After a few season of trying various gardening methods in my back yard I have come up with a system that works well. It combines the benefits of a container garden and square foot gardening into what I like to call Square Foot Container Gardening.
The first season I decided to start an outdoor container garden on my back patio I used 1 gallon milk jugs with the tops cut off. I put some dirt in each container, planted my seeds, and began a watering routine. After about 2 weeks I quickly got tired of watering 10 separate individual jugs, and because the jugs were so small I had almost no plants grow. The was just not enough room for the roots to grow. So, the next spring I decided to find a better method. I read up on container gardening on Garden Guides and started using 5 gallon buckets instead of milk jugs. My plants did grow but watering still was quite a chore with a lot of individual buckets to water regularly.
After a couple season of using 5 gallon buckets I decided that I wanted to try something different because checking each bucket to see if it needs watered every day was just more tedious than I was willing to continue with. That is when I stumbled across the idea of a Square Foot Gardening. A square foot garden can be done in traditional gardening fashion strait in the ground or using a method similar to Container Gardening.
Wikipedia describes Square Foot Gardening as “The original square-foot-gardening method used an open-bottomed box to contain a finite amount of soil, which was divided with a grid into sections. To encourage variety of different crops over time, each square would be planted with a different kind of plant, the number of plants per square depending on an individual plant’s size. A single tomato plant might take a full square, as might herbs such as oregano, basil or mint, while most strawberry plants could be planted four per square, with up to sixteen radishes per square. Tall or climbing plants such as maize or pole beans might be planted in a northern row (south in the southern hemisphere) so as not to shade other plants, and supported with lattice or netting.”
Since my back yard is all cement patio, with no open grass or dirt area, I followed the advice of Frugal Dad and created a 4 by 2 foot container to plant my garden in. I used a 4′ x 2′ piece of 3/4″ plywood and 2×8″ untreated lumber to form a platform for holding my garden. By attaching the 2×8″ lumber to the edge of the plywood with wood screws I created an 8 square foot gardening box that is roughly 7″ deep. I drilled a few drainage holes in the plywood to let excess water out. Finally, I filled the box with Miracle Grow Garden Soil and used some twine stapled across the top of the box to divide it into 8 square foot sections.
Since my square foot outdoor container garden is not especially deep it limits the types of vegetables I can effectively grow, but I’ve found that beets, green beans, peas, and peppers all grow well in these conditions. I plan to try zucchini, cucumber, lettuce, and spinach this coming season as well.
The best part about using a single larger container for my square foot container garden is that watering is much easier. I can spray the whole thing down the with a hose very quickly, or you can setup a simple drip watering system using four to six 20 ounce water bottles. The number of bottles you need will depend on how hot and dry the weather is in your area, but the method is the same. Poke 4 or 5 small holes into each bottle, forming a column of holes, running from top to bottom on each bottle. These holes will let the water slowly drip into the garden. Then, poke a single hole on the opposite side of the bottle to let air in as the bottle drains. Place the bottles between the square foot sections along the twine lines. It is best to fill the bottles in the morning so that they can slowly drain into the garden throughout the day. During the hotter summer months you may need to fill the bottles daily, but in the spring the will probably only needed to be filled every couple of day.
Having used an Outdoor Square Foot Container Garden for a few seasons I’ve found it to be really effective for maintaining a small vegetable garden in an urban area. Watering is easy, there is no weeding because the soil is in its own container, and the initial startup cost is to set everything setup is under $50. If you’ve been thinking of starting a small garden but don’t have a lot of room to work with an Outdoor Square Foot Container Garden is a great method to use.
Sources:
“Guide to Container Gardening”, GardenGuides.com
“Square Foot Gardening”, Wikipedia.org
“Square Foot Gardening”, FrugalDad.com
