How Many Square Feet Do You Have?

0.  

We recently moved and have to start over again. We had 96 sq ft. that we had to leave behind. I hope someone else will enjoy them as much as I did!

Our old beds were on the ground, but this time they will be tabletops! Oh, how I look forward to growing a garden again, but for this year we are busy doing other things, getting to know the layout of the yard and battling with kudzu.  We won't know where to put the garden until we clear that all away an can see where the best place is.

We have started a little compost pile and have a volunteer melon of some sort growing in it!
And we are growing an abundance of alfalfa, lentil, and black eyed pea sprouts in the house....

In the mean time.... we are looking at tabletop ideas and looking forward to when it will all happen again!

I am a junior member here, and a newbie to raised beds having just migrated from in-ground gardening for the past 60 years or so to a few raised beds a few years ago. I only have 192 square feet of raised bed.  But, for a couple of old retired people, with just the two of us at home, we don't really need much more - we still grow more food than we can use, and give a lot of it to the food pantry and neighbors. So, don't know that we'll expand much more than what we now have. But, I love gardening and it still keeps us healthy both in the exercise of taking care of the gardens as well as consuming healthy food.

Turan wrote:4 3X8 = 96
2 4X8 = 64
1 1X6 = 6
1 greenhouse = 34
1 3X8 compost berm for squash and compost finishing = 24
1 1X8 in strawberries =8

total = 232

I want to add 2 3X8s this spring and upgrade the greenhouse.

That was 2013.
Now I have~
3 3X8 = 72
2 4X8 = 64
1 U shape = 36
1 greenhouse = 64
Totals 236 squares plus a 10X10 deep mulch area for squash or corn etc.

The big changes are the bigger greenhouse and that the kids are now grown and not eating here so more gets put up for winter.

I sound like a total loser!  I have 67 regular flexible squares, and 21 dedicated to strawberries, and honestly it is quite enough!  

I really do want a cold frame, though...

I'm up to 176 now, which is nearing capacity.  Two of the 16 SF beds are dedicated to strawberries.  One is for garlic and onions.

One other, plus two 2' x 4's, are for potatoes.

I plan to add just one more 16 SF bed next year, although I may be replacing some of the old wooden ones in the front yard with something a bit taller and more durable.

Quite a bit of space has been taken over by raspberry and blackberry thickets, and I now have five dwarf or semi-dwarf fruit trees.  And then, I have two squash, sorrel, thyme, dill, and oregano volunteers in my flower beds.  

There's also an approximately 3 SF bed with MM, planted with tomatoes, so I guess that actually makes 179!  All this on a 6098 SF lot.  

Once part of the deck is removed, I may be adding more smaller beds next year.

How do you guys have time to actually manage that SF?  I didn’t get home in time to water tonight, which I need to do!!!!

Retirement helps a lot!

donnainzone5 wrote:Retirement helps a lot!

+1

+2

donnainzone5 wrote:Retirement helps a lot!

+3

I am not retired but I do have an automatic water timer set up on my hose.  I have it set up with the drip irrigation for the garden.  I also do not have HOAs or such types nattering at me about tidiness.

Scorpio Rising wrote:I sound like a total loser!  I have 67 regular flexible squares, and 21 dedicated to strawberries, and honestly it is quite enough!  

I really do want a cold frame, though...

There is a quantity/quality factor. Mine garden is big so I can get a lot of stuff 'wrong' and still have stuff to eat. If I was a better gardener and focused my time rather than spreading it out, I'd could probably get the same amount out of a smaller space.

WAAA! I have 0 sf right now. Fingers crossed these fires will be out by the first of September so I can get back to serious gardening. Our new place has 0 potential for anything but minimal landscaping. Thank goodness I still have access to the old place, with almost unlimited potential for gardening.

Suz,  What about the area behind the pool.  It looks like you could have some 2-4' x 8' beds on the ground.  ?? You could have as many sf as I have in my teeny back yard.

sanderson wrote:Suz,  What about the area behind the pool.  It looks like you could have some 2-4' x 8' beds on the ground.  ??  You could have as many sf as I have in my teeny back yard.

MIGOSH! I just realized that my onion project to solve the safety issue of pier block brackets tripping people in the backyard behind the kitchen balcony, will result in 100 sf of new sfg beds. I can't possibly plant all that in onions. What else can I plant that the deer won't eat?

Also, potatoes.  I've planted them in front-yard SFGs, and deer haven't bothered them.

donnainzone5 wrote:Also, potatoes.  I've planted them in front-yard SFGs, and deer haven't bothered them.

They destroyed my sweet potatoes last year.

Potatoes are a different family than sweet potatoes. Sweet potato leaves are edible, potato plants are not edible.

Turan wrote:Potatoes are a different family than sweet potatoes. Sweet potato leaves are edible, potato plants are not edible.

Good to know. Thanks.

sanderson wrote:119 square feet plus two 2' x 4' beds on wheels that I will be baby sitting for 6 months = 135, plus the 5-gallon buckets, BTE strip and a few large pots.  More than I ever thought I could squeeze in this tiny back yard.

MIGOSH! Your production is AWESOME!

Thanks

sanderson wrote:A question on a SFG Facebook page prompted me to find this old thread.  Have your gardens grown shince you posted.  How many sq. ft. do you have?

I started with 28 and now have 119, plus some 5-gallon buckets and 40 ft of BTE.

It's hard to figure mine with all the odd containers thrown in, but it looks like I have about 160' this year and 210' projected for next year. From what I'm reading here, I think that should be enough. I just have to plant smarter and take control of the chaos. I keep telling myself "I am the boss of this garden." Problem is -- the garden just doesn't listen. Maybe I need to yell it out instead of whispering under my breath.

This year I add two new raised 48ft² beds for raising squash and cucumbers, so I now have 240ft² in regular raised beds.  Additionally, I have two 3' diameter fire rings that have Rhubarb in them, which is an additional 14ft².

1 -  36ft² bed
3 -  48ft² beds
1 -  60ft² bed

This year was the best gardening year we have ever had, and we have canned and frozen an unprecedented amount of vegetables for the winter months. But, with the long, soggy spring we had, followed by the hot dry summer, if I had not had the raised beds with the automatic drip irrigation system, we would not even have had a garden this year.

OhioGardener wrote:This year was the best gardening year we have ever had, and we have canned and frozen an unprecedented amount of vegetables for the winter months. But, with the long, soggy spring we had, followed by the hot dry summer, if I had not had the raised beds with the automatic drip irrigation system, we would not even have had a garden this year.

  I'm so glad I found those custom planter boxes last spring. That project went the way of the wild goose, but now I have all those fabulous boxes for my SFG.

OhioGardener wrote:I am a junior member here, and a newbie to raised beds having just migrated from in-ground gardening for the past 60 years or so to a few raised beds a few years ago. I only have 192 square feet of raised bed.  But, for a couple of old retired people, with just the two of us at home, we don't really need much more - we still grow more food than we can use, and give a lot of it to the food pantry and neighbors. So, don't know that we'll expand much more than what we now have. But, I love gardening and it still keeps us healthy both in the exercise of taking care of the gardens as well as consuming healthy food.

I was thinking about this last evening while I was out picking the pole beans.  We have lived here for 38 years, and for 32 of those years we had a 30'x60' in-ground garden that we took care of.  Six years ago we began tiring of the work of the in-ground garden, and started installing raised beds which are not only closer to the house, but easier to care for.

We replaced 1,800 sq ft of in-ground garden with 276 sq ft of raised bed gardens, and we get more produce out of the raised beds now than we ever got from the in-ground garden. Not only do the raised beds allow more intensive planting, but it makes succession planting easier as space becomes open. The in-ground garden, on the other hand, requires keeping paths open between the rows and nothing can be grown in that space.  Additionally, it is much easier to grow and maintain healthy soil in a raised bed than in-ground.

And then, I found the Square Foot Gardening Forum, and there was no turning back....