The book I’ve chosen to review is Mel Bartholomew’s “Square Foot Gardening." Mel claims to have discovered a gardening technique that is not only easier than traditional gardening but produces a better yield with less waste at harvest time. If you have done any gardening before, you know those are some pretty lofty claims. So what does square foot gardening involve?

Square foot gardening consists of a few key concepts. The first is that your garden is generally planted in 4x4 beds rather than the traditional long rows. Those beds are then divided using string or boards to make smaller 1x1 squares. It is into these smaller squares that your seeds are planted. Spacing is based on what you’ve chosen to plant. Some plants such peppers grow quite large and require an entire 1x1 block for one plant. Other plants such as radishes can be seeded 16 to a 1x1 block (one every three inches).

The second concept is that gardens often suffer from poor soil and drainage. The book covers how to create the ideal soil for your garden which replaces or supplements the existing soil in your 4x4 bed. 

Thirdly, the square foot technique uses a precise planting method. While many gardeners will sow many seeds haphazardly in the traditional row method, this leads to overcrowding and the need to thin out later on. Mel’s technique involves making the required number of holes in your 1x1 grid and placing only one seed in that space.  His logic is that not only do you want to avoid overcrowding and the wastage of seeds, but also that by properly spacing and giving the garden the ideal soil, you increase your success rate for sprouting to the point where multiple seeds are not necessary.

Lastly, Mel advocates staggered planting and reseeding. While most people plant their garden once and harvest once, Mel staggers his planting so that you don’t end up with one huge harvest of radishes for example, which are an extremely fast growing plant. Staggered planting gives you manageable harvests throughout the growing season and allows you to reseed the harvested space after adding soil supplements. There are many more tips and suggestions associated with square foot gardening that require a bit of time to read (and re-read) in order to catch on.

The book covers quite a bit of material, not only in regards to square foot gardening, but to gardening in general.  New gardeners will benefit from advice regarding crop selection and seed-starting techniques. Intermediate to advanced gardeners can take some hints regarding alternative growing spaces such as container or patio gardening and how to extend the growing season.

Mel is the first to admit that if you are a traditional gardener, his ideas take some getting used to and will require you to give up some of your preconceptions regarding gardening. However, if you’re open to some of the non-traditional suggestions he has, you may just find you not only have a larger harvest, but that you will want to go out and tend to your simpler, more manageable garden rather than it being a dreaded weekend chore.

As a footnote, I’ve chosen to plant my garden this year using the square foot gardening technique. I had little success growing last year and the short growing season where I live leaves very little room for failure. As well, I take great satisfaction eating the fruits of my labor and serving them up to friends and family. At the end of the season I’ll do a wrap-up of my success using this method and any lessons I learned along the way. Stay tuned!

Editor's Note: This review was based on the original version of "Square Foot Gardening" however a new version written by Mel Bartholomew, called "All New Square Foot Gardening" is also available.

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