Comments on: How to Make a Square Foot Garden

By: Jyo

Jyo — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:51:26 +0000

I am new to gardening and not sure what would be the right time to grow vegetables. Also, do you have any SFG plan to share for beginners.

I am in edmonton and my family like to eat tomatoes, squash, eggplant, string beans, cabbage, cauliflower, salad greens and some herbs

By: rich

rich — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:30:04 +0000

Where can I buy vermiculite in large bag quaantities?
The large grade (not small domestic)
Please advise. Thanks.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 16:11:02 +0000

njoy: Sorry for the delay in replying. Judging from the picture, your plants look a little bit yellow. If I were to give an educated guess, I would guess you have a nutrient deficiency – perhaps nitrogen? If that’s the case, some manure or other fertilizer containing nitrogen should fix things up.

By: njoy

njoy — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:34:11 +0000

Okay, no answers so I went looking elsewhere and found that some people do experience the same problems that I (and Terri # 54, above). One opinion is that there is “too much” compost in the mix but since most folks have good yields that doesn’t make sense. I used 3 different kinds of compost in my box so it occurs to me that perhaps I got a bag of “hot” compost. Anyway, it seems logical that something is wrong with one of the ingredients. I still have almost no growth and yet all around me, in good soil and bad, things are growing.

By: njoy

njoy — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:41:48 +0000

Here it is. Many different seeds planted but very little growth. The lettuce plants are much smaller than could be reasonably expected. Ordinarily, I’d expect it was lack of water but not this summer.

By: njoy

njoy — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:39:25 +0000

Thanks, Dave: I’ll get a photo asap (might be a few days). The mix was medium vermiculite, a mixture of several composts and peat moss from a variety of sources. Seemed like good stuff.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 21:26:54 +0000

njoy: That seems very odd to me. Could you put up a picture for us? Perhaps we’d get some clues. Also, could you tell us exactly what you used for the soil mix?

By: njoy

njoy — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:49:20 +0000

We planted our first box this year, planning to expand year by year. The cost of the mix was rather high (about $ 50 for one box) but we thought okay, it will last for years. Well, maybe it’s this weird summer we are having but very few seeds have germinated, nothing is anywhere near usable size, even the tiny lettuce plants (not from seed) are still tiny. We are at high in the BC mountains so zone 3 is optimistic (we usually have at least a bit of frost every month) but the all around us the wild things are growing and blooming even better than most years.

So, what’s going on? Any thoughts appreciated. My husband (he’s the gardener) says, “the soil’s no good”. I see his point. A few feet away, in good garden soil, the peas are doing great, for example. He is going to be very hard to convince to carry on the experiment if I can’t come up with a reason why our first box is a bust.

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:30:36 +0000

Rob: With 12″ to 18″ of soil, that would be a lot of weight for plywood. (6″ to 8″ should really be all you need anyway.) You could fill it with rocks, although if it were me, I think I’d fill it with something compostable. Maybe straw or grass clippings… Then you get the benefit of the heat from the composting action, plus a whole pile of great compost to use next year!

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:11:56 +0000

Sorry, should of course said height of 3 – 2×10′s !