The veggie garden is starting to come together. The raised bed has been built, the separate soil parts have been purchased, and the first round of vegetables are ready to be planted!
The dogs are ready see the final product... lets mix this soil!
the soil is a mixture of course vermiculite, sphagnum peat moss, and compost... I have used cow manure, sheep manure, and mushroom compost, all from several different brands to maximize the amount of sources of nutrients...
using a calculation of 19cubic feet of total soil volume (45in x 45in x 16in), I attemtped to use the Mel Bartholomew's soil mixture recommendations, which is 1/3 peat, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost... the vermiculite and peat moss needed to be sprayed down with water as they are very dusty!
after about 20 minutes of tossing the mixture on a tarp and raking back and forth, the new growing medium was basically mixed... the soil structure that is achieved with this mix is it's main draw... the plants are allowed to grow in a soil that is full of nutrients, retains water, yet has the crumbly texture that allows maximum soil aeration for the roots...
because I am being weird, and growing my garden on a brick patio, I needed to secure landscape fabric on the bottom so the soil wouldn't wash away on the uneven surface... normally this fabric is added to alleviate weed intrusion... this much soil could be used to fill just under 3 separate square foot gardens of 4ft x 4ft if they were placed on the regular ground and not a brick patio... the extra depth of my garden is to account for the impassable bottom... most vegetables only need 6in of soil, but others, like tomatoes, need deeper...
here is the final product just before adding the soil... this raised bed is 4ft x 4ft x 16in high and thus will allow for 16 sq. ft. separate plots of garden space...
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Cost:
rasised bed wood (4x 2x8x8' SPF) $20
scews (KREG 2 1/2" course) $5
course vermiculite (27lbs) $35
sphagnum peat moss (3.8cu.ft. compressed) $10
composted manure (9x 1cu.ft. bags) $30
cedar squarefoot strips: $10
Total: $110
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This is a brief synopsis, taken from wikipedia, of Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Garden:
The phrase "square foot gardening" was popularized by Mel Bartholomew in a 1981 Rodale Press book and subsequent PBS television series. A full-length companion DVD, "Square Foot Gardening" (2010), was released in collaboration with Patti Moreno, the "garden girl".
The original square-foot-gardening method (per Bartholomew) uses 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.
The logic behind using smaller beds is that they are easily adapted, and the gardener can easily reach the entire area, without stepping on and compacting the soil. In the second edition, Bartholomew suggests using a "weed barrier" beneath the box, and filling it completely with "Mel's mix," a combination by volume of one third of decayed Sphagnum peat moss, one-third expanded vermiculite and one-third blended compost. For accessibility, raised boxes may have bottoms to sit like tables at a convenient height, with approximately 6" (15 cm) of manufactured soil per square foot.
In Bartholomew's method, the garden space is divided into beds that are easily accessed from every side. A 4' x 4', 16 sq ft (1.5 m2) or 120 cm x 120 cm, 1.4 m2 garden is recommended for the first garden, and a path wide enough to comfortably work from should be made on each side of the bed, if possible, or if the bed must be accessed by reaching across it, a narrower one should be used so that no discomfort results from tending the garden. Each of the beds is divided into approximately one square foot units and marked out with sticks, twine, or sturdy slats to ensure that the square foot units remain visible as the garden matures.
Different seeds are planted in each square, to ensure a rational amount of each type of crop is grown, and to conserve seeds instead of overplanting, crowding and thinning plants. Common spacing is one plant per square for larger plants (broccoli, basil, etc.), four plants per square for medium large plants like lettuce, nine plants per square for medium-small plants like spinach, and sixteen per square for small plants such as onions and carrots. Plants that normally take up yards of space as runners, such as squash or cucumbers, are grown vertically on sturdy frames that are hung with netting or string to support the developing crops. Ones that grow deep underground, such as potatoes or carrots, are grown in a square foot section that has foot tall sides and a planting surface above the ground, so that a foot or more of framed soil depth is provided above the garden surface rather than below it.
The beds are weeded and watered from the pathways, so the garden soil is never stepped on or compacted. Because a new soil mixture is used to create the garden, and a few handfuls of compost are added with each harvest to maintain soil fertility over time, the state of the site's underlying soil is irrelevant. This gardening method has been employed successfully in every region, including in deserts, on high arid mountain plateaus, in cramped urban locations, and in areas with polluted or high salinity soils. It is equally useful for growing flowers, vegetables, herbs and some fruits in containers, raised beds, on tabletops or at ground level, in only 4 to 6 inches (150 mm) of soil. A few seeds per square foot, the ability to make compost, to water by hand, and to set up the initial garden in a sunny position or where a container, table or platform garden may be moved on wheels to receive light is all that is needed to set up a square foot garden.
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