Do you exclusivily SFG?

How many do just SFG? In years past, we did a row garden, but it didn't do very well, mostly because we didn't put enough time into it, plus a major coon invastion.
I guess seeing me get all my SFG beds ready, got myself in the garden mood again? Today he asked me to till him up a small row garden. We'll see how it goes. Maybe between the two of us we will get a few veggies.

I garden at my restaurant. I had put in several flower beds before I discovered SFG. I have not converted them, since my priority is on my vegetable beds, lots and lots and lots of 'em!

Last year I said I was going to keep it simple. I failed miserably at keeping it simple, but I was very happy with the success of my garden!

In the past, I only ever grew peas, a few tomatoes and a few strawberries ( and flowers.)

And this right here is the crux of the matter - if I had gotten so out of control with a row garden, I am sure I would have concluded that I wasn't cut out for gardening. But this way is soooo much easier! It's got to be tough for people that already have the beds and the rows. I was starting from scratch, and my garden area has nothing remotely resembling real soil - just nasty hardpan/gravel, and scrubby weeds. Nothing that will even support healthy weeds.

Eventually I will start installing some raised beds for the flowers around the restaurant - hopefully! Last year I started dabbling in companion gardening. There is always something I want to do over on the SFG side that seems more important than converting the flower beds. (Mind you, for me, if it was veggies I was talking about, it would be a whole different kettle of fish - I'd be switching over in a heartbeat!)

I almost exclusively use SFG, but I put my "excess" in containers - If I buy a 4-pack of something, or if more of my seedlings sprout than I expected, I just can't let the others go. SO I guess you could say I do both.

I'll be teaching a "Grow Your Food" class at our local community college and I HAVE to teach about other methods.

Nope. My corn patch is 8x25 feet. I just can't justify a box that big full of MM. However, I do dump the same 5 way compost on it every year that I use in my SFG boxes, and I plant my corn one per square. No grid, just a modified layout stick.

I have a couple raised beds from the year before I started SFG. I've been using them as is, as I've been expanding my SFG boxes every year. I dump the same 5 way compost in them too. I just hate them. They are a pain in the neck...and back...and knees. But this is the conversion year finally, stay tuned to see how I am turning most of the space into SFG space.

I have perennial herbs planted within my flower beds and I also put my tomatoes in the bed on the south side of my house.

Herblover, I love your photo!

KSRoman - tell me more about your teaching - (Zero judgement just curious) why do you have to teach about other methods, and do you have to do so exclusively or can you include SFG?

My garden is pretty much a SFG garden, but I also have some containers and bins and random bits of wood I've come across that I throw some MM in.

My determinate tomatoes are going to be in buckets this year. My yukon gold potatoes are in sterilite bins. My purple hull peas are going to be in this rectangular box my hubby brought home for work.

Martha:

I was at the college filling out the tax paperwork for the SFG class I'm teaching in September when I was asked to fill in for another teacher for the Grow Your Food class. So that means I have to present HER syllabus.

The "methods" segment includes row, block, raised bed, intensive & container gardening. However I CAN present it in such a way that it is easy for everyone to tell that the negatives outweigh the positives in row gardening, etc.

I am also allowed to tell everyone the method that I prefer/use, and mention that I am a certified teacher of SFG, hand out my business cards, mention the upcoming SFG class and even mention that if they should want a book, they may contact me outside of class. However I MUST present all options.

I can live with that.

I do my potatoes, tomatoes and corn outside of SFG boxes. I also do pumpkins in old tires (because we are not eating them) and I have some flowers in old tires. The corn I will do in a 4 foot by 12 foot row style, the potatoes are in rope handled buckets, the tomatoes will be in self watering containers my husband made me.

I have 8 SFG's filled with everything else. (or will....when my last frost date gets here LOL)

I id tomatoes last year in my SFG and they did great, but I only had 4 boxes then and 3 tom plants. This year I will have 14 tom plants and I just wasn't willing to give up that much space in my SFG's, even though I am doubling how many I have this year.

FYI: I am moving this thread to Outside the Box....where anything not SFG belongs.

As a renter I do some containers and some SFG, Mels Mix in top 6" of most containers. Glad to see others use containers as well still use SFG spaceing in containers. Most of them are recycled and miss mached SFG garden is much prettier. No rows too much work and space plus land lords don't want you tilling up their land for the most part.

My vegetable beds are mainly SFG. I have one bed from last year that is based on the old book that was what I had at the time. I call that the SFG old timer lol. Three beds are Mel's Mix SFG.

Other than SFG I have a bathtub that is mm on top of old soil.

I have flower/herb beds that are not SFG. I am a Master Gardener and I use our local soil to show how to amend and grow in our area. I love beds that are not square lol... I was going to put in a kidney bean bed but realized it was the perfect spot for my spring/fall salad bed (SFG) lol...

I am going to use MM with amendments for my blueberries. Humm..if they ever get here.

Variety is truly the spice of life.

No, as I just discovered the square foot idea, but have been gardening for years and years. Now converting existing raised beds to MM and grids. The garlic planted last fall is in traditional rows, and potatoes are planted in a hill arrangement at the end of the west 4' x 12' raised bed. The space planned for corn will be in a wide hill, amended with MM and surrounded by squash plants, interplanted with beans--three sisters, you know. I'm actively seeking more wood for raised beds construction, so our days of row gardening are declining. SFG is just too sensible, and solves an ongoing dilemma: rotation planting.

FarmerValerie wrote:Variety is truly the spice of life.

Howdy Folks:

We Square Foot Garden only. Except 3 round foot gardens made from wire/cable spools. The sides are made from a flexible hard plastic filled with Mel's Mix and grids that look like the spokes of a wheel.

God Bless, Ward and Mary.

100% here. Once I discovered SFG, I abandoned everything else. Never say never, but for now, everything is in an SFG for us.

ksroman wrote:snip.....I'll be teaching a "Grow Your Food" class at our local community college and I HAVE to teach about other methods.

The couple who teach the same class at my favorite nursery (Sunnyside in Sunnyside WA which might have been incorporated by Marysville) Are SFGners who teach veggie culture rather than method BUT they light up when someone mentions that they are SFG'ners.

My herb and lavender gardens are both slightly raised gardens with MM over the dirty crud that holds the weeds down. I hate to call it soil. The flowers in the front garden are also in the ground. I only started SFG'ning last year. I am a 30+ year dirt gardener, but most of my garden was French Intensive so planting things close together is not foreign to me. When I see gardens done the way I used to do them (double dig--I was young and strong--and intensively planted) they are usually called Bio-Intensive. The French are not as popular as they were when I was a young mother. I also did knot gardens for my herbs and those are also planned in blocks of plants that measure how far apart seeds should go without rows between them.

I would like to have a corn garden like Boffer's but
1. Ray sold the rototiller,
2. There is some kind of green plastic net that apparently held the so called lawn when the neighborhood was "landscaped" wherever there is stuff that should be mowed, and
3. The dirty stuff under the plastic net accepts a shovel about as well as dry compressed peat.

Tomatoes and vines are grown in large tub-like pots full of MM (pi-r S'edFG)

I had to vote 99.7 percent due to pototoes are going in containers.

KSRoman, it sounds like maybe it is actually a useful format for presenting SFGing. I would think it would be easier for the skeptics to hear side by side info rather than just SFG info about which they can be thinking "Yeah, but...."

Slowly slowly slowly converting most to SFG having just started last year and adding more this year. All my herbs are always in planter boxes around the deck railing.

BUT there are some I never will put into SFG including zucchini and my rhubarb. Garden space is NOT an issue for me so I have some options and would rather use the SFG for other items. I also plant more in blocks and close together. I love my 15 foot long been trellis tunnel in the regular garden. I also wouldn't waste SFG space on corn---I do a 12 ft x 30 ft area. I also like lots of cucs for canning. This year I will be growing those up a 15 foot long cattle panel in the row garden. I don't think I will every put my other vine crops (butternut squash, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe) in boxes and grow them up. I have the space to grow them on the ground and do not want to mess with growing them up a trellis. With black plastic underneath I don't have to weed or water often and pretty soon the vines cover the ground solid so it is very low maintanance.

No! I have nine raised SFG beds, 3 raised berms about 20' long and several containers when I garden each season.
Then there's the 3 long 30' rows at the community garden that are just in rows.
Of course I hill them as best I can without the lumber and space and grow according to Mel's ideas.

As you can see, I 'raise' my rows as best I can in the comm garden.

Nope, I can say that the majority of what I am starting is SFG 100% but I decided early on not to do tater's in my sfg so I have containers for them.