Does Square Foot Gardening and Mel's soil mix actually work?

Does square foot gardening work and is there anything you can change to make it even better? The square foot gardening soil mix is at the core of successful square foot gardening, but the suggested soil mix might not be the right soil mix for you in your local climate. In this video I talk about different soil types and which soil has given me the best square foot gardening results.

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Video timeline:

00:00 - Introduction
02:13 - What is square foot gardening?
06:05 - Square foot gardening soil mix
09:26 - An alternative soil mix
11:10 - Does square foot gardening work?

Here are some other great soil videos from my channel:

How to build great soil naturally using home made compost and layered soil building -    • How to build great soil naturally using ho...  

How to improve clay and sandy soil and create your own compost -    • How to improve clay and sandy soil and cre...  

How to turn Bokashi into compost using a Soil / Earth factory -    • How to turn Bokashi into compost using a S...  

What is square foot gardening?

The concept of square foot gardening was created by Mel Bartholomew in an attempt to increase the amount of food that can be grown in a small amount of space. This is done by creating structure in your vegetable gardening beds and planing crops according to their space requirements. A big part of square foot gardening is the soil mix. This gardening method uses intensive growing in small spaces which needs certain soil characteristics to have successful harvests.

You can find out more about square foot gardening here - https://squarefootgardening.org/

How does square foot gardening work?

The concept of square foot gardening is pretty simple. Growing space, or raised beds are divided into square foot, or 30cm X 30cm, blocks to create a grid of squares. Depending on the kind of crop you are wanting to grow you increase or decrease the number of plants per block.

For example you can plant 4 beans, 16 spring onions, 5 onions, 1 kale/brassica, 1 potato, 6 beetroots, 16 carrots in a block and you can mix and match blocks which create wonderful interplanting of crops.

What is the square foot gardening soil mix?

The soil used in square foot gardening is a very specific mix that was created by the inventor, Mel Bartholomew. The soil was very carefully created after years of testing and many people all over the world have incredible results using the square foot gardening soil mix. What is this mix?

The square foot gardening soil mix contains:

1/3 perlite or vermiculite if you don't have access to perlite
1/3 coco coir or peat moss (I would not suggest peat moss as it is damaging to the environment)
1/3 high quality compost

What makes square foot gardening soil so successful?

There are 4 main requirements for good quality soil and you need a healthy balance of each of these for crops to reach their full potential. These include moisture retention, aeration, drainage and nutrition. If any of these are not working properly then your plants will suffer - even more so with square foot gardening where we use intensive planting. Mel's mix is the perfect balance of all these elements in most climates BUT it does not always work.

Why Mel's mix doesn't work for me...

There are 2 main reasons why Mel's square foot gardening mix does not work for me and these are:

1. The cost of filling beds. When you use Mel's mix you need to buy in perlite and coco coir which can get really expensive, especially if you have a larger growing space or high raised beds. If you don't make your own compost then it becomes even more expensive. In a world where costs are constantly increasing using items like these become unsustainable and not very cost-effective

2. It uses A LOT of water! This is the biggest reason why I started looking at alternative soil options for my square foot gardening beds. Due to the fact that Mel's mix is so aerated and free draining it uses a lot of water. In climates that do not get a lot of summer rain, like the Mediterranean climate I am in, to keep Mel's mix constantly moist you need to water a lot to achieve this. As moisture retention is one of the key elements of good soil my plants started to really suffer not getting enough water and I was needing to water every 2nd day, sometimes every day. Using an alternative soil allowed me to only water once a week and have luscious, healthy plants.

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