Hello from England

Hi, I live in the Midlands,England, and have recently become interested in the SFG Method.I hope to learn more before the start of Spring 2017.Thanks for having me here.

Welcome Paul,

 I hope your time with us is both enjoyable & helpful. I live in SA183b* area of South Wales . What post code are are you in ?


 I have been gardening mainly in the UK or 50 years , I  followed Mel Bartholomew's first square foot gardening using mother earth  enhanced soil beds  then moved over to this Second edition book method ( See my strap lines ) where we don't use any mother earth at all .
Which is fantastic for me for I live in an acidic  sulphourous blue coal mine slag cum clay area , using Mel's ways means I don't have to bother about the PH of my beds ever again .
 
 I was fortunate in that I was in the early throes of having my gardens fully landscaping & having 900 mm high  4x4 linked squares of engineering bricks , in total an eventual 220 or so square feet . The 900 mm high beds are because I'm stuck with a disabled spine & bust left shoulder . I can work the beds easily one handed at this height .

All are now filled with the soil-less growth medium that Mel's method promotes , they give up some fantastic quality & numbers of veg , fruit & flowers .
 I'd never ever go back to the old style mother earth beds nor the ground zero flat earth plots of rows upon rows of crops with a lot of wasted space between rows & in the beds in general .
.
I've been running this second version called "  All New Square Foot Gardening " for six years , making  tremendous amounts of home made compost in the process.  then once it has reached a usable state I've stored it in the four full Dalek council issued composter bins ( I have seven of them ) , I'm also storing it away  out of sun light  in 40 or more really heavy duty black rubble sacks .

 Now is the time to start your composting , collecting a tremendous amount of fallen leaves , run a lawn mower over a thick bed of them or if you have one suck them u through a mulching leaf collector to get them into small pieces .

 On the home page ,on the left hand side there is a vertical column of beige ( ish )  bobbles  . Hover on it and a drop down appears . look deeply into the composting threads . It will save you a lot of time , effort & money , plus once you get the hang of making quality home made compost you'll  never ever have to bother with the vast majority of other gardening books , theories or experiments .... Mel's system is that good .

 Most of us here on the site use Mel's 2nd edition ANSFG book so we can all sing off the same sheet 95 % of the time .

 Dave .

Welcome Paul. 



It's great that you have joined the forum. If you have not already done so, you should read the All New Square Foot Gardening book. Don't be afraid to ask questions on the forum. There are lot of experienced SFGers here who will be happy to provide advice.

I see that you are in the Midlands. I am from the Midlands as well ... in particular, Stoke-on-Trent.  Moved to Canada in 1957 and now living in Ottawa, Ontario.

  Paul  
From Kelejan   in British Columbia, formerly of Surrey, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire in the UK.

Plantoid and TD have already given you great advice so I will not repeat, except please let us know how you are getting on as we are so willing to help you.

Any questions, do not hesitate to ask as the dumbest sounding  question is not dumb if you do not have the answer.  Many of us started from the bottom with little knowledge.

It is Autumn in the UK so this is an ideal time to spend learning.

For myself, I was  so happy to start with two 4 x 4s to produce enough salad stuff to keep me going that first summer.

This site has a wealth of archived information so use the SEARCH feature at the top left hand of this page.

 from way-north-state California. I'm a newbie, here, and did not have a successful first season, but I'm not giving up.   We'll both be looking forward to next spring.

Welcome to the Forum from middle California, the land of scorching summers and metered water.    I have a very small back yard, but ANSFG has allowed me to grow so much and so many different veggies, and I am able to put up some!!  Yes, perfect time to start composting with the fall leaves.  Add some farm manure, spent coffee grounds and tea leaves, veggie waste, farmer market waste, what ever you can find.  We have over 300 threads just on composting!!  I am very excited for you.  The folks here will cheer you on!

Hello Paul. Welcome from Atlanta, GA (SE US). Glad you're here!

Welcome Paul.  I spent 2 1/2 years in Croughton, Northants and loved my time there. I didn't veggie garden but I really enjoyed all the lovely flowers I was able to grow while in Merry Ole England.

Kay

Welcome, Paul!  So glad you are here!  I love the planning piece, it is almost (bot not quite) as good as that first red ripe tomato!  

I am in Ohio, Great Lakes region, USA.  We are super cold in winter, and super hot in summer...great...lol

So, what do you like to eat?  That is where I would start.  Then see how many square feet those plants need and start small.  

Just do what you love the first year.  I had free, re-purposed (I was going to trash them) window boxes my first year, and ended up with so much food, organic, delicious, it was transformative!

Post often!  

Wow look at the horrible weather they are getting in the UK including parts of the Midlands, perhaps where Paul lives.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/uk-weather-first-snowfall-causes-9211603

Thank you all for your warm welcome. And yes, the weather is awful!

The latest 63 day forecast from the Met office's new super computer according to the times yesterday ( About 8 months old ) & latest computer modeling that has used the weather records for each day up & down the UK since we began keeping meteorological records in the UK .
 The forecast  reckons that we are in for a real brass monkey November through to Feb with temperatures often down in the minus 14 oC range .. Also making it perhaps the coldest November since 1900 ... Brrrrr.

 I might just hibernate

How awful, Plantoid.  It seems the weather patterns does change over the years. I generally think of England as rather damp with occasional winds etc., especially in January and February.

Brrrrr!

Hi, Paul. Have you been reading more about SFG?

paulm wrote:Thank you all for your warm welcome. And yes, the weather is awful!

From the sound of it you are going to have lots of time for studying.

Yes Sanderson, I have been researching the subject. My beds are all ready to go and I have made removable frames over which can be draped netting or fleece. I have come up with a crop plan too.

Wonderful!

paulm wrote:Yes Sanderson, I have been researching the subject. My beds are all ready to go and I have made removable frames over which can be draped netting or fleece. I have come up with a crop plan too.

Welcome to the world of SFG! Please share your passion(pics) to all