Square Food Versus Wide Row Gardening

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As the economy takes a down turn people are trying to save money however they can. This includes tearing up the grass and putting in a home garden. More and more people are gardening to not only pass the time but also to save some money. Putting in a garden is fairly easy, but there are a couple of different methods that are worth considering because of the ease and increased yield on food you can get.

If you have a small garden, and you only have hand tools to work with, then you may wish to consider square foot gardening. Square Food Gardening, created by Mel Bartholomew is style of gardening many others have adopted. The amazing thing is the amount of food you can get from a four by four foot area. The idea behind square foot gardening is that it eliminates the need to have a rototiller or other specialized equipment. A shovel and a rake is about all you need for the basic garden bed. This can be made even simpler by create raised beds and then adding your soil.

Square foot gardening helps you to save seed and water, whcih are the principles at the core of this practice. This way you plant one seed a time instead of planting tons of seeds and having to thin them later. You can save your seeds year to year by storing them in a cold dry location.

If you have a larger garden and have a rototiller then consider wide row gardening. This in some ways is opposite from square foot gardening. This gardening philosphoy has you over plant your garden in wide rows in order to drown out the weeds. This saves you time and energy you would have to expend weeding. You can achieve a large yield from wide row gardening because you thin them as you eat. When carrots and onions start to get too dense, you pick them and eat them. This food when younger is very rich in flavor and incredibly enjoyable. Nothing is going to waste. The Joy Of Gardening by Dick Raymond is a great book to learn more about this style. By learning from experts you can help avoid pitfalls that you commonly run into as a first time gardener.