fter just one growing season, Bill Rigby is sold on square-foot gardening – in fact, he’s been teaching workshops to spread the word to other gardeners.
“It’s a very satisfying way of gardening,” said Rigby, a Graham resident and Pierce County master gardener. “It’s very productive. The results will just amaze anyone who does it.”
Square-foot gardening is a simple idea: Grow more in a smaller space, with less work.
No wonder it’s growing in popularity – there’s no need to dig or improve the underlying soil, little or no fertilizer is needed to grow great plants, and fewer weeds will grow in the special planting mix.
“It’s a simple, unique, versatile system that adapts to all levels of experience and physical ability,” Rigby said.
HOW IT WORKS
A basic square-foot garden consists of a 4-foot-square box that’s 6 inches deep, filled with a blend of compost, peat moss and vermiculite, then topped with a grid that divides the box into 16 squares.
Rather than sowing in rows, the gardener plants just a few seeds in each 12-inch square, according to the mature plant spacing indicated on the seed package.
“You don’t thin them out, you plant exactly what you need,” Rigby said. “When you plant in a row garden, that’s wasting all that seed.”
Each square can accommodate 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants, depending on the space that a mature plant requires.
For instance, a single square can comfortably grow one cabbage, or four lettuce plants, or nine beets, or 16 radishes, Rigby explained. A box can be planted with a single crop or several crops. Flowers and veggies can go in the same box.
GROWING MORE
Mel Bartholomew, author of “All New Square Foot Gardening,” says that one 4-foot-square box will produce more than a traditional 8-by-10-foot row garden.
That’s why Kathryn Powell, chairwoman of the new Puyallup Community Garden, hopes gardeners who rent 10-by-10 plots there will consider it. “We would love it if people started getting into square-foot gardening,” said Powell, who is a master gardener. “You need 80 percent less space than you would normally need. It produces so much more.”
To teach gardeners the basics, Powell invited Rigby to give a workshop on square-foot gardening at the community garden last week.
WHAT TO PLANT
Rigby learned about square-foot gardening early last year when he bought Bartholomew’s book.
After growing flowers and food crops in open, raised beds for years, Rigby thought Bartholomew’s grid system was a great idea for keeping crops organized.
Still, Rigby was skeptical about the shallow boxes. “I thought, it’s impossible to grow stuff in 6 inches,” he said, so “I started growing and experimenting.”
Rigby found that most vegetables will grow well in the boxes, but crops with longer roots – like rhubarb, strawberries, 8-inch carrots, celery and rutabagas – need more depth, so he made permanent beds for them. In his boxes, Rigby grows a wide variety of veggies, including corn, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, short carrots, garlic and beans.
WHY 4 SQUARE FEET?
The idea behind a 4-foot-square box is that most people have a comfortable reach of 2 feet, according to Bartholomew’s Web site, www.squarefootgardening.com. Couple that with 2 to 3 feet of walkway space around the box and it’s easy for a gardener to tend and harvest crops. If there’s access on only one side, the box should be just 2 feet deep. If space is limited, try a 2-by-2 or 3-by-3 box.
DESIGN FACTORS
A box can be constructed without a bottom and set on level ground, on top of landscape fabric, cardboard or a thick layer of newspapers that will keep weeds from growing up through the planting mix.
Adding a plywood bottom allows the box to be set on risers at a comfortable working height, or placed onto a hard surface. “I think it’s great for people who have minimal space – it can go on a patio, a porch, a deck,” Rigby said.
The boxes can be as plain or fancy as the gardener wants: Rigby paints his boxes and grids white.
“When you’ve got the vegetables growing in there, it looks nice,” he said. “It piques people’s interest – they want to know, ‘What is that?’ There’s a lot of interest in it.”
get started
From box construction to set-up to growing tips for your square-foot garden, see Page C4. WHAT TO GROW
This is Bill Rigby’s list for setting up three square-foot-style gardening beds. Each year, rotate the crops to a different bed:
BED 1: Peas, beans, tomatoes, squash, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, lima beans, soy beans, eggplant, strawberries, rhubarb, herbs.
BED 2: Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, choys, turnips, radish, mustards, collards, kale, brussels sprouts, daikon, flower kale, horseradish, kohlrabi, rutabaga, watercress, lettuce, spinach, chard, celery, Chinese cabbage, endive, corn.
BED 3: Beets, carrots, potatoes, garlic, shallots, sweet potatoes, parsnips, artichokes, yams, asparagus, chives, onions, mallow, okra, chicory, seakale.
Jean Parietti, for The News Tribune
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