Small Space Gardening

Lesson 2: Designing Your Square Foot Garden

Design and Build Your Garden

Recommended Tools and Structures

Square foot gardeners need only a few basic tools: a garden spade (square-edged shovel), hand trowel, a water bucket, and a cup. If you have gardened for years resulting in an accumulation of garden tools (both hand operated and powered), your text’s author suggests selling them at a garage sale!

You may want to build yourself a “sunbox”, wire plant supports, or plant protection cages discussed in chapter 9. These structures may be considered optional only since they are not required for the basic square foot garden.

I consider a “cold frame” absolutely essential for my gardening. I use it to protect potted shrubs and pots of alpine seeds that need cold treatment for germination over the winter. During the gardening season, I keep a hardware cloth cover over the box. My succulents and orchids can then spend the summer outside without being eaten by our local squirrels or mauled by children. If you decide to build a cold frame, be sure to keep mouse bait inside it so you don’t uncover it to discover your prized plants eaten by mice or seed pots overturned.

Designing the Garden

Once you have decided where to put your new square foot garden, you need to decide if you will garden in the ground or if you will build raised beds. Remember that each garden will be based on a 4-foot square. Mel Bartholomew suggests starting with just one 4-foot square garden per family member. If you enjoy the vining crops such as cucumbers, squash, and some beans, you may want to add an extra garden bed just for these crops. Chapter 3 suggests some other reasons for expanding your garden.

There is no exact method for laying out your garden beds. Some prefer to garden directly in the ground while others will invest in building raised beds. It doesn’t matter which way you choose. The basic design is the same: a 4-foot square divided into 16 equal squares. Add a trellis on the north-side of some of your garden beds to accommodate your vining crops. Wood structures just rot and plastic simply isn’t strong enough to support heavy vining crops. Check the various gardening web sites here for directions on building a trellis out of pipe.

You may “frame” your garden by simply digging a ditch to mark the borders of the 4-foot square. Cement patio blocks, retainer wall blocks, landscape timbers, bricks, or even cement blocks may also be used to mark the basic garden bed’s border. Feel free to make the border as utilitarian or as decorative as you wish. If you are placing it near your patio, you may choose to use bricks matching those used to build your patio. Do you have a deck? Perhaps you can find some wood that will match that used in the deck.

Visit several of the websites listed with this course to see how others have designed their gardens.

The actual construction methods used will, obviously, depend on how you construct your border. I strongly prefer to outline my gardens with patio blocks or bricks. This serves two purposes: 1) it clearly designates my garden so the townhouse lawn people know where to stop mowing; 2) the local children recognize the border as something they shouldn’t step over. You may not have the same concerns I do! If rabbits or other small animals are a serious problem, you may want to install a fence around your gardens.

Paths. A key advantage of square foot gardening is that you don’t walk in the planting area itself. You avoid this problem by installing a path around each garden bed. The width of the paths is really up to you. Some are adept at working in tiny spaces while others need wider spaces. If you happen to be building this garden for someone with mobility problems, you may need to consider the space required by walkers or wheelchairs.

The paths may be constructed in several ways. Some simply lay a thick layer of hay on the pathway. You may choose to use old wood lengths. Wood chips can also be laid down in the pathway. If you want to get really fancy, lay down landscape fabric to prevent weeds from growing into the path. Then put patio blocks or bricks down over the landscape fabric. Please read books on working with brick or stone before attempting this type of pathway.

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