The Glory of Square Foot Gardening
The First Garden Study Interview
Welcome to the Very First Edition of the Garden Study Interview! At some point I’ll get a very good graphic (if you’re a designer, email me with your rate, I’m not kidding) but for now, we’re just going to launch straight in.
The basics of the Garden Study Interview:
You don’t have to be an expert, just enthusiastic
I make a document with some basic questions and send them off; if you have ideas for questions to include in future Q&As, put them in the comments
The goal is to include all types of gardening (container, flower, patio, community, vegetable you name it) and zones; please be patient, I promise we’ll get to all of them
The comments are what really make this space shine, so please do so with abandon (and go back and check out new comments on older posts, like last week’s on Ornamental Grasses)
And as always, if you know someone who’d like Garden Study, please forward this their way — but make sure to guide them to the specific way to *opt-in* to Garden Study emails, which you can find here.
Now, let’s welcome Julie to talk all about square foot gardening, gophers, and edible marigolds…..
Name and Pronouns:
Julie (she/her)
Where do you garden?
5B, Central Massachusetts. We’re considered a humid continental climate here (lots of humidity and precipitation and temperature extremes). Very sandy soil. I have mostly dry shade as we have an abundance of scarlet oak trees and they are very thirsty. I have some shady beds with perennials and shrubs along the edges of my fenced yard, and two 5’x5’ tiered raised beds with herbs, greens, and edible flowers in a partial sun area. I have containers on our deck with things that need a little more sun and water control (or that I don’t want escaping): tomatoes, basil, hot peppers, mint, lemon balm. I also have a handful of semi-dwarf fruit trees along the single sunny strip of yard along the road. And I’ve tried to incorporate edible landscaping (blueberries, gooseberries, currants, elderberry, etc) in my gardens.
Can you describe your gardening philosophy? How do you approach it, how do you think of gardening in your mind, what makes it feel valuable to you?
I love having delightful things for meals and cooking at hand – my favorite variety of mint (mojito mint); several types of thyme, fresh baby swiss chard leaves, a couple of tiny alpine strawberries, a choice of which edible flowers to user as garnishes.
I used to grow herbs in two little beds along our fence, and struggled with enriching the soil and with weeding. With super sandy soil I couldn’t keep them watered enough once it got hot. I tried adding compost, and using landscape cloth, and that helped a little with the weeds but not enough with the soil. I didn’t like the look of it, or the lack of flexibility. Then I read about square foot gardening and decided to give it a try.
The concept is that you create raised beds, mix up the ‘perfect’ mix of compost, peat moss alternative, and vermiculite, and divide the beds into a square foot grid, using string or strips of wood. You want to use several different types of compost to provide a rich diverse blend.
This picture is from early May when I had topped them off with a little fresh soil mix (you do that every spring), and had put in some seedlings and then trimmed a few of the perennials.
I use soaker hoses laid throughout it for watering once I’ve got most of it planted. It’s the best garden I’ve had, and I’m on my third year with this method. It’s solved my garbage sandy soil, and there’s almost no weeding, no fertilizing, and the watering feels efficient. Everything seems happy enough in its partial sun, too, although I know many of the herbs might prefer full sun. And I can fit SO MUCH in it: with two 5’x5’ beds, I have 50 squares to allocate, not even counting re-using the squares of early crops. The planning is deeply enjoyable too.
I have a few perennial herbs, get some seedlings from garden centers/nurseries, and direct seed as much as I can.
My gardening philosophies are:
Must be compatible with having a dog who plays in the yard.
I like to do the work up front and then not have to do a lot later (like picnics, which are one of my other favorite things)
I try to work with the conditions - I don’t spray my fruit trees, or net the cherry tree or berry bushes. The birds eat some, but we get plenty most years. And the oak trees, while thirsty and shady, support more butterfly and moth species than any other native tree species.
I like to grow interesting things that are hard to get at the grocery or farm store (at least in my area).
I really like growing edible things; it’s so much more exciting to me than (non-edible) flowers. And if I don’t get to harvesting all the cherries, or gooseberries, well, the birds will happily eat them.)
What’s your favorite nook/corner of your garden, and when does it really shine?
The raised beds! I love them from springtime to the last gasp in fall, but I suppose they are really in their prime July through August. That’s when all the herbs are harvestable, the direct seeded stuff is visibly growing, and there are plenty of edible flowers, plus still some ripening pea pods and alpine strawberries.
We’re still getting a few peas and will get alpine strawberries all summer. There’s lots of herbs and edible flowers to harvest, and the lettuce is coming in slowly.
If a friend was starting with a blank slate of a garden, what three plants would you recommend as steady, reliable workhorses?
If they want edible flowers that bloom for ages, I would say start with edible marigolds (pot marigolds, French Marigolds, and lemon gem marigolds), calendula, and blue borage. I know that’s three already, but nasturtiums are great too and you can use the flowers and the leaves in salads as well as for very nice garnishes.
Those yellow and orange flowers are the lemon gem marigolds, with parsley behind them, swiss chard in front, and some sage and some horseradish that came back after I thought I harvested it all last fall. That front corner square isn’t getting quite enough water; I seeded lettuce there and it stayed too dry. At this point I will move something more established there or will leave that square fallow and adjust the hoses next spring when they go in.
This is the other side of that raised bed — the tallest thing with the purple flowers is anise hyssop, which has sweet edible flowers and leaves, there’s some strawberry blonde calendula, which is already gone by, and some chamomile, which is also done, some kale, chives, a couple of pea plants, more alpine strawberries, and more nasturtiums.
What are your garden nemeses, and how have you attempted (or failed) to deal with them?
The neighborhood groundhogs – I think there are three, but I’ve only ever seen one at a time. They are brazen. The first year, before I put up a fence around my raised beds, the groundhog discovered the delicious salad bar that was my swiss chard and lettuce, and then ate every squash, watermelon and zucchini I planted in another spot. So far they haven’t made it into the fenced raised beds (maybe they are only waiting for the swiss chard to get bigger??) I don’t want to fence off a bigger area, which would be necessary to grow melons and squash, so I’m living without that.
The chipmunks bury acorns in the garden, so I’m pulling oak sprouts out, but that’s not so bad. But - the chipmunks are also terrible about sampling the tomatoes, and our dog doesn’t seem to feel the need to chase them, so they will do it again.
I would label this one more of a challenge than a nemesis - Dogs! Our dog is a Lab, and loves to have his best friend and neighbor Lab over to play chasing and wrestling games. They turn on a dime and tear things up with their powerful Lab feet. They have a couple of ‘racetrack’ routes that have developed, so I have quit putting any plants along that path, and when I’ve planted near it, I have put up light border fencing to give things a chance to get established before being run over. The dogs are pretty good about avoiding the shrubs, like the gooseberries and rhododendrons. And they can’t get into my fenced raised bed area. But they are dogs, and they have so much fun running.
I have a vision of having pretty flowering vines growing up one side of our chain link fence, but every time I’ve planted them, whether seed or seedling, they don’t seem to thrive. I thought morning glories, moonflowers and scarlet climbers were supposed to be easy!
What’s a plant you wish you could grow but just doesn’t thrive in your specific conditions?
I wish I had enough sunny area with rich enough soil that I could have more fruit trees, a larger garden for squash and zucchini, kiwi vines, maybe an asparagus patch, a garlic patch, some raspberries, more room for cucumbers (lemon cucumbers, persian cucumbers, all sorts of cool varieties), more room for tomatoes (I only have room for 2-3 containers, but would love to have many varieties growing).
What still intimidates you about gardening and/or your garden?
I really wish I could do a better job of starting lots of things from seed indoors. I don’t have much room for it in the house, and the attempts I’ve made have resulted in spindly little things that didn’t do well. So I direct seed but that shortens my season.
I also am not yet skilled at planning for year-long appeal in the rest of my gardens, at least in terms of blooming things. Everything seems to look best in June and then the hosta flowers in the edge beds are done by mid-July and there’s not much going on.
What do you most often think about (or listen to) when you’re out in the garden?
It’s a very immersive state for me — even less thinking than cooking. But looking at the plants and their little squares, and seeing what needs to be done – water, prune, harvest, tie up, support, etc. I like the observation and the tending.
What are your future dreams for your garden?
It’s the number one reason I want to someday live somewhere else. I love my house and neighborhood very much, but I want more land, and a better house/garden connection. I’d like to have edible landscaping incorporated all around, more raised beds, more space for climbing and vining things, a grape arbor, many more fruit trees, and very little lawn (maybe clover or chamomile or something). What I love about gardening are the layers of learning – it seems as though there is endless wisdom to gain, over many years, and endless experimentation. I need to keep a better garden journal!
Finally, this is your chance to crowdsource freely from the Garden Study community. What do you want to ask?
*How can I stop the chipmunks from sampling my tomatoes? I really hate how they bite every tomato sometimes and take two bites of it and leave it. I can’t imagine I could keep them from climbing over anything.
*What else should I be planting in my dry shade beds?
*What other herb, compact vegetable, or edible flower should I be growing?
Huge thanks to Julie for taking the time to tell us about her garden (and for going first!). If you have questions for Julie, ask away — and if you have answers for Julie’s questions, your willingness to share your thoughts is what makes this comments section so valuable.