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Help!!! More newbie Square foot gardening questions

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html


Bobbi, thanks so much for your excellent advice.  Unfortunately, being 
so new to gardening, I have lots of questions, and am not sure exactly 
what I'm doing.  I have a regular suburban sized back yard planted in 
grass, onto which we wish to build square foot gardens.  I'm thinking 
(4) 20' long by 4 foot wide square foot rectangles of some sort.  
Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of capital to put into this, but hope 
to build at least 2 such contraptions this winter so they are ready for 
the spring.  I have heard of raised beds, and I have read of people just 
digging into the existing grass, and have heard of people putting down 
plastic bags and/or newspapers right on top of the grass before adding 
dirt.  I don't know the best way, but thinking of having something like 
3 feet deep of dirt in each of those frames sounds expensive to me.  How 
high should I make the frames off the ground?  I was thinking of finding 
something like 4X4 cedar, and cutting them about 18" -2' .  Then I would 
dig a shallow hole(approximately 3-4" for each 4X4.  Then I would fasten 
the 4X4's together with 2 cedar fence boards placed side by side, each 
around 8" wide, feasibly giving me approximately 16" of height down the 
side.  Thus I would end up with a frame made of 4X4's every 6 feet, 
connected with Cedar fence boards. Is this deep enough for most 
vegetable gardens?  We want to grow the typical summer vegetables, such 
as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zuchini, etc.  For our vining plants, 
such as zuchini and cucumbers, I was considering some sort of trellis 
placed at each end of these frames, so they vining plants could grow 
onto the trellis.  Still, the cost of fill dirt would be pretty 
expensive.  What do you think, and what do you suggest?  Any help would 
be greatly appreciated, thanks, in advance, and please reply to 
rfdillon@hal-pc.org-----Original Message-----
From:	Bobbi Chukran [SMTP:chukran@io.com]
Sent:	Wednesday, October 21, 1998 4:47 PMTo:	Richard Dillon
Subject:	Re: Help!!Square foot gardening newbie questions!Hi Richard--
Sorry it's taken me so long to answer.  I used cedar boards on the first
few beds I did, and they were 2x8"s, I think.  I would have used 2x12"s,
but couldn't find any around here.  I have also used cement blocks that I
just laid on the ground end to end, and then filled the holes with dirt for
herbs.  Easy, and fast, and I can move them around later if I want.  The
cedar looks nicer, though.
Your plans sound great.  I wouldn't worry too much about what kind of dirt
to put in it.  We just scraped up whatever topsoil we could find (there
isn't much out here), and then mixed in some compost, some leaves, a little
sand, and a bag or two of composed sheep manure I bought at Home Depot.  As
we make more compost, I add a shovelful or so to the top of each bed and
rake it around.  You don't really need much.
A compost pile is easy to do.  Just remember green and brown!  The green
can be new leaves, grass clippings, or kitchen scraps (no meat, though)
such as veggie peelings, eggshells, old bread, etc.  Layer this with old
leaves (the brown), or a little dirt, or whatever you can find.  You can
even compost shredded newspaper.  If you have an unsprayed lawn, mix grass
clippings into the compost.  You need something that's green in order to
get some nitrogen in there.  Compost piles do best when they are around 4X4
feet, but ours has never been that big, and it does OK.  It just won't
"make" as soon.  We just used some chicken wire for ours, and wired it
together in a ring, and put the stuff in there.  Water it every once in a
while so it doesn't get too dry, and when you put new stuff in it, just
bury it in the middle, or take the wire off and turn the whole pile over.
You want to remember that it needs to be moist (but not TOO wet),and 

Richard F. Dillon
rfdillon@hal-pc.org


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