Growth Rates of some Popular Veggies (from Mel's 1981 book)

Mel's brand new book, All New Square Foot Gardening, is awesome! It's a great place to begin as you learn about SFG! I'm a visual learner... and with lots of color pictures and boxes with tips... I found his new book very *easy* to follow!

A few years ago I picked up Mel's original book published in 1981 on square foot gardening... it reads like a text book... is very detailed... I have post-it notes sticking out of pages all thru the book for easy reference.

I just started re-reading his 1981 version... it makes a lot more sense to me now after having read his brand new book. Anyway... this older version is worth having for your gardenin library.

Like... learning about GROWTH RATES!!!

I found p. 77 to be very helpful. It's all about the GROWTH RATES of a few of the most popular vegetables:

Radishes...............4 (weeks to maturity from seed)

Lettuce.................7

Spinach................7

Beans...................8

Swiss chard..........8

Squash.................8

Corn....................9

Cucumbers..........9

Carrots..............10

Peas..................10

Now... I can plan for replanting my squares!!! Richard loves... loves.. radishes... so now I know to plant 1 square (16 plants/square) then 2 weeks later plant another square of 16 plants! Or... maybe stagger the planting weekly.

Mel says that these are some of the SLOWEST GROWING crops:

Muskmelons............12 (weeks to maturity from seed)

Cauliflower...............14

Broccoli....................16

Cabbage...................16

Tomatoes.................17

Eggplant..................19 (can't wait for eggplant parmesan!)

Peppers...................19

Onions....................20

My very ambitious SFG plan

I've made a notecard for each of plants... I have a quite a stack of cards now!

Here's an example of my Roma notecard:

Tomato-Roma Bush V (for Veggie)

Seeded inside: 4/15 - 40 (plants)

Spacing: 2' (Mel says 9 square feet)

Harvest: 85-90 days... Late July

My notecards will help me when I do my planting... and help me to know approximately when to harvest.

Then I needed help to determine how many squares I was going to need... so I grabbed my notecards and started entering everything into a spreadsheet. Wow... I'm going to need 35 4x4 beds!

This is by far the most ambitious gardening plan I have EVER EVER attempted! What fun!

View my plan here: How many squares do I need?

Tomatoes in my SFG... spacing... 1 square vs 9 squares

I've been figuring out my spacial needs for my SFG.

I want to can lots of sauce this year... so I have 40 Romas growing from seed.

Mel's book says that bush type or "determinate" tomato plants take 9 square feet! Shoot... that's a lot of space!

Mel says that he only plants vining or "indeterminate" varieties for spacial reasons... vining tomato plants only take 1 square per plant!!!

Vining tomato plants include: Burpee's Fourth of July Hybrid, Early Girl, Celebrity, Beefsteak, Big Boy, Brandywine... Cherry and Heirloom varieties.

more info....

So... I have 40 Romas... bush type... that each need 9 square feet of room... whew... OK... PANIC!!!!

Mixed up some Mel's mix today and...

Mixed up some Compost in my wheelbarrow... then opened the bag of Vermiculite... and a bag of Peet. I wanted to make sure that my mixture was in the correct proportions so... I grabbed my shovel and into a bucket... shovel full by shovel full I went.

I have two long pots from last year that I filled with Mel's Mix then planted lettuce greens. YEAH!!!

I found a really helpful website over the weekend. If you're new to SFG... like I am... you'll like Emily's newsletter and all her tips! Emily's SFG website

Ah ha... finally read the chapter on Vertical gardening...

I kept wondering how to stake up my tomato plants and grow my cucumbers. Finally got to that chapter in Mel's book about Vertical Gardening.

That was before I went to bed last night.

Dreamed all night about my beautiful lush garden squares...

Another trip to Lowes needed to get conduit... to build trellises.

Started more plants inside...

I'm sitting here in my office with the window wide open. The birds are chirping away. I love to hear them!

My little rolling green house is filling up... well... there's still more room! Last night I seeded some peas, more lettuce, arugula, and spinach... also started some marigolds.

My tomato starts are a couple inches high now.

I was looking at Mel's new book last night... trying to figure out how much more soil mixture ingredients I need.

Also want to get some 2x6x16 boards to make a long box for my tomatoes.

Bought more compost yesterday

Mel says that we should have 5 different types of compost for our soil mix... Went to Pamida in Powell yesterday and bought 11 bags hummus and compost and 4 bags of peet. Still need to get about 11 bags of Vermiculite.

Springing up in my porch greenhouse (it's like a 4-tier shelf unit on wheels within a plastic covering) right now:

-Roma Tomatoes

-Eggplant

-Peppers

Bought some seeds for Marigolds... will plant them today in peet pots.