Planning my first SFG

Hi everyone,

This is probably the first of many posts from me this year. I live about 20 miles west of Portland, OR, with a tiny suburban back yard. It gets lots of sun, fortunately. I am planning my first SFG, just on paper so far, and have just finished reading the latest version of Mel's book.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to plant, and am looking for resources, online or otherwise, to tell me what varieties of what plants do well here. I want to plant as much as I can from seeds, to keep costs down, but know I will have to purchase some, ah, are they called sets or starts? I think I've seen Mel use both terms. Anyway, I know some things can't be grown from seed.

My backup plan, if I don't find any helpful lists, is to go to local garden centers and just see what they are selling, with the assumption that if they sell it here it probably will be ok. But I'd rather have better information to go on than that.

Thanks in advance!

janine

janine,
Welcome to the forum and your first SFG.

My first year in 2009 I wasn't sure of anything so I bought seedlings from Walmart, Lowe's and Home Depot. I had to make do with the varieties produced by Bonnie Growers who supplied all 3 places. That means I couldn't vary my choices too much.

For your seedlings' safety, read up on when they should be put outdoors. The suppliers usually bring in plants earlier than can be safe because they want to start selling right away. Your garden might not be quite ready for them weatherwise. Check Mel's book for transplanting dates and your last frost date is VERY important to their success or be prepared with old blankets and towels to toss over them to protect them from feezing nites.

The next year I began seed starting and bought my own seed and grew my own seedlings. Wow, the varieties are unbelievable and the flavors of things are wonderful.

You just have to learn as you go and do what works for you. Take your time and don't worry about it too much. It'll all fall into place in a couple of years.

If you have questions, just ask here. There are folks that can probably give you the answers you seek.

Good luck and have fun.

I found this. I noticed some of the varieties are what I grow here in Nashville TN.

http://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/story.php?S_No=1079&storyType=garden

Also I have made an excel spreadsheet for SFG planting times. You just put in your first and last frost dates of the year and it calculates them for you. It is "Planting Schedule" on my garden page.

http://www.green-cityzen.com/garden/

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Richard, that was exactly what I was looking for!

janine

I was able to get the vermiculite and peat moss at Al's Garden Center, if you're still needing those. I'm planning on getting my transplants from Al's as well since they're only 10 min away from my house. They have a location on Roy Rogers and I think 2 other spots. You could take a trip to all the produce and fruit farms while you're over there!

Al's has a great selection, but their prices are pretty high. Of course selection and location are worth something, so that might not be a problem for you. I sometimes go to the one on Roy Rogers because I know I'll find what I'm looking for there. For big projects, though, shopping there can really add to the price tag.

I shopped around for prices on the peat moss and vermiculite and it seemed the same across the board so I just went to the closest location for those. Plants definitely on the pricier side but they have a great selection compared to fred meyer and home depot. I've got a gardener's friend (I think that's the name of the store on 99 in tigard) near by too so I'll check that out as well but last year their prices were on the high side as well. This year is our first year so I just sort of gave up on it being cheap. Next year I think will be much better.

New Seasons has pretty good prices on plants, though their selection is limited. I found that Fred Meyer had the best price and selection on compost.

Al's was the only place I found that had vermiculite in stock. You can order it from Home Depot's website for half the price, but then shipping adds some of it back. At least it's relatively light!

Being an engineer, I put together a spreadsheet of all the parts I was going to need and shopped around to figure out how much it was all going to cost; ultimately we decided we can't afford to do it all at this time. So for this year we're covering over the grass with weed fabric and bark nuggets, and I'm going to grow some test tomatoes to make sure my garden space gets enough light. Hopefully things won't be as tight next year and I can put in the boxes then.

I don't understand this aberration about Mel's Mix or naught.
What every happened to gardeners gardening?
Just get a few boxes built, fill them with garden loam and add some peat moss, bagged composted manure, and a few amendments and get started.

I started 3 years ago without Mel's Mix. I could never afford to garden if I had to buy all that stuff. I started with what I had available and what I could afford.

Can you buy a few bags of topsoil or garden loam, some peat moss, some bags of composted manure and a small bag of limestone, blood meal, and bonemeal or liquid seaweed fertilizer? Sure, vermiculite is great, but I never had it. My garden flourished and fed a family of 5 most of the summer.

You can always AMEND your soil another year, with 5 types of manure if you like, but get started now. Don't let the money issue stop you from gardening. Use what you have and make do.

This is my 3rd year and because of all the hype, I'm going to look for bagged Mel's Mix at Home Dept this year and add a little to each of my boxes. But if the purse can't handle the cost, I'll pass and just add my compost.

My boxes that first July. They are doing very well without all the fuss. Remember, I'm in Maine where we get started later than the rest of the country.

I'm sure my tomatoes and cabbages and peas tasted every bit as good as anyone else's.

My advice, DO IT.

You took the words right out of my mouth QB. I had a large reply, but really, what's the point? I used container soil and miracle grow soil in my two raised beds last year and my results were fabulous. Mel's Mix has it's ups and downs as does just using dirt from your yard. It's the concept that we're using more than anything. The fact that you can grow that much food in that small of a space.

If it can't be fun and enjoyable then gardening never will be. Just jump in, work with what you can, and have fun!

janine wrote:Being an engineer, I put together a spreadsheet of all the parts I was going to need and shopped around to figure out how much it was all going to cost; ultimately we decided we can't afford to do it all at this time. So for this year we're covering over the grass with weed fabric and bark nuggets, and I'm going to grow some test tomatoes to make sure my garden space gets enough light. Hopefully things won't be as tight next year and I can put in the boxes then.

This sounds like a good plan. We do what we can, when we can. The important thing is start some type of garden and grow something. You can always add beds as you are able.

On the other hand, I wouldn't be gardening without Mel's Mix. I've never been interested in gardening; I'm not interested in learning about gardening; I have a few lazy bones. But I want to eat garden fresh veggies. Using Mel's Mix in the SFG system makes it possible. Make it once, and I"m done. I put seeds in my MM, water, and wait. Simple. No shelves full of amendments, additives, and chemicals to learn about. I highly recommend the use of Mel's Mix, even if you only start out with one box.

I don't have an opinion one way or the other yet on Mel's Mix, since I haven't tried it yet. But when I try a new method of doing anything, I like to follow it as closely as possible when I first start out. Then after I know how well that works for me, I can make changes as necessary. So I'll start out with Mel's Mix and go from there.

The mix isn't the cost problem anyway. No one item is all that expensive; the only line item on my spreadsheet that's over $100 is the wood, and only because I wanted to use cedar instead of doug fir. The problem is that a whole bunch of small things add up to a big number. And because I have veggie-loving dogs, everything needs to be covered or fenced in, which just adds to the expense.

What I'm doing is basically splitting the project in two - all the prep work this year, and building the boxes next year. In order to build boxes I have to borrow tools (from my ex, no less) and get my husband to allocate a weekend to the project. I'd rather not do that more than once. So when we do build boxes we'll build out the whole yard.

For the test tomatoes I'll be using upside-down planters from Gardener's Supply. I had two last year but they didn't get enough sun and yield was measly. This year we have this stand thing that belonged to my husband's grandmother, and I plan to put it out in the middle of the planting space with four tomato plants on it. If they don't do well, then I know this might not be the right yard for growing veggies.

I'll probably mix up some Mel's mix for the tomatoes and see how that goes. Last year I used regular container mix and fertilized as suggested, which was a pain in the behind. This year I'll try it the SFG way and skip the fertilizer. I do have a brand spankin' new compost bin, so I can take my time this year figuring out how to get that humming along.

It will all work out in the end, it always does!

janine wrote:...when I try a new method of doing anything, I like to follow it as closely as possible when I first start out. Then after I know how well that works for me, I can make changes as necessary. So I'll start out with Mel's Mix and go from there.

I liken it to trying out a new recipe that I haven't eaten before. If I change ingredients the first time I make it, I won't be able to appreciate the subtle flavor interactions between seasonings and ingredients that the cook intended. When I change a recipe without trying it first, I'm altering it to taste the way I always make things taste. Essentially, I'm not really trying anything new.

But after the first cook, anything goes!

To suggest that a product like Miracle Grow is a perfectly adequate substitute for Mel's Mix is to entirely misunderstand the purpose of the SFG system and the SFG Foundation's objectives.

Grow your own garden as you will. However, I believe it is improper and an insult to the host of this forum to suggest that Mel's Mix is an optional ingredient of SFG, or to casually toss it aside as irrelevant if one prefers the old ways of amending soil.

Change can be difficult and slow. We can find many excuses to not use Mel's Mix. It would be preferable to offer beginners success stories to encourage their efforts to use Mel's Mix instead.

I am not sure I agree with that genes. While I do agree that using Miracle Gro may not be the best solution, it's still better than nothing.

Mel himself has stated that if one cannot find all of the ingredients for Mel's Mix that using straight compost is a perfectly acceptable solution. Some people have trouble finding decent compost and may only have the option to use something like Miracle Gro. There are no hard and fast rules. Do this or don't do it at all. It doesn't work like that. I agree that Mel's Mix is an amazing way to grow veggies, but I don't agree that it is required in order to follow the square foot gardening method.

Quote from the Square Foot Gardening Foundation site:
"Grow all you want and need in only 20% of the space of a conventional row garden."

Square Foot Gardening is about growing more in less space, not what growing medium you use.

genes wrote:To suggest that a product like Miracle Grow is a perfectly adequate substitute for Mel's Mix is to entirely misunderstand the purpose of the SFG system and the SFG Foundation's objectives.

Grow your own garden as you will. However, I believe it is improper and an insult to the host of this forum to suggest that Mel's Mix is an optional ingredient of SFG, or to casually toss it aside as irrelevant if one prefers the old ways of amending soil.

Change can be difficult and slow. We can find many excuses to not use Mel's Mix. It would be preferable to offer beginners success stories to encourage their efforts to use Mel's Mix instead.

I always thought the system of spacing was the main purpose of SqFG? I would not like the idea that Mr. Bartholomew would say you can't do it if you don't use my soil recipe! I had my first bed with compost/fertilized topsoil. I loved the system and this year am starting more beds with MM. HOWEVER, the cost can be prohibitive on a low income! In my area it would cost close to $100 for a standard 4x4 bed and a lot of people just DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO SPARE FROM LIVING IN THIS ECONOMY! Doing what you can is better than doing nothing!

Insulting? Wow that's pretty harsh. Lighten up a little. I would like to point out that Mel square foot gardened for many years before he came up with "Mel's Mix". I've been SFG'ing for almost 2 decades and have never used "Mel's Mix". Remember we're all square footers here who want to grow food. I will say this though, when I started out SFG'ing it took a couple of years to get my soil in descent in shape the way Mel taught it back then and am envious that ya'll have Mel's mix.

I think Mel's Mix is the one feature that makes SFG unique among gardening systems.

Raised beds have been around forever, and so has the concept of intensive gardening. The idea of a physical grid is a novel and practical idea, but the spacing recommendations aren't unique.

Mel used to advocate all that amending stuff and hard work. Why did he leave behind those old traditional methods and develop Mel's Mix, if the old ways were so good?

I too believe that Mel would prefer to see someone row gardening rather than sitting on the davenport.

However, I believe it is rude to dismiss this Mel's Mix on his very own forum.

I'll chime in on this one... Been there, done that.

My first beds were "Scott's Mix". I used Mels recipe and added 1/4 of the topsoil from my row garden. It works great.

Just this weekend, I was digging up one of those and "screening" it to remove rocks from that dirt (finally).

boffer wrote:On the other hand, I wouldn't be gardening without Mel's Mix. ...snip... I highly recommend the use of Mel's Mix, even if you only start out with one box.

I had a huge, beautiful row garden when I lived in the mountains. A berry garden and an herb garden too. That is where I learned lots of skills and invested in tools, the star of which was a big front end tiller. We moved to town where I found out that most of my so called skill was really the privilege of good sandy loam and clean water from the well. I spent two years just trying to get good soil from the peat like dirt that didn't even want to grow grass in town. My pole beans were pathetic, tomatoes seemed mad at me and peas refused to do much more than sprout. Trying to push a shovel into that soil was like digging into a bag of compressed peat.

I don't remember why I started SFG. I only knew one person who did it, and she did the old fashioned kind where you had to screen the soil. It did not look easy. Six inches did not seem deep enough. But I wanted at least a salad and peas. Ray and I went shopping and got everything for one 4'x4'x6" box. We used only home grown compost that I had brewing in a couple of plastic bins we had scored the year before. The fluffy, weed free mix was a delight! It gave and gave way beyond the French intensive garden I kept in the mountains and as a bonus, there was almost no work involved once seed was planted. I didn't have to get on my knees to weed or spread mulch down the center of rows; I didn't have to outsmart thieving birds.

My personal opinion is that without the Mel's Mix it is just another raised garden done intensively. That is not to say a raised intensive garden is a bad garden, obviously it is not. Bea is the queen of beautiful gardens and I have learned a lot from reading her. I'm just saying that the investment in Mel's mix has paid back in spades for me. I have a strong bias against Miracle Grow (regular or organic) and have NEVER come across a bag of potting mix or bagged topsoil that comes close to Mel's Mix. We sold the Rototiller; the big shovels, hoe and bow rake are rusting in the garage. My gardening tools all fit in a bucket.

Since that first garden we now have 5 more, the newest are 4'x8'x12" which is absolutely monstrous. Took forever to fill, but my husband happily filled them because (1) he is so impressed with the yield from the first 4 boxes and (2) he is pleased as punch to not have to rototill or sink posts for peas or put up poles for beans or come up with a way to keep the chickens out of the onions.

Me? I had so much extra time that I blogged the progress. It has just been fun. And I would happily stick to an 8” tall bed but Ray likes nice long carrots.

Here's another consideration. This is a business owed/member managed forum. It is provided and promoted by the business as a courtesy to the members, and it is but a very small facet of a larger marketing plan. It is not managed by the business because the economic returns don't justify the time investment by an employee.

I was admin for most of 2010 when this forum format began. It was my preference and decision to allow wide open, free flowing discussions on anything within the boundaries of the TOS. I
received private comments from several members with admin experience, expressing their surprise and pleasure that the sponsoring business would be so gracious and permissive as to allow the introduction and discussion of other gardening systems. Typically, that is not the case, but we lucked out. From talking with numerous people, I get the impression that Mel could talk gardening 24 hours a day, any gardening, because tweaking, modifying, tinkering, or adjusting a gardening system is just a way of life for gardeners.

As SFG has increased in popularity, the opportunity to manufacture and sell pre-packaged Mel's Mix developed. It is showing up in more and more stores. I doubt that Mel ever dreamed of such a thing happening because that was not his priority. But, now that pre-packaged MM is in the stores, it is a source of revenue that supports his vision of feeding the world, one garden at a time.

If you choose not to use MM, that's your business and no one elses. But, to summarily dismiss Mel's Mix as an unimportant part of the SFG system is to take money out of the Foundation's pocket. Our support to beginners should be about helping them develop the entire SFG system including MM, to the best of their abilities. Mel is aware of the costs involved and scarcity of some products because he addresses them in his book and offers suggestions. If new gardeners make the effort and run into obstacles, we should be there with our supportive ideas to get them past those obstacles without taking a detour.

It is human nature to resist change. It is far more comfortable to do what is easy, cheap, convenient, fast, or familiar, rather than put in the effort to expand our knowledge and experience, or to be patient, or to understand the long term big picture. There are almost always more guests lurking on the forum than members logged on. A lot of them are fence sitters trying to decide whether or not to try this thing called SFG. When they read over and over that MM is not important, the SFG Foundation has potentially lost a customer or convert. Either one is a lost resource.

Chapter 5 of the ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING book is titled: "Mel's Mix, Essential for Square Foot Gardening Success". If you disagree, that's fine. But we members are guests on this forum that is provided by a business, and IMO it's not polite to snub the forum host on their own forum.

Well stated Boffer!

Just call me tim the tool man jaybird, I am notorious for doing things (bigger and Better) and it generally bites me on the backside,and my wife dosent let it go,,
I started sfg LAST YEAR and built what 572 squares, I followed the recipe but only used chicken litter for compost I have since began to amend with horse manure, My garden last year was phenominal, I will however continue to do things bigger and better but I wont change the soil recipe,,,, even in the greenhouse we used the MM recipe period. But I do agree use what is available but give special consideration to NOT changing the mix ,,, the mix is what takes most of the labor away, I weeded my garden in less than a hour last week and now its ready to plant , row gardening it would take me a hour to get the dadgum tiller started!!!!!!!!