rowing a blooming and productive garden in a place like Arizona can be a challenge. In your quest to grow vegetables, you might also have limited space for your garden. The method of square foot gardening (SFG) may help create your dream garden and increase your production of organic food. Furthermore, by joining this worldwide movement, you can be sure that you will own a sustainable oasis that requires less water, soil, space, and work to maintain!
One of Urban Farming Education's missions is to help aspiring gardeners learn to grow their organic food. Because of this, we want to give you a guide about SFG with a special emphasis on gardening in the desert.
Mel Bartholomew was tired of wasted space, resources, and time-related to gardening. He created SFG as a simple alternative to row gardening by focusing on planting, spacing, weed control, and soil. The method is easy to learn and available to everyone, especially beginner gardeners.
Whether you are switching from traditional gardening practices to square foot gardening or haven't had your garden before, this method may work for you. You will be surprised how simple and effective you can begin square foot gardening and blown away by the low amount of time invested in maintaining it. Furthermore, square foot gardening is a more sustainable approach to gardening, so you can feel even better about your environmental impact.
Choosing the ideal place for a garden is crucial; however, it is sometimes more difficult than it seems. Before you start building your garden, research your ideal locations. Gardeners living in Arizona must be aware of the unusual circumstances, like extremely high heat and very low humidity. We have discussed at length the importance of choosing the right spot for your garden in our previous article, but let us highlight the most important factor that affects your crops: harsh Arizonan sunlight, which, fortunately, can be controlled. The amount of sun varies from plant to plant, and due to high temperatures peaking around mid to late afternoon, gardening in Arizona is complicated. To solve this, we highly recommend blocking your garden from sunlight coming from the West while favoring the cool morning light.
Because of these special circumstances, you must be aware of choosing the perfect spot for your square foot garden. Still, once you have your ideal location, you can begin thinking of your garden's size and buying the necessary building materials.
After choosing the ideal location, you can design the garden. A usual square foot garden has a minimum area of four feet by four feet and a minimum height of six inches, but your garden's actual size will depend on the space available to you. The garden's length can be variable, but the recommended length is not too wide to care for plants from all sides. After you decided on the size, some material should construct the walls and grids of the design. Wood may look better for the separating walls, but the use of string is a more economical approach. If you treat the wood, ensure that you treat the outside of the garden. Treated wood should not be directly touching the soil of your garden. Landscape fabric or weed mats are optional to keep weeds out of your garden. The wooden walls can be connected using a standard electric drill/screwdriver.
The native clay soil in Arizona is perfect for desert-adapted plants, but it's a poor choice for your vegetable garden. If you are beginning square foot gardening, your veggies will be in a container and filled with the ideal soil mixture. When choosing a soil, you must consider many factors, but ideally, a combination of soil mixed with compost, peat moss, and perlite: Read more. These ingredients aid in water retention and increasing air space, ensuring successful life cycles for your plants. If you want to be sure that your soil-mix has the ideal pH, buy a soil test kit in one of your local garden stores and check the pH of your soil mixture.
Despite your garden existing in Arizona's extreme conditions, almost any type of vegetable can be successfully grown when appropriate varieties are selected and planted at the correct time. If you are unsure of what to plant, it is worth visiting your local nursery as a resource. Moreover, you can also ask neighbors or gardeners you know about their experiences. Lastly, you can find useful region-specialized vegetable planting calendars that show you correctly what you can plant and when. Square foot gardening is a handy technique for experienced and beginning gardeners, and with some very minor adjustments, this method works well in Arizona!
[1] https://squarefootgardening.org/
[2] https://impact-nv.org/sustainability-in-the-news/southern-nevada/urban-gardening-how-
to-garden-in-a-desert-city
[3] https://gardeninminutes.com/square-foot-gardening/
[4] https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/design/guide-to-square-foot-gardening/
[5] https://growinginthegarden.com/vegetable-gardening-in-arizona/
