Hello from The Missouri Ozarks

Hi Teger31!

I live in Southern Illinois, so I'm not a too far from you, our weather conditions are about the same.
One of the best things about the All New SFGing is that you don't need to worry about what kind of soil you have, clay soil, sandy soil, it just doesn't matter cause your not going to use it anyway!

Good Luck with your SFG and be sure to take pictures to share with us!

Thanks I will .I went to my Garden Store Again and they still haven't got the corse Vic. yet I have been trying for a Month now I have called every store in the area no luck . will med. vic work or do I stick to my guns and keep looking for corse Thanks

Hey Teger, (wild waving) I am nowhere near Branson BUT after going to garden stores all over my county, we stopped at a farmers feed co-op. They had LOTs of big bags of course vermiculate. Do they have those where you shop?

Deborah ....getting dirty on the Left Coast

welcome to the boards! so glad you found this forum.

keep searching, i'm sure you'll find the vermiculite. if you ultimately can't, mel suggests perlite but he says in his book that it makes him sneeze and that's pretty much the only reason he doesn't seem to like it as much.

in third world countries where one cannot find vermiculite or even peat moss, he uses straight compost. not potting soil. straight compost. so if all else fails, use more compost.

Thanks I am still looking I have One 4by4 allready so I am just going to start with that and do the other when I find it . this is a great site and I am telling everybody I can about it.

My Brother found the Vevmiculite in Nixa at a Hardware Store . said they had got a big load of Vec so if anybody in the Ozarks needs it they could get it there.

Hi Teger31. I'm MCKR3441. Don't you just love the numbers we use? Welcome to the SFG forums. I'm an "old" gardener; one that has gardened by fits and starts for years because nothing ever really worked. I'm now I committed convert to SFG, just started last spring and have gone "goofy" with gardening again.

Check in frequently. Visit all the different forums and check out the threads. We're glad you're here and hope we can be mutually helpful.

P.S. we visited the Ozarks in 2008. Spent over a month touring Missouri and Arkansas. What a beautiful part of our great country and such music-loving people. We want to come back!

Teger31 wrote:Hi I live in Branson Mo. Is anybody eles around here ? This is my first full year with Square Foot Here I have tried before but with the old book that I got in Fla 20 years ago and could never get my soil right. the soil in the Ozarks is not that good so after 3yrs I gave up and tried growing in pots that didnot work .I saw Mel's new book at a Book Store Last year and its been great .I go to a Garden Store today to get a bag of Vic. for my 2 square .Happy Gardening

Hi, I"m not so far away from you at Lake of the Ozarks! We drive to Branson a LOT, Silver Dollar City season passholders (so I'm hoping we can grow this stuff and still ride our rides this year too LOL). I have tried gardening a lot over the years and hoping my SFG efforts this year will work out better(-:

Teger31 wrote:My Brother found the Vevmiculite in Nixa at a Hardware Store . said they had got a big load of Vec so if anybody in the Ozarks needs it they could get it there.

Hi,

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad your persistance pursuing vermiculite paid off. Would you mind sharing your source information with others in your area? You can do that by starting a thread in this forum: https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/northern-central-midwest-f12/
Title: "Vermiculite available in yourcity/yourstate" In the post let us know who and where the dealer is. This will help other gardeners in your area find the stuff, and hopefully we'll be able to put everybodys' sources in a big list someday.

Thanks a lot

I just joined today ... and i also live in the Missouri Ozarks, but on the northern end in east central Missouri just off the Missouri River.

But i use to live in Greene County which is just north of Christian County which is just north of Taney County where Branson is. Actually, i've performed a few times in Branson and Silver Dollar City (i play old-time traditional music on the guitar, mandolin, banjo and also now the English concertina).

My folks use to comment how they "farmed rocks" -- a good description for areas of southern Missouri.

Anyway, howdy from one Ozarkean to another.


BassoraMo
growing mo' on the Muddy Mo

Hi I live in Springfield MO and just joined nice to hear you are in Branson. I will be in your neck of the world Aug 19-22 we are giving a 3 day program on seed saving. I have been a gardener all my life. I teach gardening I think that this will be a great addition. So many from this area are out of work and have been for a while that I am trying to help by showing my neighbors how to supplement their food dollars. I teach beginning gardening and this will be very effective to those who have small spaces.

Hello everybody I have been changing to widows7 and lost alot of my e-mail so I didnot see that I was getting replys but a friend came over yesterday and got it going . I would have rather been in my garden but it was rainy yesterday anyway .

Hello, Everyone,

Teger, I'm a Missouri girl from Swampeast Missouri near the Bootheel, across the state from you on Crowley Ridge. We spend our anniversary in Branson each year, and on the way home we always stop by Baker Creek Heirloom Seed near Mansfield. It's a great place to visit and pick up organic and non-GMO seed.

I've gardened all my life - I'm 55 and grandmother of five. I have Mel's first book, - bought it when it first came out - but DH and I have never tried the method before. We had already planted this year's potatoes, onions, spinach, parsley, swiss chard, peas, early lettuce, and radishes the conventional way before I ran across Mel's book again that had been tucked away in a closet. I showed the book to DH and he became really excited and wanted to try SFG this year for the rest of the garden.

I have several questions. I'm not sure if this is the place to ask them, but I'll give it a shot.

1. Should we buy Mel's new book, too?

2. Do the boxes have bottoms on them, or do we just make outer frames so the roots can grow down into the soil underneath?

3.We have a garden site we've used for years that we've built up with rice hulls, grass clippings, and manure. Some of the soil is in really good shape while one corner needs more building up. Should we use Mel's mix in the boxes, or could we do just as well using the soil that's already in our garden and leave the boxes without bottoms? We have a Troy-bilt rear tine tiller, but we try not to till the soil unless it's absolutely necessary. It seems this method would nearly eliminate the need for our tiller.

4. I was thinking we might make some long beds for things like sweet potatoes and corn. It would be nice to be able to remove the boxes, plant ryegrass there over the winter, and till it under in spring, then replace the boxes before planting. Does that make sense with the SFG method?

5. We have a free supply of aged rice hulls, - not sure whether I should call them composted, but they've been sitting in a field for several years. Hopefully any chemicals that might have been used on them have leached out. Can we incorporate those into the mix for our boxes instead of vermiculite?

6. Finally, our garden has been invaded by rhizome bermuda grass. Anyone have advice how to keep that from encroaching? It grows right under boards we have sunk several inches into the ground and we have to dig like heck to get the roots out. We built a fence around our garden with hog panels, and we thought about putting a couple of feeder pigs into the garden this spring to dig up the roots, but now that we've already planted the early garden that won't work. If we put bottoms on our frames that would solve the problem (except for those rhizomes which would grow up through the drainage holes), but then we couldn't benefit from the lovely soil we've already built up. I'm not sure which direction to go.

Advice on any of these questions is muchly appreciated.

Hello Missouri Girl! Yes buy the new book. It will answer most of your questions.

In a couple of days I will be 53 and like you I have spent most of my life working a traditional garden that I deeply miss. If we had not moved I would still be fussing over it. My husband is ready but I am reluctant to give up our rear tine tiller.

In the new book there is no soil sifting and the boxes have bottoms of landscape fabric. I am assuming the old book had you sift the soil because a girlfriend of mine spent a huge amount of time doing that when she started.

If your garden was my garden I would put my first box in the corner that "needs more building up”. The soil underneath does not matter. I see pictures all the time of people who set their boxes on gravel or even cement and have beautiful results. It is nearly a soilless mix so it doesn't matter what goes under.

We had issues with Bermuda grass here in Washington State. The garden was never the same once it took over. The problem we had with pigs and chickens wintering in the garden was that they pooped more seed into the soil. Good luck with that. Yuck. We tucked black plastic into the ground to stop it. We had some success stopping it if it was about a shovel head deep. If there was a hole in the plastic big enough for just one fleshy root to poke through then all our work was in vain.


Cover crops: Since the mix is soilless you do not need to feed the soil. Keep a good compost. It is a different idea, this SFG. My gardening philosophy for years was to feed the soil that fed my food. This is a whole different world, and frankly easier on me now that I am not as strong as I was a few years ago. Funny how I did not realize how much I took advantage of my errant boys and their need of hard physical labor (rather than grounding them next to their electronic games) to do things like turn compost, hoe rows, repair fences, clean out under the bunny hutches and rake-mow-rake-mow-rake-compost. There is a lot of hou-raw about how SFG is better than traditional gardens, and for the most part it is, but given the choice I would find a happy middle ground. So I vote (as if I have a vote) try SFG (after reading the new book) over the soil you are less happy with and over the Bermuda grass.

See if SFG is something you can enjoy. I do and did not think I would. It is a BIG investment to get started. The frame is the least of it. If you have good compost you are a third of the way home. I just don't know about rice hulls.....do they stay fluffy or compact?



Deborah ....Welcome from the PNW

Thanks, Lavender Debs,

I guess I'd better buy the new book because after re-reading the old one then browsing through this site I was really confused. Everything seems so different today from the first book. I like your idea of sort of combining the two. Where our soil is already good I think we could do the original version and plant right in the soil, still marking off in the grids to save seeds and space. Of course, we'd still have to pull weeds and deal with moles and mice. In the "bad" corner (it's over an old gravel drive and resists efforts to build it up) we can place boxes and try the soilless mix. If we like it we can slowly convert everything to the new method, adding a new box or two each year.

I definitely like the idea of the vertical frames. I could probably grow peas along the hog panel fence. It's 36" tall, but tomatoes and cukes need something higher, and those frames look much better to me than the standard staking or cage methods.

Rice hulls that have rotted/composted/whatever are very dry and powdery. Some of the hulls remain whole for a few years, and it makes an excellent soil additive.

Thanks for the tip about the pigs and chickens "replanting" the weeds they eat. I didn't even think about that.

Hello wecome to the forum. the main thing I would say is yes get the new book .I to bought the old book back when mel was on PBS and I tried to make a go of it when I got a place that I had a back yard to make my square and it didnot work I could not get the soil right . with the new book and makeing mels mix is what made this system work and after you read the new book it will help you on the other ? you had and and somebody that knows more than me here will probly be able to help . Happy Gardening

Howdy:

Last year when I built my first SFG beds according to the, "ALL NEW Square Foot Gardening" book I noticed that you can also make a SFG on top of a table or on saw horses or on most anything stable enough to hold the box off the ground. I built several boxes on the ground and one at table top height. The table top height garden had no weeds, no grass or moles bother it. This spring I have converted 3 more beds to table top height and may use the remaining ground SFGs for climbing crops only. Time will tell.

God Bless, Ward.

Hi Teger!
I am from Mt Vernon, MO. There is an awesome resource not too far from you in Sparta, Missouri at Season's Harvest Eco Farms. They would either have a supply of what you are looking for or point you in the right direction to get it. http://www.seasonsharvestecofarm.com/
I have had raised bed gardens for three years and love them but now I am really excited to incorporate sfg into my plan

Hi! I'm from the Branson area. I started my first raised bed (7'x7') a couple weeks ago, and then I heard about SFG's... I hope it's not too late for me to try it! Sounds like I need to buy a book on this gardening technique. I already see that I've done something wrong, didn't buy vermiculite... too late for that now, already started planting. Do you know if there's a chart that tells you what you can plant in each square foot? I'm a little confused as to what goes where in the garden bed. :-)

Taney71 wrote:Hi! I'm from the Branson area. I started my first raised bed (7'x7') a couple weeks ago, and then I heard about SFG's... I hope it's not too late for me to try it! Sounds like I need to buy a book on this gardening technique. I already see that I've done something wrong, didn't buy vermiculite... too late for that now, already started planting. Do you know if there's a chart that tells you what you can plant in each square foot? I'm a little confused as to what goes where in the garden bed. :-)

In the ALL NEW book Mel lays out the wherefores and howtos in wonderful simple language. After reading the book you will have the foundation for a wonder SFG laid out for you.

God Bless, Ward.

I was pretty lonely on the old forum last year (Well not really, just no one the good old Ozarks). I gardened all of my life (until last year) in a traditional "rock laden" row garden. the last row garden I put in was about half an acre. I am very glad to have made the transition to sfg. I worked a lot of overtime last year and had to neglect the sfg and the forums. Even with the lack of attention we still had a very good crop. Actually we had a great crop compared to the traditional row gardens in our area. Last year was a rough gardening year. I am hoping for a much better gardening year this year.

I currently live in Harrison, AR about 30 minuets south of Branson, MO. We frequent Branson and even Springfield on occasion.

to ander17
I always order from Baker Creek in Mansfield, MO. (http://rareseeds.com/). I hope to visit Mansfield in a couple of weeks after attending a swap meet in Fordland, MO.

to BassoraMo
Rocks are always been a bumper crop here in the Ozarks.