Square Foot Gardens

SQUARE FOOT GARDENS & URBAN GUERRILLA CROPS

SCHOOLS, COMMUNITY CENTRES & OLD FOLK’S HOMES IN SINGAPORE. Please give me a call to discuss making Raised Bed Gardens for your community. It’s a fun & friendly healthy outdoor activity for all ages.

The public in general are becoming far more aware of, and resistant to, pesticides, herbicides & chemical fertilisers on their ‘fresh’ food. Quite understandably, people don’t like to be poisoned with GMO’s, Roundup or any other poison for that matter.

But there’s no getting away from eating poison nowadays, is there?
Yes there is.
It doesn’t matter if you live on a piece of barren land, up a mountain or on a concrete car park. You can still have a fantastic garden that produces tons of wonderful organic goodies, even in a small space, without poisons.

But how?
Hang on, I’m coming to that. Go to the Human8ture ® part if you haven’t been there yet and read about composting of humanure and composting / horti/agri waste; it will really help you understand the following.

Okay, here it is; no big secret, or is it?

VIDEO: MEL BARTHOLOMEW’S SQUARE FOOT GARDENING

Meanwhile … here’s some surprising news about bugs

Raised bed organic gardening with humus / compost / soil; based on Mel Bartholomew’s book, Square Foot Gardening. With this method, there is no need for back breaking labour, no need for fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides or suicides.

SOS! SAVE OUR SEEDS: save / store seeds in a dry place for an endless supply of seeds.

Find the plant you are searching for with this easy search engine

SOS! SAVE OUR SEEDS: by allowing 10% of plants to go to seed you will have more than enough to plant for your next crop.

BASIC PRINCIPALS OF SFG: CLICK HERE FOR TONS OF SFG PICTURES

Simple SFG box

6″ to 8″ inch high wooden boards that make a 4×4′ box (various combinations possible) Raised bed – therefore off the ground (on groundsheet / netting / paper etc) .

100% organic compost – good soil mix – charcoal etc – NPK box is marked off into 1ft x 1ft divisions / grids

seeds are chosen and planted according to size of grown plant (not just scattered) ie 16 spring onions in 1x1sq ft, but 1×1 cabbage in 1x1sq ft

SOS! SAVE OUR SEEDS: by saving and reusing seeds, plants will aclimatise and become bigger and stronger and more resistant to local diseases.

Okay. What do I do?

Locate a patch of land:
Create a box section of wood (as above) FYI: pressure treated wood has cancer causing arsenic in it.
Sit your box frame on a piece of shade cloth or similar base to stop weeds coming up.
Fill the box up with natural, horticultural compost / humus / soil.
Use thin strips of wood to square the box off into one foot sections.
Start to plant seeds.
Plants, like spring onions, can go 16 to a box. Cabbages you can put only one

Okay, now you’ve got the idea, why not go vertical? If you’ve got a patch of land that’s only 4ft by 1ft you can stack your garden boxes vertically. Make a framework and go up, keep the sun in mind when locating your patch.

Same idea goes for steps. You can make a very attractive and productive garden on steps up by making one foot square boxes using the same principals.

Thanks Mel. Now go and buy the book folks!

Please read on for tons of ideas about companion planting, garden structures, seeds, planning, planting and so much more …

CALL ME FOR A FREE QUOTATION !

An elevated SFG is very empowering; it allows lesser able bodies to enjoy the benefits of SFG. CLICK HERE or on the photo to go to a great site on planning, building etc. This is a MUST SEE site.

Shortcut to …

Introduction to Square Foot Gardening

Square Foot Gardening – Planning

Square Foot Gardening – Building Beds

Square Foot Gardening – Soil Mix

Square Foot Gardening – Planting
Square Foot Gardening – Garden Structures

Another essential resource in food production is water. Agriculture is a water intensive process and consumes 70% of the total water withdrawn globally (FAO, 2011). The
supply and availability of water is increasingly diminishing and is unevenly distributed globally. Already today, large parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East face either physical or economic water scarcity. SuSaNa.

In this article above we discuss the difference between GMO ‘manufactured’ seeds/crops and naturally occurring open pollinated seed grafting. Scroll down to the bottom of the article to see what it has to say about Monsanto.

SOS! SAVE OUR SEEDS: by saving your own seeds you will ensure you are not growing GMO crops

Organic Gardening, source, Science Daily, is a form of gardening with composts that uses substantial natural bio diversity in pest control, especially when using companion planting techniques, to eradicate the use of pesticides and industrial fertilisers. The Humanure Handbook also has some great tips and information.

CREATIVE WAYS TO GROW: CLICK ON THE PICS TO GO TO NEXT ONE

SOS! SAVE OUR SEEDS: save your seeds and you will save yourself tons of cash! Why pay for more seeds when you can generate them for free?

And thanks to Deep Green Permaculture and their wonderful site

HERE’S ANOTHER GREAT VERSION … it would be very easy to add poles to this

What I love about this is, you could store water in the base during the ‘wet’ and have enough for your plants all year round.

I will be adding more about companion planting later on (so much to do – so little time) but suffice it to say, here’s a great method for growing your own veggies in a small space that could include your balcony, that not only puts human waste to use (and stops toxic waste going into groundwater, rivers etc) but also doesn’t require heavy labour or poisons. Not bad, huh?

Haller is a grassroots kickass organisation that helps people in urban slums to become self sufficient urban guerilla farmers. Great stuff on aquaponics, solar, fish etc etc. Check it out on the link above. Great stuff!

meanwhile… here’s a great video on companion planting with some funky banjo

But you couldn’t have this system (or a version of it) on farmland, could you?

Why not? Farmers could double or triple their land size by using this method, cut down on labour and machinery and make huge savings in not using poisons. And give us end users some non toxic food.

GOT AN OLD PALLET LAYING AROUND THE BACK YARD?
HERE’S A GREAT IDEA FOR A PALLET GARDEN: you might want to put your compost in little grow baggies though (see below) if you are growing for food – decorative / flowers should be fine