My name is Tom Argiro, and I'm a square foot gardenaholic. (all: 'welcome, Tom.')
I have been addicted to square foot gardening since 1988. I remember when I first tried square foot gardening and how quickly it consumed me. During a cold and snowy winter in Ohio, I made a routine trip to the local library. I returned home with a stack of gardening books that would teach me how to get started. One book in particular led me down a path of self-seeking pleasure and gratification like I never imagined possible.
If you haven't guessed it by now, that book was "Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space With Less Work" written by Mel Bartholomew and first published in 1981.After learning the square foot gardening (SFG) technique and using it for a few years in Ohio, we moved to Phoenix Arizona. Vegetable gardening in the desert Southwest was a real challenge for me initially. Then a neighbor and fellow Ohio transplant told me to think upside down about it. He said "Whatever you would normally be planting in April and May back home, plant in September and October out here." That worked.
So let me wrap up this first blog post with something you can really use. I rely heavily on the Maricopa County's Exention office and the research they've done on the subject of vegetable gardening in Phoenix. Before we get into the square foot gardening technique, take the time now to bookmark the following link, then visit that page and study it.
http://extension.arizona.edu/sites/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1005.pdf
In the next blog post we will talk about how to use the extension office's planting calendar along with your square foot garden.
Now that I'm done tending to this blog post, I can continue my Fall planting.
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