Cah from Square Foot Gardening
Storey Communications, Inc. Schoolhouse Road Pownal, Vermont 05261 Photographs by Didier Delmas and Roger Griffith Illustrations by Tara Deveraux and Cindy McFarland Copyright 1985 by Mel Bartholomew All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or...
Typical Yield From A Cash Square Foot Garden
Unit of Per Sq. Average Total to Month Unit of Per Sq. Average Total to Month If we leave out corn and eggplant, the average is 90c per month per square foot for a six-month season. That's equal to 5.40 per square foot. That means a garden that measures 640 square feet, like the one on the cover of this book, could take in an average of 640 x 5.40 3,500 per year. By selecting the more profitable crops, that could be almost doubled, to 6,000 per year. But by multiplying the number of months of...
Mix Your Own
As an alternative to the ready mix, you can purchase individual bags of vermiculite and peat moss to mix your own. They both come in bags or bales containing four or six cubic feet. When buying vermiculite, get the coarse grade, rather than the fine or medium. Since it gradually breaks down, you want to start with the largest particles you can. Vermiculite is mica rock that has been heated until it expands, just like popcorn. The type of peat moss is not particularly important. Most growers use...
Starting Seeds Indoors
Make sure you have the right conditions and equipment for starting seeds indoors. You should have a sunny area, preferably a greenhouse or a place with light coming from above. Many people believe that a window with a southern exposure is ideal. They end up with a lot of leggy plants leaning toward that window. For stocky, healthy transplants, it's hard to beat this lighting system. If you don't have a greenhouse or overhead sunlight, you can grow your transplants indoors under lights. The...
Building Boideis
Your beds should be bordered with wood if possible. This makes for a neater garden which is easier to take care of, and it allows you to build up your soil more easily and to cover individual beds more readily for protection see chapter three . The ideal size for lumber is two-by-sixes or two-by-eights. This is fairly expensive if you buy it, but you should be able to find some for free. There's always some construction in the neighborhood and builders throw away a lot of good lumber. Just ask...