Square Foot Gardening!

[indeliblesasha]

Or: The web design for the official site is so GOD-AWFUL BAD I want to CRY. I can't even look at it any longer. GOING TO CRY.

I need some help planning my vegetable garden, I'm doing just a 4x4 raised bed this year to get a feel for growing here in the Boulder, Colorado, US area. I literally have no idea what I'm doing, so someone who is willing to hold my hand through the process of figuring what to plant and when would be much loved.

OR, pointing me in the direction of sites with correct and detailed information? Because so far I'm finding nothing but contradictory info and stuff written for people who have degrees in botany.

HALP! I just want to grow some lettuce. Maybe some tomatoes. Broccoli? Sigh.


(edited to clarify location because I'm trying to remember that internet is not *just* in the US :D )

Comments

[chalcopyrite]

I have absolutely no experience with growing in your sort of area (I'm in Ireland, so a lot further north, a lot more temperate, and a *whole* lot closer to sea level), but I can offer some general comments. Please ignore if it's not what you need.

Don't plant out until it's pretty likely you're not going to get a hard frost. So you probably have a while! There is a thing called a wall-o-water, which I heard about from a friend in Fort Collins (I'll see if she has any insights from her garden) -- it's a plant surround that you fill with a thin layer of water, and it works to even out day/night temperature shifts, and also diffuses the UV so plants don't get sunburned. You might find it useful for the tomato(es), if it's findable / in your price range.

You can start seedlings now, I'd say, if you have space indoors; it's better if they're not *too* warm or they get very stretched-out and thin, but giving them a head start is a good idea. It always takes longer for things to germinate than I think it will.

When you plant them out, give them a sunshade for the first few days -- like a piece of newspaper propped up over them. It'll help them acclimate. Some sort of sunshade might be good for lettuce, too -- UV retards growth, and that makes lettuce bitter by the time it's big enough to eat.

Brassicas -- which includes broccoli -- do not like a lot of heat. There are fast-growing salady leaves -- arugula, mizuna -- that you could put at the ends of the summer, before and after the intense heat. The tougher brassicas, like kale, are quite frost-tolerant.

[primsong]

Take a couple afternoons to go visit the main plant nurseries in your local area - they should have books you can use for reference, staff that can answer questions and even the right varieties of plants for your altitude and zone. Some of them will even offer to help plan out your garden for you for free in the hopes that you will purchase your supplies and plants from them.

One other tip I have learned along the way - whenever possible, buy your seedlings locally rather than online! They're already acclimated to your particular area and aren't in shock from being shipped from some other zone, hence are much more likely to do something useful like...live. ;-)

Good luck!

[beachlass]

I used to have the Square Foot Gardening book!

I always plant in beds rather than rows, and vaguely go by the spacing suggested on my seed packets. Some seeds (like lettuce), I'm prone to loosely scattering across the prepared area. I grow from local nursery seedlings more than from seed - partly because I've done the seedlings in the house thing before, and I know I'm not great at it/too busy; but also because seed packets give me way, way more plants than I have space and I like different varieties. (If I have room for 8 tomato plants, they're likely to be all different heritage varieties.) Some vegetables (like tomatoes) should be rotated - not grown in exactly the same spot year to year, because of the nutrients they draw out of the soil.

Last hint: some folks swear by collecting some brushed out dog hair and putting it around the garden to deter squirrels.

Good luck!

[daidoji_gisei]

Hello! I live in Nebraska so we are neighbors. Kind of. ;-)

I have found UNL's extension service to be useful in terms of planting info and varieties, so I did a quick search to see if Colorado had one. Have you checked them out yet? They seem to have a lot of gardening info links collected here and especially here.