Buy from Powells

Title

• All New Square Foot Gardening

Author

• Mel Bartholomew

Publisher

• Cool Springs Press

All New Square Foot Gardening

Grow More in Less Space

Overview

From the publisher

Anyone, anywhere can enjoy a square-foot garden — children, adults with limited mobility, even complete novices can achieve spectacular results. But there are 10 improvements in this updated edition of the book:

1. Location: Move your garden closer to your house by eliminating single-row gardening. A square-foot garden needs just 20 percent of the space of a traditional garden.
2. Direction: Locate your garden on top of existing soil. Forget about pH soil tests, double-digging (who enjoys that?), or never-ending soil improvements.
3. Soil: The new “Mel’s Mix” is the perfect growing mix. Why, we even give you the recipe. Best of all, you can even buy the different types of compost needed.
4. Depth: You only need to prepare a SFG box to a depth of 6 inches! It’s true — the majority of plants develop just fine when grown at this depth.
5. No fertilizer: The all-new SFG does not need any fertilizer — ever! If you start with the perfect soil mix, then you don’t need to add fertilizer.
6. Boxes: The new method uses bottomless boxes placed aboveground. We show you how to build your own, with step-by-step photos.
7. Aisles: The ideal gardening aisle width is about three to four feet. That makes it even easier to kneel, work, and harvest.
8. Grids: Prominent and permanent grids added to your SFG box help you visualize the planting squares and know how to space for maximum harvest.
9. Seed-saving: The old-fashioned way advocates planting many seeds and then thinning the extras (that means pulling them up). The new method means planting a pinch — literally two or three seeds — per planting hole.
10. Tabletop gardens: The new boxes are so much smaller and lighter (only 6 inches of soil, remember?) that you can add a plywood bottom to make them portable.

Of course, that’s not all. We’ve also included simple, easy-to-follow instructions using lots of photos and illustrations. You’re going to love it!