This allows plants to be situated more closely together. That said, the beds can be 2x 2 feet or 4x12 feet, but the most common is 4x4 feet. Typically, SFG beds are at least 4 feet by 4 feet, with a square foot lattice placed on top to visually separate the crops.Add a one-foot square grid on top and it became easy to space and rotate crops. It soon became clear that getting rid of rows and using intensive deep-beds could dramatically cut the amount of maintenance the garden required. In particular, he found the average gardener was spending hours weeding the big gaps between long rows of plants, creating unnecessary work for themselves. It was only natural that he would apply his analytical skills to the problems he encountered. Mel Bartholomew had just retired as an engineer and decided to take up gardening as a hobby. SFG advocates claim it produces more, uses less soil and water, and takes much less time to maintain than a traditional garden. It’s a simple way to create easy-to-manage gardens with raised beds that need a minimum of time spent maintaining them. This planting method was developed by American author and TV presenter Mel Bartholomew in the 1970s. Square-foot gardening ( SFG) is a type of raised-bed gardening-basically, a raised box divided into squares. With the square-foot gardening method, you plant in 4x4-foot blocks instead of traditional rows. Different crops are planted in different blocks according to their size for example, 16 radishes in one square foot, or just one cabbage per square foot. A lattice is laid across the top to clearly separate each square foot.

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