Reddit reviews Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work
We found 6 Reddit comments about Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space with Less Work. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
If you move the decimal over. This is about 1,000 in books...
(If I had to pick a few for 100 bucks: encyclopedia of country living, survival medicine, wilderness medicine, ball preservation, art of fermentation, a few mushroom and foraging books.)
Medical:
Where there is no doctor
Where there is no dentist
Emergency War Surgery
The survival medicine handbook
Auerbach’s Wilderness Medicine
Special Operations Medical Handbook
Food Production
Mini Farming
encyclopedia of country living
square foot gardening
Seed Saving
Storey’s Raising Rabbits
Meat Rabbits
Aquaponics Gardening: Step By Step
Storey’s Chicken Book
Storey Dairy Goat
Storey Meat Goat
Storey Ducks
Storey’s Bees
Beekeepers Bible
bio-integrated farm
soil and water engineering
Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation
Food Preservation and Cooking
Steve Rinella’s Large Game Processing
Steve Rinella’s Small Game
Ball Home Preservation
Charcuterie
Root Cellaring
Art of Natural Cheesemaking
Mastering Artesian Cheese Making
American Farmstead Cheesemaking
Joe Beef: Surviving Apocalypse
Wild Fermentation
Art of Fermentation
Nose to Tail
Artisan Sourdough
Designing Great Beers
The Joy of Home Distilling
Foraging
Southeast Foraging
Boletes
Mushrooms of Carolinas
Mushrooms of Southeastern United States
Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast
Tech
farm and workshop Welding
ultimate guide: plumbing
ultimate guide: wiring
ultimate guide: home repair
off grid solar
Woodworking
Timberframe Construction
Basic Lathework
How to Run A Lathe
Backyard Foundry
Sand Casting
Practical Casting
The Complete Metalsmith
Gears and Cutting Gears
Hardening Tempering and Heat Treatment
Machinery’s Handbook
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic
Electronics For Inventors
Basic Science
Chemistry
Organic Chem
Understanding Basic Chemistry Through Problem Solving
Ham Radio
AARL Antenna Book
General Class Manual
Tech Class Manual
MISC
Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft
Contact!
Nuclear War Survival Skills
The Knowledge: How to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a cataclysm
For those just getting started, Square Foot Gardening is great, it's a good starting point for getting in the habit of maintaining a garden, for making good use of small spaces, and for learning about gardening.
How to Grow More Vegetables is a fantastic book. It is a great reference book on sustainable gardening, and self-sufficiency gardening. It is used by several programs as a textbook to teach sustinence gardening in third-world countries.
Carrots Love Tomatoes is a great book for learning about companion planting.
I just ordered Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times. I haven't read it yet, so I can't give a review, but it is reviewed very favorably. My understanding is that it presents a more old-fashioned, traditional method of gardening that requires less water, less fertilization, etc.
Good luck, and let us know what you think of any books you try!
Awesome work! Gardening is fun, and a lot of work!
I was just given This Book it has helped me tremendously with my garden this year. Definitely worth the read and something to take into consideration for next year :) Lots of great advice on how to make your garden more manageable, easier to maintain, more fruitful, and less expensive.
While I don't have experience with this Lowe's version, the concept is pretty standard and is one that my wife and I used in the past. The concept is called "Square foot gardening" and the idea is to plant a different crop in each square. Now considering that this raised bed is 48" squared and the number of squares are 6 in one direction and 5 in the other (as opposed to 4 in both directions), what you plant is going to be a bit more cramped.
Personally, I didn't like the idea and we just use raised beds that I built myself. You have to be very calculating regarding how you plant things. This is obviously a good thing. I just didn't like the super duper planning that it called for. My garden is currently 16'x24' and I have a good number of raised beds, so I don't need to be so perfect when it comes to the amount of space I use.
When buying something like this, realize that you could probably make this yourself for $20 or less. If you're being sold solid materials and it's less than $30 bucks, I'd say go for it and buy it. If the markup is high, forget it! Remember, 2 2x8 ($5 each) and some nails or screws (which you probably have already) are all you need. You can use anything to mark those squares. If you don't want to spend any more money, you can simply drill screws along the frame at 1' intervals and string yarn or anything of the like across.
edit: clarity
The Square Foot Gardening book really helped me out. It's easy to read, has a whole section dedicated to the different types of garden bed layouts, and a glossary in the back for different plants that goes over when to plant/harvest and what sunlight conditions they do best in. You don't have to have a square foot garden to benefit from this book.
*Edit You should also research the zone you are in to get a better understanding of frost dates. These will tell you when the best times to plant or transplant are as well as how long your growing season is. Also, determine how the sun crosses your property. Doing so will help you determine the best location to start your garden.
I cannot recommend the Square Foot Gardening book more. All that is required to start is a 4' x 4' raised bed, some soil, a small garden shovel and some seeds and/or plant starts. Its method uses intensive companion planting to naturally reduce the likelihood of pests, and increase yields in a limited amount of space.
There are lots of videos on Youtube to get started, too.