also the right spacing. After I would plant before I would see that I would crowd stuff within the square and have gaps between squares. Now it is spaced just right.

If anyone is interested let me know and I will post my apparatus for marking out squares that I used to use. It is just a few peaces of PVC pipe and two elbows.

FarmerValerie 3/16/2011, 11:59 am

Sounds interesting Richard, I just used up all the old vinyl mini blinds we had laying around to make grids. I need to be outside making a few more grids, but it's only 57, so I'll wait till the chill is gone a bit, it's supposed to hit 75 today.

Sorry all you northern gardeners, I'm not trying to make you jealous of our weather, but the pollen is in full force down here (when is it not) and 30-40 temp variations each day and night reak havoc on allergies, sinuses and colds so I wait until it's at least 65 before going out, other wise I can't go out at all because I can't breathe.

BackRiver_SFG 2/21/2012, 10:18 am

Reading a thread on the forum and ran across your work. What a simple and effective idea for making a seed divot. No need to buy a product invent and make your own!

Thanks for sharing the quality design plans.

TrishTheDish 2/21/2012, 1:42 pm

That sounds like a project my husband could really get into. He likes to help! Tooooo cool

Chopper 2/21/2012, 4:01 pm

I am at a loss. I cannot even think why this ever came up. LOL. It is a one foot square. I always just eyeballed and poked holes with my finger. And after planting, they did not always come up where I put them anyway. Smile

ribarr4 2/21/2012, 10:46 pm

joe.patmos wrote:Reading a thread on the forum and ran across your work. What a simple and effective idea for making a seed divot. No need to buy a product invent and make your own!

Thanks for sharing the quality design plans.

Your Welcome and thanks for checking it out. I used one a few days ago to plant 4'x8' bed of spinach and it made it simple.

ribarr4 2/21/2012, 10:48 pm

TrishTheDish wrote:That sounds like a project my husband could really get into. He likes to help! Tooooo cool

I don't have a lot of extra time so I made it as simple as I could to build. Hope it helps.

ribarr4 2/21/2012, 10:51 pm

Chopper wrote:I am at a loss. I cannot even think why this ever came up. LOL. It is a one foot square. I always just eyeballed and poked holes with my finger. And after planting, they did not always come up where I put them anyway.

That's the way I did it for over a decade and it worked great, but when I started planting 512 carrots and 280 spinach every 3 months my fingers thanked me for making them.

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