All New Square Foot Gardening: More Projects, New Solutions, Grow Vegetables Anywhere

Great book on gardening that makes it easy for the amateur. It really makes you want to head over to the local hardware store and start your own garden. Unfortunately, it isn't as easy as he makes it out to be and you'll become well-acquainted with quite a few things not covered: 10 kinds of caterpillars, 5 kinds of grasshoppers, snails, slugs, powdery mildew, spider mites, aphids, leaf miners, and a bunch of other stuff. You'll have to learn the hard way how to fight off all your local pests, which practices and growing patterns encourage/ discourage these, and all the millions of other things gardeners have had to fight through since Adam was condemned to feed his family by the sweat of his brow. As far as his close planting, I find show more it infuriating picking off those well-camouflaged caterpillars and other pests with the density he proposes.

This book provides a shortcut to getting a garden started and having a weed-free bed, but after that, you'll be searching on each and every plant. show less

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew provides an easy to follow alternative to traditional row gardening. I began reading the book with a bit of skepticism because I grew up on a farm where row gardening was the norm. Over the years, I've since tried container gardening and raised box gardening with mixed results. Bartholomew makes the square foot gardening method seem approachable though I have to admit I'm having a hard time envisioning it being both more bountiful and less work than traditional gardening. Bartholomew outlines how to build the boxes and how to plan the plantings. He offers advice on how to choose what to grow. He includes information about some of the more common plants people grow as well as a planting show more schedule to aid people in growing a square foot garden and extending the growing season. He also discusses soil and provides a soil mixture he calls "Mel's Mix" that he claims will grow the best producing plants and do away with the need for tilling the soil because the plants in the square foot garden are all grown in six inches of Mel's Mix. Bartholomew provides a method of gardening that promises to make gardening accessible to everyone. I'm intrigued and the book convinced me square foot gardening is worth giving a try. All New Square Foot Gardening is easy to read, nicely illustrated, and filled with useful information if a bit repetitive at times. show less

There are so many helpful ideas about gardening in this book. In fact, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to garden with a limited amount of space... but there is so much space in this book dedicated to Mel's extremely rigid methods that it's a tough one for me.

Take what works for you in this book and try not to pay too much attention to it's prescriptive qualities.

The All New Square Foot Gardening Book
by: Mel Bartholomew, Cool Springs Press, 2005

For those of us with tiny yard spaces for food gardens, or who just want to most food produced with the least amount of effort, square foot gardening may be just your Savior. The premise of the system is that a vegetable gardening method is introduced which directs your actions towards a bounteous crop. To quote, "square foot gardening will save you at least 80 percent of the space, time and money normally needed to garden, and at the same time, will produce a better and more continuous harvest with less work. Your going to eliminate all of your thinning, most of the weeding, and a lot of the watering and will do it in one fifth of the area."

The focus of show more the method is to address specific spacial needs of each plant. Plus the spaces between planted rows, which traditionally encouraged compressed soil as well as requiring fertilization, weeding and watering, are eliminated. This provides an ideal habitat for each plant. Other benefits include predictable and balanced food production, automatic crop rotation, healthy soil practices, minimal seed wastage and greatly reduced weeding.

Mel has introduced this method via his books and a PBS television show since the early 1980's. Our garden club library still retains an early copy of the book (1981). Over the years he has refined his methodology and now has sold over 2 million books, has a charitable education foundation, and has modified the system to support square meter gardening outside the United States. The most recent version is titled "The New Improved Square Foot Garden Book". It contains many more photo illustrations and offers improvements including reduced soil requirements, less complex soil blending, no added fertilizer, generous aisle size (the walking space between the gardens), modified seeding procedures and permanent grids. It also provides sizing requirements for the size of the family unit, as well as food production for the root cellar.

My own personal experience is that the book is true to its claims. After initial construction (which is a bit of an effort), the planting and weekly maintenance is almost negligible. And with Mel's suggestion of a few plots allocated to flowers, the result is pretty darn nice to look at. If your goals are as close to effortless and teeny space high yield veggie production, this may be the system for you.

Jim Standen
Director, SSI Garden Club show less

Best gardening book ever: I do not come by gardening naturally, but after my daughter read this book in Africa, she convinced me that even I could make things grow. She was right. I live in a rural area and only get sun on my deck and this system is perfect. The soil mix is the best I have ever used. It is low maintence. The book is easy to read with some great reference tables. There are lots of great photos and diagrams for the visual learner. Throughout the book you will even find tips for including your children. I have since purchased 2 more books as gifts.

Mel's second look at square foot gardening brings many new enhancements that should make SFG much much easier. Unfortunately, Mel has also become more commercialized, and the book has the tone of an infomercial. The step by step construction guides are much needed, but I feel the first book gave much better detail on actual growing. Both also come with invaluable appendix material with plant charts and tips. I'm definitely glad I read the first SFG book first, but this one is a great sequel too.

I tag this book as "currently reading" because, even though I've read it through, it's becoming a daily reference point for me. I have a square foot gardening system in my yard and I love it! I have four 4x4 beds and I'm amazed by the yield that I get in the summer and fall from such a little space. Who knew that you can get 16 carrots from ONE sq. foot of soil? His soil recipe (from the original book, not the updated one) is brilliant. My veg are so healthy and happy. This book makes me wish I knew Mel Bartholomew in real life so I could shake his hand!