I went in to the local garden supply store yesterday and was talking to one of the owner. I asked when all the square foot garden supplies would be on the shelves and available. She told me that in another month and a half it would be out. She then asked me if I had ever had a square foot garden. After telling her that I was an avid SFG’er, she said “well, that Mel’s mix just doesn’t work. I got rid of it and put in my regular traditional garden that I’ve always had and I have had a huge garden ever since.” When I asked her what the problem with Mel’s mix could have been, she responded, “I don’t know but it doesn’t have all the things in it that you need to grow vegetables.” She mentioned that it was always dry and nothing ended up growing in her first SFG. I didn’t say much, but I felt like asking her if she would be interested in my new ebook. I now know that she failed on one of the two biggest mistakes that SFG’ers tend to make. I had actually gone in to see when they start to get their asparagus crowns in the store. Asparagus “crowns?” She didn’t even know what those were. I should have stopped right there. You know, if I didn’t know about square foot gardening and I listened to this store sales person, she could have easily talked me right out of having a square foot garden. And when I started asking questions about asparagus she was giving me information that was completely inaccurate. It was all rather disheartening. I re-learned the lesson that has been reinforced to me many times over the years: take the advice you get from experts(those who have been taught in the university agricultural methods and the like)and store employees with a grain of salt. This person was very insistent that she was right on a number of things that I knew she was incorrect about. Some of the practices used in farming are great-if you live on a farm! But us home gardeners are different. Home gardening is not like farming. Farming practices in the home garden has brought us a lot of weeding, inefficient use of resources, lots of hard work(digging, roto-tilling, etc.), and a lot of pesticides and chemicals. It’s been a discouragement for a lot of home gardeners over the years. This is why your spouse says to you at the end of summer “look at that mess back there. We need to weed and pull everything up and maybe think about doing something a little different next year.” The next year comes and you end up doing all the things that you’ve normally done with the same results. If you think I’m wrong, look at most of those community gardens as the end of the year. Remember the flurry of activity there was at the beginning of spring? All the hard work of gardening with farming practices burns people out. If you’re one of those gardeners who wants a simple garden with hardly any weeding, no heavy digging, 80% less watering, and 100% of the harvest, then a square foot garden is for you. If you’re one to think things through too much and come up with all the reason why gardening can’t possibly be a simple as that then a square foot garden is probably not the right method for you. For those who look at its simplicity and say to themselves “hey, I can do that”-this is it!
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