Square foot gardening - two BIG lessons learned + short tour

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Two lessons learned the hard way in my first year of square foot gardening.
#squarefootgardening #squarefootgardeningforbeginners #squarefootgardentour

More videos you might like:

HOW YOU CAN HELP US
Hit the SUBSCRIBE button to follow our homesteading journey and for homesteading tips.
Once you have subscribed, hit the BELL ICON to be notified when we post a new video.
LIKE and COMMENT on our videos. All of the above helps to grow our channel and continue to produce videos.

FOLLOW US

CONNECT WITH US - We'd love to get to know you!
Comment on this video or email us at:

ABOUT OUR SUFFICIENT LIFE
------------------------------------------------
We live on 8 acres in rural Iowa and have what feels like the perfect place to become less dependent on buying things in stores and the electric company. Dan and I are in our mid-50s and we are gearing up to retire early and make a self-sufficient living right here. Our goal is not just to survive, but thrive and we want to take you along with us on our homesteading journey. On our channel you will find videos on building things, recipes, canning, deep winter greenhouses, chickens and much more - anything we are doing to build our homestead! Subscribing to our channel, liking this video, and commenting below will help us to grow our channel and keep producing content.

Karyn has been a farm girl, teacher, software instructor, hospital office worker and a general nerd. She shares the recipes, kitchen and home tips, and works the garden.

Dan grew up in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee. He has been a soldier, assembly line worker, farmer, and a sign maker. He works on improving the property, building things, and fixing things.

We post a new video every Sunday - sometimes more during the week. Looking forward to seeing you around!

[joyfulparadise]

First time gardener here. I grew my tomatoes mainly in grow bags and just a few real bad looking ones in the garden bed. When they first went in they looked fine. Then they became GIANTS and completely out of control. Even then ones that looked real bad to begin with finally took off and got out of control. Lesson: I built a string trellis to be jealous.

[bernadine]

Thanks for mentioning working full tome! It makes a difference! Lol!

[HannaPramholt]

When growing tomatoes in a small space you need to prune it and trellis it. That way you can keep it neat and tidy and avoid sickness due to lack of airflow

[lifescansdarkly]

Cucumbers to the left of me, green beans to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you 🎶

[dalepres]

You have to trellis or string tomatoes and pick all the suckers to grow one in a single square foot. For the beans and cukes - trellis, trellis, trellis. Consider a cattle panel trellis across from one bed to another. Each bed gets to use half the trellis.

[catsandadoberman]

Purslane is a bonus vegetable or Salad Green. Don't get rid of it if that is all the weed issues you have. Lovely garden. Wish mine was so productive.

[lelenbates]

Read Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. He created the system in the late 70's to address over crowded garden beds and to maximize production. He has grid capacity charts in the book. Most people that make YouTube videos about it have never read the book by the man who created the system.

[juliemarr]

Thank you for the tips. Remove the weeds but definitely keep that purslane...good video. 😊

[artistlovepeace]

I'm learning gardening too from the Square Foot Gardening method. Beautiful video and advice.

[PorchGardeningWithPassion]

Very interesting information. Thank you!

[TjTracyThomas]

This year was my first year with raised beds and SFG. Learned a lot. Need to prune more and water more. Mulch was great! Hardly had weeds. Mels mix was perfect. Awaiting my asparagus next year. Peppers are still producing. Had more bug issues than usual too. Squash and zucchini took over their beds. Just purchased 3 more beds. Good luck and thanks for sharing.

[etiennelouw]

Over here in Cape Town, South Africa, I can't use my grass clippings as mulch, too much seeds and if the Kikuya grass (enemy no 1) gets into the veggie patch big trouble, this grass is an invader in America, but a native here. I started my trees 3 years ago so they are still small and I am the only Veggie gardener in this suburban area. This is a mediterranean climate so hot summers so I have to plan shade somehow still, your garden is great.

One square foot works for tomatoes but you have to trim them. Give them an eighteen inch square or two foot square if you get a jungle every year like I do. 😊

[lingoss]

I just started watching your video. According to my notes you are supposed to allow 4 squares for one tomato plant, with the tomato plant being planted in the middle of the 4 squares.

[HeatherAnne]

That's the part people don't tell you in most videos. In order to do square foot gardening, you have to prune and train the plants a lot. It takes a lot of attention. Container gardening is the same. The plants need a lot of fussing.

[southernboycookin]

Oh boy, young lady When you put indeterminant tomatoes into a raised bed, the first thing to do is decide how many vines from the plant you want; remove all others heh (well, unless you have supermondo tomato beds with huge cages). If they are bush tomatoes, no need to pluck suckers off those. They will branch out oh yes, but will produce fruit all at once and after they ripen, just remove the plants---they've done their job heh. The recommendation for square foot gardening used to be to trim indeterminants down to 1 vine only, plucking out all other suckers (for leaf coverage, wait till suckers get 2 true leaves then pluck out the middle growth.). Nowadays, I believe they are saying 1 tomato plant for 4 of your squares. Not sure on that tho as I've gone down to a small container deck garden. I chose 3 vines for my plants and everything else gets plucked away heh. Good Luck this year!

[hookandstonecreations]

I'm going to give it a try this summer.
This has happened to me in tue past with tomatoes. They take over and i can't even access them to harvest.
I'm going to try the string trellis and cut the suckers off to keep them smaller.

[Grip_ItandrRip_It]

Tomatoes come in 2 type 'determinate' and 'indeterminate' Determinate only grows to a certain height, but indeterminate will make vies that go one forever, With a long season, we get 8 ft tomato trees that crush those little tomato cages you see in the box stores.
Buy you your mulch BEFORE you need it! It should already be near the garden and ready to go when you need it. If you wait a week to go to the store and buy it, the weeds will already have a head start.

[SeriousMoonlight]

Overall great growth! Good mulching tip. Re: monster plants - typically, I just prune vigorous foliage growing plants like tomatoes, beans etc - I keep enough leaves for energy but prune some 45 degree stems to allow light, air and pollinators access to flowers for fruiting. and shadowing other smaller plants. Also, choose best placement ; taller plants in non shadow casting positions (usually corners or one side as opposed to center)

[bevbailey]

Eat the purslane, that's just a free gift from nature!!