All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew is a revision of his popular book Square Foot Gardening. Available on Amazon for $10 and up, I found mine at Dollar General for $5.
Why a revised book? Because the author simplified his method in several ways. He now urges that a gardener not dig six inches down in the earth below the garden boxes but simply use a good soil mixture atop a barrier in the bottom of the box (weed mat, cardboard). He's added upright supports for some plants in the boxes. He's made the boxes more portable by suggesting some of the boxes have bottoms so they can be placed on patios or near a home's doorway. In short, he's made gardening even easier as well as frugal. Because fewer seeds produce a maximum crop and labor is decreased his methods insure a novice gardener a good measure of success and because the size of the boxes can easily be accommodated to the smallest yards, every one who's interested may have a garden.
The book explains theory first and then moves on into instruction: how to build the plant boxes, his recipe for the soil mixture, planting (diagrams to explain) and methods of training those crops that trail and climb. The information is given in a concise easy to understand way. No complicated instructions and diagrams.
I must say that this book has inspired me to begin afresh with my gardening...and with Bartholomew's methods it should be quite inexpensive to get started, which has always been one of the two complaints to be heard in my household whenever gardening has been mentioned.
1 comment:
I wish you were close enough to come and take home some of my compost. It is just like black gold after 20 years os adding to that pile and would get you off to a really good start.
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