Square Metre Gardening

The Radical Approach to Gardening That Really Works

Mel Bartholomew

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781610588270
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Horticultura

Adapted from the U.S. bestseller All New Square Foot Gardening, this new edition applies the proven principles of square foot gardening to the European growing environment. The entire book has been converted to the metric system, but the adaptations go much deeper than that. We consulted the finest gardening editors in Great Britain for the conversion of author Mel Bartholomew's classic guide, and they made sure that all of the inputs and outputs described in this book are sensible for the European market. Plant selections have been adjusted for British and Northern European climates and growing seasons; even the language has been Anglicized to communicate in a precise and natural way with European gardeners. This is the world's most fail-safe method for growing produce at home, and now it is finally available for consumption outside of the United States. Vegetables, cutting flowers, and landscape plants can all be grown with amazing results (and virtually no weeding) using the square metre approach. There is a reason that the U.S. editions of this book have sold more than two million copies: metre or foot, the method works.

1

Introduction

I know you will be successful with my Square Metre Gardening method, not only because I have spent over 30 years perfecting it but because of all the hundreds of people who have got in touch to let me know how much food they get from such a small space with such little effort. Here’s a taste of how I figured it all out.

Lettuce is one of the easiest crops to grow and it comes in a variety of colours.

Introduction

Growing your own crops is a lot of work if you follow traditional methods. Luckily my observations and experiments on sowing and planting in garden situations show there is a better way.

Mel Bartholomew

It all started in 1975 after my retirement from my consulting engineering business, I decided to take up gardening as a hobby but I soon began to question the efficiency of all the conventional gardening practices we’d been taught. Why is fertiliser spread over the entire garden area, but the plants are only placed in long rows with wide paths on both sides? I wondered why you were supposed to cultivate all the soil in a garden even though plants in rows take up a fraction of the space. Then I pondered why you would walk all over the rest of the ground again, packing down all that newly cultivated soil? And, why, in this era of water conservation, is an entire plot sprinkled with water when the plants are only located in a 15-cm (6-inch) wide row in the centre of a 2-m (6-foot) wide strip?

As I analysed these traditional gardening methods, I realised there is only one outcome you can expect when you fertilise and water ground and paths with nothing planted in it – weeds!

PLANTING IN ROWS

Why plant an entire row of everything? Just because my kitchen garden is 10m (30ft) wide, for example, do I really want or need a whole 10m (30ft) row of cabbages? That would be at least thirty cabbages spaced 30cm (12in) apart. Why would I want thirty cabbages to be ready all at the same time? If everything is planted at one time, won’t it also be ready to harvest all at once? It sounds like farming to me, but that’s too much cabbage to enjoy at the same time for a homeowner. How many people go to the shops and buy thirty heads of cabbage once a year? Do you? So why grow it that way? There must be a better way to stagger the harvest, and the obvious solution is to stagger the time of planting whenever possible and to plant less.

I sought answers to all my gardening questions and, no matter where I travelled, I kept receiving the same answer, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it!” Right then and there I said, “I’m going to invent a better way to garden.”

Part of the problem, I realised, was that single-row gardening was nothing but a hand-me-down technique from large-field arable farming. Single rows make sense when you depend upon a tractor to plough up the soil but in a home garden, there is no longer a need for all that wasted space.

Planting in long rows is traditional but do you really want all those cabbages? My Square Metre Gardening method concentrates on growing family-sized portions in a smaller area so there is less wasted space and less work.

EXPERIMENTS WITH SPACING

Eager to test my reasoning, I planted two rows, 15cm (6in) apart, to see how well the plants would do. It worked! The plants grew just as well in two rows as they did in a single row, as long as each plant had 15cm (6in) all around. Next, I tried a triple row – three rows where I placed all the plants 15cm (6in) apart in all directions. Again, it worked! How wide could I make this, I asked? The answer is, as wide as you can reach in to maintain your garden; in other words, as long as your arms. But I still had a harvest too large to utilise.

So what was the obvious solution? Shorten the rows! And they kept getting shorter and shorter, until they were only 30cm (12in) long and 30cm (12in) wide – a small square planting area that would hold four plants per square if each plant was 15cm (6in) apart.

In summary, if plants should be thinned to 30cm (12in) apart, plant one per square. If plants should be 15cm (6in) apart, plant four per square. If plants should be 10cm (4in) apart then you can grow nine within the space of that one square. If plants are thinned to 8cm (3in) apart, you can grow sixteen in that same square. Doesn’t it all make sense and seem easy enough?

I also realised that if each square could be planted with a different crop containing either one, four, nine or sixteen plants, all properly spaced, it wouldn’t be necessary to plant a whole row of just one crop. If you’re farming for commercial purposes, you want everything to ripen at once so it can be harvested together and taken to market. But with home gardening, you want to stagger harvesting your produce so you can pick little-and-often throughout the season with fresh pickings each day or so.

WHAT IS SQUARE-METRE GARDENING?

Square-metre gardening (SMG) is a simple, foolproof method of growing your own delicious vegetables and herbs, no matter how small your growing space

After perfecting my sowing and planting experiments, my rows got shorter and shorter until I eventually hit upon the idea of growing in 1-metre (3-ft) box frames, edged with timber boards to create raised beds. These are, in turn, divided with a lattice of wooden laths that form a planting grid of nine squares, each measuring 33 x 33 cm (13 x 13in). In practice, due to the width of the lath, a planting square of 30 x 30cm (12 x 12in).

Into these squares I plant, or sow, different numbers of crops depending on their size at maturity. If plants need to be spaced 30cm (12in) apart, e.g. cauliflower, I grow one plant in each square; if they need to be spaced 15cm (6in) apart, e.g. lettuce, I grow four plants in each square; if 10cm (4in) apart, e.g. parsley, I grow nine; and if 8cm (3in) apart, e.g. carrots, I grow 16. What could be simpler?

Here is a 1-metre (3-ft) square box frame with nine different crops growing. The grid gives each crop its own 30 x 30cm (12 x 12in) square and the number of plants in each depends on the vigour of the crop.

For plants spaced 30cm (12in) apart, e.g. aubergine, plant one per square

Plants spaced 15cm (6in) apart, e.g. lettuce, are planted four per square

Plants spaced 10cm (4in) apart, e.g. spinach have nine plants per square

For plants spaced 8cm (3in) apart, e.g. radish, plant 16 per square

In order to create the perfect growing conditions within these squares I devised a specially formulated growing medium made up of 1/3 each, by volume, of: moss peat, vermiculite and blended compost. This mix is moisture-retentive and contains all the nutrients plants need without ever having to apply additional fertiliser. It also enables you to start growing straight away and avoids going through the years of soil improvements required by traditional digging methods.

Adding my mix to the SMG box creates a compact and easily managed patch for growing produce that will fit into the smallest garden, or even onto a patio or a roof terrace. My method is ideal for growing a wide variety of crops, even flowers, in a small space and for staggering your plantings. so you have a steady supply of produce through the season rather than a huge surplus that will end up being composted. But that’s enough of the theory; let’s get down to the practice...

SITES AND SIZES

One of the biggest problems of veg plots with single rows is their size. They’re big! They take up so much room that they are usually located at the end of the garden. That usually meant it was out of sight, resulting in out of mind. It became less and less tended as the year went on. But guess what still grew? Weeds! And these pesky plants can quickly inundate and choke out your crops. Without your attention they’ll take over the garden.

CLOSE TO THE HOUSE

All that has been changed for the better. SMG takes only 20 percent of the space of a single-row garden. That means it can be located much closer to the house where it will get more attention and care, resulting in a better-looking garden and a more usable harvest. You will now be able to reduce the size of your SMG so much that you can locate it close to your house for better care and more enjoyment. You’ll never have to dig up your existing soil anymore as you now build your new garden on top of it. No more hard work or heavy-duty tools needed. All you’ll need is 15-cm (6-in) deep layer of a perfect soil mix from three common ingredients available everywhere. This mix never needs changing and no additional fertiliser is needed using this method.

The SMG method allows so many crops to be grown in such a small area that you can install a box to one side of a sunny patio. Having the box near the house makes growing and harvesting crops easier and quicker.

You’ll use one or more bottomless box frames made from ordinary outdoor timber, laid out and then separated by paths and each box will have a permanent grid for that unique SMG look and use. You’ll use a minimum of seeds, so you won’t have to buy new packets every year. Best of all, some of your boxes can have bottoms so you can move them or place them at tabletop or railing height for easier care and to suit your garden.

MULTIPLE SITES

In addition, your productive growing area doesn’t have to be all in one place. You no longer have to cultivate or water one big garden area all at once. You can split up your SMG so that a box frame or two are located next to the kitchen door, while more boxes can be located elsewhere in the garden. Small, individual garden boxes allow you much more flexibility in determining location. Now your garden can be located near where you walk and sit, or where you can view it from the house. It can even be located in a patio or entertaining area, where you relax. Your SMG becomes a feature rather than a burden.

ADDING FLOWERS AS A BONUS

Once your box frames are incorporated into your garden near the house and on view, then it is worth pla...