Anyone Interested in a new forum: Square Foot Gardening?

I think what you're seeing are some old threads that were moved to the new forum after it was created a few days ago.

(Edited for typo)

This message was edited Mar 4, 2011 11:28 PM

The mills of DG grind slowly, but surely and very finely.

(A temporal anomaly?)

Corey

This message was edited Mar 4, 2011 8:55 PM

NisiNJ is correct - once the new forum was created, we went back through and found existing threads that fit the new forum, and moved them there. Even threads that started a decade ago can be added to with fresh posts.

Got it. Thanks, Cam

have to say= WOW, with my eyes wide open.

I feel like I've just been "watching" a birth! Can't wait to check out the new Intensive, Maximizing, High Yield, Square Feet, Whatever Forum... :) Good work everyone! Janet

High Yield Gardening Discussion Forum

Raised bed, wide row, intercropping, intensive gardening - you'll find it all here!

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/highyield/all/

It is active!

Corey

speaking of Square Foot Gardening
I have both books, the old and the new improved.
Some of my garden bed Soils are done like the old book and videos suggest.
Now that the New Square Foot Gardening Book is out, they have changed the SFG forum to the New SFG forum and no body is allowed to talk about the old way of doing the soil.
If you have a bed and its pretty and thriving but it is growing in soil done the old way---you are not allowed to talk about that soil...........they only want you to talk about the new way of mixing the soil. I don't think that is right. It is so wrong in so many ways that it isn't even funny. But at the same time they still sell the old book along with the new book as a package deal...........so upset with them.
And I love SFG
So now when I visit their website forum, If I show pictures of my sfg , I am not allowed to tell what the plants are growing in if its not the NEW way. #$%^$%^&^& makes you want to curse.

It always baffles and amazes me that anyone can say "there is only one way to garden".

And it makes me fall down laughing that "the best way" 30 years ago has been forgotten now, and will be rediscovered as "new and better" 20 years from now.

I think are as many "best ways" as there are climates, soils, budgets, preferences in plants, sizes of property, and vigor and lifestyles of gardeners.

But many people will defend "their way" as "the only way". Maybe they could prove some practice was "best" for their exact situation and goals, but ... "the only way"?? How could that belief survive even one experience of seeing some heretic's thriving garden, done "the worng way"?

Corey

Sounds like diets... :)

We do seem to proselytize the strangest things.

Corey

I guess everyone has their own personal preference. I do raise beds primarily because I like it and for me is less work. I don't have a real good place for a traditional type garden and nothing to plow it with if I did. I do raise potatoes and okra in the traditional manner in an area where my compost pile was.

Same for me, Jim. No soil other than what I make. My "plow" is a mattock and a spade. I till with pitchfork and a rake. If my yard were bigger, I'd be in trouble!

Corey

CricketsGarden, Sounds like it time to leave that forum. All of a sudden the old way is frowned upon? THAT'S BS! Mel came up with it for Pete's sakes! I'd tell them to ban me if they want to pull that nonsense.

Duh, the only way to increase sales of the NEW book is to banish all reference to the Old. It's called "marketing.

I went to the SFG site the other day. They used to have lots of information, now all it is is advertisements. If you want to get any info you have to RENT their online video. Seriously, you can't pay, download and watch at your convenience, you rent it and then can only watch it a certain number of times. He's on Garden Girl TV, but to get to the good stuff you have to pay for that too. I really resent that. I bought his book and managed to misplace it so I was checking his site for howmany squash to a square when I ran into this. Mother Earth News has a garden planner I use so when I clicked the SFG tab it switch everything to the correct spacing. I was saved! I don't have any issues with him making money after all he does have to eat, but this to my mind is going too far.

I know I'm grumpy when anyone announces that their way is "the only way".

My answer to attempts to patent or copyright a "special" method is to keep the comonsense parts, keep the "laws of nature" part, and forget the rest.

Apparantly "grow densely in deep, rich soil" is supposed to be called "the French Intensive Method". DUHH! I wonder if anyone copyrighted that and tried to charge royalties?

Did anyone try to copyright the "drink from the lip of of cup that is closer to you" as the "don't spill the entire cup drinking method"?

I'm gratefull to Mel for giving me one new idea: "surround new seeds with vermiculite so they stay damp and don't have to push crusts and gravel out of their way".

I'm also grateful to him for re-inforcing all the obvious things that I thought everyone knew from age 10 and higher:
- if you sow too densely, you'll have to chop most of what sprouts, and you hate that
- if you don't amend poor soil, expect poor results
- once you've amended a plot really well, it only needs a little more help each year
- if you plant too large an area and never weed it, you'll grow mostly weeds
- don't bite off more than you WILL chew
- if you plant densely enough in rich soil, there may be little room for weeds
- put the tall plants where they won't shade the short ones
- if you grow twice as much as you can eat, you can't eat it all.

And seriously - it does help to be reminded of what any idiot already knows: I already knew it, and often ignored it, so I'm glad I paid for his first book and re-read it occasionally.

But you can only re-sell the same idea so many times, especially if most of it is obvious.

As a gift to anyone who wants to keep using his ideas several times after paying for them once, I give you a new gardening method: Square Meter Gardening (c).

Just send me $10 once, and you can do it as much as you want to without paying me for it again.

Corey

LOL LOL LOL

I do have the first SFG , then the NEW SFG book, plus all the dvds .Plus the
SFG = CASh from crops. I went all out.
But I prefer the old book. There is something about natural earth that keeps pulling me in. So- I like to amend my
existing soil. I have tried the New mels mixture and it does work pretty good but so does amending. SFG says the new way is cheaper but I don't see it that way... Although I do think adding as much homemade compost to the garden is the best for the garden.
Anyway===I have been gradually leaving the SFG website forums.

I did a little hydroponics when I was in Jr. High School. Made the entire fertilizer out of things from Chemistry jars. But that's science or engineering in the middle of which (surprise) are some living plants.

To me, "gardening" means "growing things in soil".

Corey

P.S. I agree: homemade compost, and the materials to make it from, are golden.

I've never done SFG. I like raised beds and part of the fun is figuring out what you want to grow and how to make it all grow up instead of out. I can grow a lot more than I can eat or give away. For me, it has to be fun or it's work. At my age I need a lot more fun than work.

Hey, Brother Jim!
Where've you been? Time to post some pics, cause I KNOW your garden is chocked full!

Linda

It is starting to shape up Linda. Tomatoes are really pretty. Green beans are starting to run. Cucubers and squash just up good. Lettuce and radish will be big enough to eat in a few days. Butter beans just coming up. Potatoes are looking good. Only problem I've had is I can't get okra up. I've planted it twice and not a seed up. The first time we got to flood rains and I thought it drove my seed to deep. Now it looks like the seed just aren't any good. Got to make a run to a friend about sixty miles from me and get some from him. I promised Ozark some cowhorn seed so I've got it to do in a few days.

Pictures, Brother Jim?

YES Please!

Made a few pictures and will try to get them downloaded and post them in a couple of days. Got a lot of sick folks in my church. Three surgies tomorrow.