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Limited space, big yeild

How to get started with square foot gardening

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Square foot gardening is becoming a popular way to garden.

“The main reason we encourage square foot gardening is (for) people that don’t have the space for a traditional garden, maybe they live in an apartment or they live in an area where the back yard’s really small and they don’t want to till up the ground. You can square foot garden or container garden just about anywhere even if you don’t have a yard,” said Paige Brummund, extension agent – agriculture and natural resources, with Ward County’s NDSU Extension Service in Minot.

She said the other benefit of square foot gardening is these gardens can be raised up off the ground. She said it helps people who have physical limitations and can’t be down on their knees and bending over to care for the plants and vegetables.

“Another benefit of square foot gardening is you haul in a soil mixture that allows the roots to penetrate the soil better and allows for the water to drain better so if you have soils that are high in clay and have a lot of water sitting on them or maybe they’re saline or higher in pH, we modify the soil a little bit so the vegetables grow a little bit better,” Brummund said.

She said Extension has been teaching square foot gardening classes for at least five years or more. “Each year we get people who want to come and learn how to do it,” she said.

Besides square foot gardening, she said they also talk at the sessions about fruit and vegetable production and how they grow and how to take care of them the best.

“We find a lot of people building these raised beds for square foot gardens because you can grow more vegetables in a small space and it’s easier to maintain than a traditional in-the-ground garden. Less weeds is a huge part of it,” Brummund said.

She said people also don’t need a lot of equipment for these small-sized gardens.

“You don’t have to have a motorized tiller in order to till up your garden bed. You just need a couple small hand tools and your hands. That soil is really light and fluffy. So that’s a benefit,” she said.

She said any container that will hold soil can be used to grow plants. “There are some things you need to do. You have to make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom. You have to punch or drill those holes in. But you don’t have to build anything – do whatever works for you,”Brummund said.

She said commercial kits are available which might use lighter lumber or plastic that snaps together. “I always tell people anything that will hold soil,” she said.

She said some people use rocks or concrete blocks to make a barrier, stack it up until it’s a foot deep and grow things in that type of formation.

Some vegetables do better in square foot gardens than others because of the space limitations, Brummund said.

“You can grow large crops in there but those aren’t usually what we recommend. The common ones that people grow in square foot gardens – tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and spinach, onions, beets, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans and really any herb will grow pretty well in square foot garden,” Brummund said.

She said they do not recommend really large plants like pumpkins or watermelons because the space these plants need isn’t available.

Smaller-type plants that are high yield are the best for a small space, she said. “You can put flowers in them as well.

A session on square foot gardening, co-sponsored by Trinity Health and Minot Area Team Wellness, was held in Minot earlier this week.

To learn more about square foot gardening, visit squarefootgardening.com/.

NDSU Extension Service is available to teach classes about square foot gardening to groups and businesses. For more information call the Ward County Office at 857-6444.

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