small space/high yield

[digitS']

like this? . . . I'm trying the raised bed/sq ft garden method..so far so good . . .

Can you tell us where you are finding your square foot information, Quadcam?

digitS'

 

[quadcam79]

Sure...I learned it from the king of square foot gardening Mel Bartholomew http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

A cool way that we have been growing crops for years is just by planting some vertical crops (corn and sunflowers) and then planting them with some vine crops (cucumbers, peas and beans)

It works great and both crops deliver great yields. We add a little extra compost when planting just to compensate for the extra nutrients needed but we've never had any issues with yield size or anything else.

 

[digitS']

Interesting to know, OaklandCityFarmer.

I have some problems with sunflowers crowding each other out :/. They seem to be an uncooperative class and, after all, can be used as weed control - a living mulch.

I guess that it could make an important difference to have the fresh compost for the benefit of anything that is less than as robust as the sunflowers.

Steve

edited to note those really attractive tomatoes as an avatar .

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Interesting to know, OaklandCityFarmer.

I have some problems with sunflowers crowding each other out :/. They seem to be an uncooperative class and, after all, can be used as weed control - a living mulch.

I guess that it could make an important difference to have the fresh compost for the benefit of anything that is less than as robust as the sunflowers.

Steve

edited to note those really attractive tomatoes as an avatar .

Thanks, cool pic, huh?

We usually plant the sunflowers about 14 to 18 inches apart, just making sure the soil is mounded up to provide for good drainage. The best varieties to use are one that usually grow only to about 6-8 feet with a single stalk. Seems to work okay. Corn works best though and there's never any issue with ear development.

 

[ozark hen]

quadcam, what an amazing site...the square foot garden...I put a short cut on my desk top to really utilize it this year. thanks so much for sharing! :bouquet

 

[nightshade]

We were lucky, got 8 acrs for 17.5 but whomever owned it before TRASHED the land. You can literally go out and walk around and find lug nuts, bolts, wires, tires ........ We knew what we were getting into when we bought it. It has lots of trees on it and some are large that is partly why we got it, i did not want a empty piece of land with a trailer stuck on it. We are working on cleaning the land up, just taking time and the soil is just so bad.

chickhamm
Theressa
GA

I know exactly what you are going through!!!! We have the same thing here. Last summer we hauled scrap out of here every weekend atleast two truck loads a day. We have already started hauling it out again since the snow melted. We are getting down to just junk though, glass and things like old toilets believe it or not. I am thinking we are going to have to get a big dumpster in soon though. There really is no other way to get rid of it all.

IT is really hard to clean up such a mess and gets dishearting very quickly. It seems to take litterly forever and you can work at it all day or weekend and not seem to make any progress. I have found a use for the dozens of tires off all sizes that were everywhere though... I put them in stacks of two and plant stuff in them. Ground is too rockie to dig here anyway.

From some one that knows how hard it can be to clean up a place that was trashed good luck We have been at it for three years and counting and there seems to be no end in site. I can't believe that people would do something like this to the land they live on and just leave it that way.

 

[hcammack2]

We use 6x4 raised beds in our garden surounded by pea gravel and fenced in we also have a 12x4 rasberries patch and a strip of blueberries out front it is fenced in by a 4 foot high picket we also have sunflowers and pumpkins out behind. This system has worked for around 6 years.

Henry