February is Key Planning Time for Your Spring Garden

While our cover crops, compost and MicroLife fertilizer break down in our teaching beds outside, it's time to sketch our plan, then start seeds + make our plant list for Annual Spring Plant Sale. For years, we've demonstrated Square Foot Gardening in our teaching beds at Zilker Botanical. They're both picturesque and great conversation starters for visitors. Since I'm planning one now for Spring, Angel & I (Madelynn) thought this would be a good opportunity to bring our local and online community together!  We'll share our planning steps, our published plan from the Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner.  Then the really fun part- the steps we take to plant, tend and harvest.  We'll be available to answer your questions on our social media channels.  Stay tuned for more installments through the growing season! 

Why the Square Foot Method? 
Square Foot Gardening uses high-density plant spacing to shade out weeds and increase productivity.  The book recommends a 4"X4' raised bed with a trellis on one side.  We're planning a 5'X5' with a trellis AND an olla in the center square to radiate underground irrigation to plant roots.  Square Foot Gardening is plotted and planted in squares vs. rows, and very practical for small scale, backyard gardens.  The "high density" part means you'll follow the Square Foot Gardening recommended number of plants per sq foot vs. your seed packet recommendations.    ​

Square Foot Plan for our Spring Garden. Designed using The Old Farmers Almanac Garden Planner

Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening book was introduced decades ago.  It was a PBS television series too so there's loads of information out there. 

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​To start, you can reference the SFC Student Guide. On page 25 you'll find a basic description and picture for a visual.  You can download it for free below.

DOWNLOAD SFC STUDENT GUIDE

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​Steps in Planning our Spring 5' x 5' Garden:

STEP 1: Reference the Travis County Vegetable Planting Guide. The Vegetable Planting Calendar from Texas A&M Agrilife Extension is a great resource for planning your vegetable patch. It plots best planting and cultivation times for seeds and transplants in Central Texas.  

I keep a printed copy in a binder of garden resources.  I lined up a ruler next to the March column and made a list of vegetables that can be planted in March.  

DOWNLOAD Planting Guide

STEP 2: I made a list of plants that I grow March-April-May.

This is an early-Spring growing season that can still support fast growing, cool season plants like lettuce, spinach and radishes, which can be harvested in 30 days. Even smaller vegetables, like beets, take 90 days on average to grow from seed to harvest. You'll harvest sooner if you buy transplants. These harvest times I've learned from experience as I grew vegetables that need to harvest by May for school gardens.  

STEP 3: I made a list of plants that grow June-July-August. You'll see on the planting guide, it's also recommended to establish larger summer vegetables like tomatoes, eggplants and peppers in March & April. AOG has taught me how to grow some of these in a sunny holding area, replanting 4" pots in gallon-size containers- so the roots and plants continue growing but I can bring them inside in case of late spring temperature dips. I find this especially helpful for larger peppers, which take a lot of room and won't produce until the heat of summer. ​

Tomatoes grow the deepest roots, up to two feet (see pg 7 in the SFC Guide on soil preparation).  It's good theory to plant early to establish roots before summer heat but you'll need to cover through Spring, when temps go below 50 degrees. We'll grow one tomato plant, supported on the trellis. We'll also grow tomatoes in other teaching beds- a cherry tomato on our vertical arch and big slicer varieties in our wicking bed- these are too big and vining for our square foot spacing. You could grow these in grow bags or containers.  
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Page 7 on Soil Prep

STEP 4: I combined the two lists and began placing plants 
A few basic rules for placing plants:

1. Place a trellis and taller plants on the North side so they don't shade smaller plants.
2. Place alliums (chives, onions, leeks, garlic), marigolds and nasturtiums on borders for organic pest control.  
3. Reference a Companion Planting Chart for which plants & herbs are good or bad neighbors.

Voila!  Here's a first draft of our plan!
You'll see that some squares say "____ then ____".  We'll grow an early crop and then plant a heat loving crop in May. Some plants like okra, will grow fast and require warm soil temps to germinate so we can grow an early season crop in this square then a warm season crop afterwards.  

As a quick recap, we've already prepped our soil using several methods: 

• Lasagna layering
• Turning in cover crops
• Adding leaves and compost 
• Adding MicroLife organic fertilizer for vegetables and flowers

All these methods, with 4-6 weeks time plus rain or watering will produce soil that's no longer hot from decomposition.  Come March, we'll have nutrient rich, well draining soil for growing seeds and transplants.  ​

One note on preparing soil- the Square Foot Gardening book recommends equal parts of:
Compost + Peat Moss + Vermiculite but this is a debated topic on YouTube channels.
My recommendations for Austin gardens, would be to amend your current soil with compost, coconut coir (a more sustainable product that aids in moisture retention, replacing peat moss) and earth worm castings or a slow-release organic fertilizer.  Talk to your local nursery.  Austin has many high quality nurseries that carry organic plants, products and hire/train knowledgeable staff.  Remember that good quality produce starts with good quality soil!  You may want to do a soil test now and amend as your test indicates need.  

Happy planning!  
Madelynn

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