The ground works just fine. You make 4X4 boxes out of 2X6 boards (redwood or painted but not pressure-treated wood) fill it up with the mix and divide the 4X4 space into 16 one foot squares with a grid of strings. When you harvest what’s in one of the squares you plant something else there.
We have 29 4X4 boxes on our place. Keeps our bellies full all year with the stuff we dry and can.
The coolest thing about the Mel’s mix is that the weeding is nearly effortless. Our weeding time dropped dramatically.
Being in paradise doesn’t hurt the yields certainly. But the principles are applicable anywhere. We produce an enormous amount of food in a fairly short growing season here in Idaho.
The cool thing about the square-foot method is that you plant, harvest, re-plant throughout the season so you get more than one crop per square per season for many of the squares.
That’s debatable. We have used ACQ treated lumber for years with no problems. We have used ACQ treated lumber for years with no problems. We have used ACQ treated lumber for years with no problems.
I’m not sure the admonition applies to all pressure treated wood. Some forms use a cyanide base, and this is known to leach into the soil. Here in Canada these types of wood treatment are no longer allowed. YMMV.
Nothing wrong with CCA stuff as long as you don’t touch it, lick it, burn it, bury it, build with it, or feed it to livestock, otherwise it’s perfectly useless.
Ah, to have a four month growing season! We usually get frost well into june, and frequently in late august/early september, too. Great climate for growing alfalfa and chokecheries. Other than that, it’s a struggle.
That is why I used raised beds in Wisconsin when I started veggie gardening as a tike. Every bed became a cold frame at the beginning of the season and at the end of the season. The rows between the beds were always wide enough to accomodate hay or straw bales for insulation. I just used common oak boards so they only lasted a few seasons. Unfortunately we moved around (rentals) so I frequently would have to build new beds. One spring the ice heave was so big on the lake it wiped out all my beds and our shed, not to mention trees.
If you start shopping now, you can probably find a lot of seed packets dated 2008 that are marked down to 1/2 price. There should still be about a 90% germination rate, but people want the seeds dated 2009 so stores are getting rid of the 2008 supply.
As far as a lawn service - what I don’t like is they don’t clean their tools between jobs, (at least not the 2 companies I see in my neighborhood in the summer), so if one yard has a disease they can spread it to several others. If I was going to hire someone to mow my lawn, I’d make sure he uses my mower on my lawn and not one that’s been all over town.
Actually I find it somewhat humorous when I can make out a tread pattern in a lawn created by a commercial riding mower that has driven through various fungal infestations on the various lawns of their other clients. On the other hand folks don’t realize that by hiring these companies they are insuring their lawns will always be in need of care 'cause they are getting inoculated with new pathogens every week. One of my next door neighbors just put in a new lawn this fall. Spent a small fortune to hire someone to kill, till, and seed. He lives down slope from me, 2"/ft drop across both properties, my front yard is a prairie except for the city’s ten foot easement. His lawn doesn’t stand a chance. But I have another neighbor who is twenty two, he’s the one who put in the new lawn. He nets over 60,000.00 in about 7 mos. of lawn care, has three employees and takes care of both of his parents who likely drink half of what he makes. So I’m helping out as best I can to make sure he has new work.
So my partner insists that if I plant anything in the yard it’ll be eaten from below by gophers and from above by skunks and raccoons. I guess I’ll try growing things in pots. I’m not handy enough to build wooden raised beds.
Why is it so hard/expensive to grow your own food?
Are you planning on fencing in the pots?(from the skunks and 'coons?)
Building raised beds really is not hard, just some grunt work. The plus is that you don’t have to till year after year because you are not constantly walking on the soil. Raised beds shouldn’t be more than four feet wide so you can reach all areas without stepping in them. I tore some ancient poplar boards off the side of an old outbuilding and used them as the sides for mine. I figured they might last a season. I’m into season three.
That’s easy: Because we base our gardens on our tastes rather than our climates, and grow things that don’t want to grow where we live. If Mrs. Badger and I were content living on staples such as potatoes, root veggies, barley, and native fruits (chokecherries, wild plums, serviceberries), we could grow our own food cheaply and easily (although we would still have to irrigate). But since we really like tomatoes, peppers, and other such tropical plants, it takes a great deal of work because we are working against nature rather than with it.
Our chickens sure are starting to lay now, though! We’re getting 5 to 10 eggs per day! Once I start growing all their food (the above easy stuff, plus millet and sunflower seeds), that will be a nice, dependable, relatively idiot-proof food source.
Thinking of feeding the chickens reminded me of this-
My brother and I use to spend lots of time in the barn cranking on a corn sheller exactly like this one except the bin had legs so it was about three feet tall. We were to keep the wooden bin full of shelled corn to feed the chickens. Actually, that’s one chore I liked and we use to fight over who got to crank the wheel. One would feed the ears in the top and catch the cobs when they shot out the side and put them in a sack hanging on the corner of the bin while the other cranked. I loved plunging my hands, elbow deep, into all that shelled corn. I can even still smell it.
We usually get frost well into june, and frequently in late august/early september, too. Great climate for growing alfalfa and chokecheries. Other than that, it’s a struggle.
But I have another neighbor who is twenty two, he’s the one who put in the new lawn. He nets over 60,000.00 in about 7 mos. of lawn care, has three employees and takes care of both of his parents who likely drink half of what he makes. So I’m helping out as best I can to make sure he has new work. 
