Someday I'd like to have a garden consisting of a small number of square-foot container gardens. They are an extremely efficient and practical way of growing food in the city. Putting this into perspective, six 4'X4' container gardens (amounting to a total of 96 square feet - small enough to fit into any city backyard), provide enough space to grow 864 spinach plants.
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| The beginning |
There is a large greenhouse at the farm I just moved from a few days ago. When I first moved out to Huron County in early September I figured the best way to use the greenhouse would be to build a container garden - extending the growing season and allowing me to put my agricultural curiosities to work. After seeing the success of the square-foot garden I planted at the Hamilton Katimavik house last June I figured I would take the square-foot concept to the next level.
After finding used wood buried in the barn I began to draw out how the square-foot container would look. I had never built a container garden before but the practicality and efficiency of the square-foot gardening method makes a lot of sense when dealing the limited resources to construct the container - wood, geotextile, gravel and soil.
Square-foot gardening has an entire methodology behind it which can easily be gleaned from the internet. For a few good online resources for square-foot gardening click here and here.
I read on a few of these sites that on a 1 square-foot piece of soil it is possible to grow 9 spinach plants. 9 X 16' (the standard number of feet used in square-foot gardens) = 144.
I almost didn't have enough seeds!
