Sandra’s Square Foot Gardening Plan

Sandra, one of my readers, sent me her tentative square foot garden plan for 2010. I appreciate her allowing me to post her layout and our comments back and forth!

Here is version 1:

My comments:
The first concern I had was the corn. In order to pollinate, it needs to be at least 3 rows deep. I would suggest planting it 3×10 instead of 1×30.

Next is squash and pumpkins. I suggest keeping it all together and give it LOTS of room. It tends to overtake everything at some point. You can consider planting it next to early spring veggies (like broccoli, cauliflower, garlic, or peas). Squash is planted late, and by the time it gets big you will have harvested the others. Also, squash will grow particularly well near corn or onions. I have had limited success using a trellis with winter squash and pumpkins. They are so prickly and big! But I find watermelon much easier to trellis.

I see this plan has 16 squares of lettuce (with 4 plants per square). That is A TON of lettuce! It grows quite quickly, so you could cut that space in half and still have plenty. For my family of 4 I grow about 4 squares at a time (that’s 16 plants), staggered. I plant each square every 2 weeks or so. That way I am harvesting 2 squares at a time.

Garlic is planted in the fall and by spring it is tall and in the way. If you don’t have access to the garden on both sides it will make it hard to work with your broccoli and cilantro.

Finally, do you have access to your peas from the back side of the garden? I might plant and support them the other direction.

Sandra’s response:
I did get a comment from someone else about the corn and have been thinking about redoing that. I was planning on planting the lettuce every couple of weeks, but I have to rethink that also, I remember how hot it got last summer and it did not do so well and would be growing to late in the season.

I can access the peas from the back. I plan on leaving three feet between the fence and the garden for easy access.

Last summer I used doors to make my boxes and left them at the six foot length so that the boxes were 6′ by 6′ and found that it was very difficult to get to anything in the middle. We rent our home so I don’t want to invest to much money so was thinking for this year to use cinder blocks which I could take with me when we move.

Me:
So smart to go smaller–you could just cut some of your doors in half for the 3′ sections. Cinder blocks would work well, but they’ll be heavy to move. I’m sure whatever you use will work fine! I built a friend’s with wood and it turned out fantastic. You could still build your shape, but do it in sections that would be easier to move (3×6).

If you have a shady spot or a place to plant the lettuce near some tall veggies it will do fine in the summer. One year I hung eyelet fabric off my trellis and covered the lettuce in the afternoons. It grew just fine. So well I had more lettuce than I needed! 🙂

Final version of Sandra’s square foot garden plan:

You can see she added directions (North/South), which is helpful to consider. Also, it looks like she’s planning to have separate garden beds, each 3×6. Maybe she can recycle those old doors again! The lettuce is going to LOVE growing next to the corn, since it will get tons of sun all day long, but be shaded in the hot afternoon.

This new garden plan looks great! Hopefully Sandra will send us some pictures mid-summer, so we can see how it looks with plants growing.

Learn how to create your own square foot garden plan.