The square-foot garden method is based on raised bed technique that is used for small or congested spaces. Readymade raised bed square foot gardening is costlier but it is possible at low costs at home without any special arrangements but with just basic requirements.
Here, I'll share with you an easy DIY method of assembling and making grids for square-foot gardening at home at a very fewer cost.
Square foot gardening for beginners
Hopefully, you know the basic measurement technique and using the carpenter machines. If you never used such tools as drilling screwdrivers, cutters, or hammering nails, you should call for an expert adviser either for your friend or a professional.
If you are not aware of square-foot gardening yet, then take a quick look at this, and then let's go for the further DIY method of making a square-foot garden.
What is square-foot gardening?
The square-foot gardening method is useful to grow a variety of plants in a single container. The USD of square foot gardening method is a plantation of a variety of food in small places.
While growing plants in a square-foot garden, we use a raised bed of soil and then divide it into multiple squares with wooden or plastic grids. Though we can use the thin ropes and fix them at the walls of raised bed containers over the soil.
Without gridlines, it becomes very messy and not easy to grow to fix a number of distinct plants.
Although, there are readymade expensive raised bed square foot containers available in the market it is not that difficult to make it an affordable price at home. Let's understand all the requirements first and then an easy method to develop its grids for plantation.
Requirements for square foot garden
Tools required
- Screws
- Screws drilling driver
- Hammer
- Inchtape
Materials required
- Raised bed wood
- 5mm thick rope
- 5mm thick bamboo wood
- Potting soil mixture
Wooden raised bed
You can make your own raised bed at home if you have the right type of wood. Either buy it from the market or develop your own at home.
Always choose an N:N+1 sized container that should have at least 1-foot depth. It means you'll have a total Nx(N+1) number of square sections in the container. People do this fundamental mistake initially and while measuring squares for grids, they lack either some extra area or less area.
It means, if you are taking a 2:3 sized(2 feet width and 3 feet length) container, then, you'll have 6 different square boxes for plantation.
Thus, according to your space, you can measure the area and assemble the raised bed accordingly.
How to make square-foot garden and grids?
Step 1- Installing raised bed container
First, you measure the space you have in your garden or yard. According to the space, you need to be raised bed container size. Bring all the wood pieces and assemble them with their screws precisely. I want you to be aware here because after filling the soil, it'll push pressure on the walls of this container. Set this container in the right place because after filling the soil, it'll not give you ease to shift from one place to another.
Step 2- Prepare the soil mixture for square foot container
Now, prepare the potting soil for your selected vegetables in the garden. Either you can use the traditional method of making potting soil or use 2:1:1 of garden soil, compost, and sand in a certain mixture.
Finally, fill your container with 75% of the soil.
Step 3- Measure and drill at the container wall
Start marking the points on every 1-foot width and length. Considering you've taken an n:n+1 sized raised bed container initially, you'll have a rectangular grid in the end. Simply, if you've taken a container 5 feet wide and 4 feet long then, you need you can have 20 sections for different plants to grow. Fix the hooks at all the marked points on each 1-foot gap along with width and length. Fix a strong 5mm thick thread or rope pieces along with width and length. These rope sections must be fixed on both front wall points of the container. Hence, you'll have gridlines in the end.
You can also create thin wood gridlines manually inside the raised bed or take bamboo gridlines of the same thickness.
Step 4- Start garden plantation in each section
Finally, select the plant seeds according to their maximum growth spaces and numbers. You can grow 12 to 15 carrots in a square, 2 to 3 broccoli plants, 2 to 3 collard greens, 2 to 3 plants of spinach, etc.
Start seed germination or direct plantation after germinating seeds in nursery beds. Later, you can transplant them in these container spaces.
Thus, you can grow various varieties of vegetables at once even in small spaces by implementing the square-foot gardening method.