Square Foot garden materials list

These are the boxes I put in new last year. I wanted to see if the south side of the house was warmer than the rest of the yard. I have been growing herbs in this area for years! I used 2x6' boards. It is really just four 4x4 gardens all together. The first two boxes have verticals attached to them. They rust but I don't mind they were cheap, concrete mesh. You can see my plastic covers.
Click to enlarge

Here we go a 4 x 4 garden box. Maybe you don't have room for the square so make it 2'X 4' or a 3x3 as we did for the neighbor girls. What ever length you wish just try to keep it within the square foot idea.

Wood (no treated lumber, any wood, man made wood-plastic, stone, or anything that will hold a garden. We have one that is a kids hard swimming pool with holes drilled in the bottom.

Mel suggests 1x6 for the most economical, low traffic garden Or
2x6 for a sturdy box that will take any traffic

shopping list:
four 4 ft 2x6-inch boards or 1x6
Six 4 ft wood lath boards (this is your grid, there are other materials that work also)
Screws 25 to 30
ground cloth that stops grass but allows water through it. NOT plastic I used multi layers of cardboard. A deep layer of newspapers works for a while.

Soil

1/3 Vermiculite Buy 4 cubic foot bags of coarse grade
1/3 Peat moss 3.9 cubic foot bag makes 8 cubic feet
1/3 compost Aim for 5 different kinds most are 1 cubic foot bags

That should do it! You can make this from used materials, or anything you can afford. Some people like to paint them, do that ahead before we put them together and don't paint the inside of the boards. Once you are ready give us a call and we'll all come put it together and fill it for you. Now isn't that fun!



4x4 box needs 8 cubic feet of soil
4x8 box needs 16 cubic feet of soil
4x12 box needs 24 cubic feet of soil
4x16 box needs 32 cubic feet of soil





This is a 3x3 foot garden on legs

I took this in pieces down to lyndy on the train last year.
She and a 4 year old put it together by themselves!