Tips On Square-Foot Gardening

This is a perfect way to cram a lot of vegetables into a small space.

Even the narrow border of this small patio provides enough room (about 30 square feet of soil) for 13 different vegetables and flowers.

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If you want to plant a vegetable garden but don't have much space, square-foot gardening may be the perfect solution. Even limited spaces can provide you with plenty of fresh, homegrown vegetables.

This technique uses a grid of one-foot squares. It works for any size garden but is particularly effective for smaller garden plots. Plants aren't crowded; they have just enough room to grow.

Before planting, analyze your space. Garden areas that receive full sun for a good part of the day are ideal for fruiting crops like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and snap peas. Shady locations are good for leafy and root crops — such as lettuces, radishes and onions — that can tolerate partial shade. In addition to garden bed space, you can take advantage of vertical space along a fence to support climbing plants like snap peas, cucumbers and pole beans. You can also grow tomatoes in hanging baskets.

To lay out your garden plan:
1. Using graph paper, draw the entire garden space to scale. Depending on the type of graph paper, decide on your scale (for example, one inch equals one foot) and create a grid of one-foot squares.
2. In each square, space plants at the minimum 'thin-to' distance as shown on the seed packet or plant label.
3. Remember that some crops can be grown vertically — tomatoes, peas, pole beans and cucumbers.

Prepare the soil by working it until it's fine and crumbly to promote good rooting for small lettuce and mesclun seeds. Increase the organic matter by adding a few bags of commercial compost. You can also sprinkle complete analysis fertilizer over the area and rake it in lightly.

When you've placed all the stakes and prepared the soil, your square-foot garden is ready for planting.

Then divide the garden into planting squares:
1. Make a homemade wooden ruler marked at one-foot and three-inch increments.
2. Place 12-inch garden stakes at one-foot intervals on the perimeter of the garden. Lay one end of the ruler on a perimeter stake and place other stakes a foot apart between the perimeter stakes.

When planting your garden, start with transplants and onion sets because they are visible and easier to work around. Onions, lettuces, spinach, radishes and chard can be planted in the ground in early spring. Tender, warm-season plants such as cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers shouldn't be planted until the threat of frost has passed in your area.

Onions
- For early summer scallion harvesting, place dry onion bulbs about an inch apart. You can fit 16 into a single square.
- For fall harvest onions that will be left in the ground all summer, space bulbs three inches apart.
- Onions are ready to harvest when the tops fall over and dry down. You can pull them up before that time to enjoy fresh in a salad, but they will store better if they dry down naturally.
- After harvesting onions, lay them out in single layers in a dry, shady spot to cure, which allows them to develop their protective, papery wrapper.

Bell peppers
- Be sure transplants are not too small and fragile, yet not so large that they'll suffer transplant shock from crowded roots.
- Recommended spacing for transplants is 14 to 18 inches, so each plant will need two squares.

Cucumbers
- You can start seeds indoors two to three weeks before you're ready to plant in the garden.
- If transplants were started in peat pots, you can place the entire pot into the ground. The plant's roots will grow through the pot and it will decompose. Remove the rim of the pot to prevent it from wicking moisture out of the soil in the pot and drying out the transplant.
- Bush-type cucumbers are compact varieties that take up less space in the garden. Each plant needs four squares and produces an abundance of slicing cucumbers.
- After placing transplants, sow your seed crops directly into the garden. Plant two or three seeds in each hole and thin to one plant per hole after the seeds sprout. Space the seeds based on the mature plant size.

Spinach
- Seeds germinate at low temperatures, so you can plant them earlier in the spring.
- One square has room for 16 plants. Punch 16 holes and place two to three seeds in each hole. After they sprout, thin to one seedling per hole.

Swiss chard
- This type of beet is attractive and edible.
- Two plants fit in one square.

Radishes
- Put two or three seeds into each hole, with the holes spaced about three inches apart.

Mesclun
- This mix of leaf lettuces and tender greens is ideal for small spaces and containers. A single package gives you the makings of a complete salad.
- One square has enough room for 16 plants. Punch 16 holes and place two to three seeds in each hole. After they sprout, thin to one seedling per hole.
- Mesclun seeds are small, so cover lightly with soil.

You can begin harvesting leafy vegetables when they're about four inches tall. Simply cut the entire plant off about an inch above ground. If you want the plants to keep producing, remove only some of the larger leaves.

To create vertical space in your garden, use a fence as a trellis and support for hanging baskets.

Netting stapled to a fence provides a support for snap peas, which will climb three to four feet.

Snap peas
- Stretch plastic garden netting tightly and secure it to a section of your fence with a staple gun in several locations to a height of four feet. Cut away excess netting .
- Plant snap pea seeds two inches away from the netting and 1/4 inch deep.
- Snap peas produce pretty white flowers and mature in 6 to 8 weeks.

Three patio tomato plants have been started in this hanging basket.

Dwarf tomatoes
- Mount a wall bracket onto the fence to hang a container of tomatoes.
- Three plants fit in a 12-inch pot. They'll produce dark red fruits that cascade over the container edge.

Annual flowers make a colorful border for a vegetable garden. Dwarf marigolds and low-growing zinnias can be planted in front of the vegetables or for a touch of color toward the back of a garden. Nasturtiums are edible flowers with a peppery flavor that can be used as garnishes in salads.

New plants and seeds need to be watered well when planted. Apply a layer of mulch around transplants and seeded crops after the shoots are thinned. Established vegetable gardens need 1 to 1-1/2 inches of water each week. It's best to water infrequently but thoroughly, soaking the top six inches of soil once or twice a week. Encourage growth by applying a water-soluble plant food once a month when you water.