Variety Gardening

We have just started getting our gardens on our new property ready for growing. We have decided to have several different types of gardens including, square foot gardening, hugulkultur gardening, traditional row gardening, and a Jason Aikers natural garden.

We want to be able to document the different types of gardening and learn from each type of gardening the pro's and the con's and how to possibly come up with a different system. I will give a brief summary of each type of gardening.

Square Foot Garden – This is a raised bed garden with compost, peat moss, and vermiculite. There is a particular mixture that allows the bed to drain, but hold enough water due to the vermiculite.

The bed is at least 2 foot deep of this perfect mixture of soil. You then break the bed (for us 4x4 beds) into 1 square foot squares where you will put your plants. One square may be for mint and then the next tomato and on the other side eggplant. It stresses plant variety to help defend against pest and disease and allows for strength in diversity.

We have had a huge success with this type of gardening, but to get started you need store bought materials and then you need to put compost (hopefully your own) on it twice a year after that to feed the soil. Super easy to get started and I guarantee you will grow and be addicted to gardening.

Hugulkultur Gardening – This is a different type of raised bed. You raise the dirt by burying logs underneath the soil. The benefits of this are amazing and exciting.

The first year as the logs start to decompose it releases lots of nutrients back into the soil acting as a time release fertilizer. The logs also help holds water and keep the raised bed moist.

We have never gardened this way, but are excited about this first year of hugulkultur gardening.

Row Gardening – We have all seen row gardening and may have even done it before. My wife and I started this way, because that is all we had seen. That is how you have to garden... isn't it?

We started with watermelon, pumpkins, cucumbers, and maybe squash. Well we got hammered by squash bugs the first year along with every other kind of critter. We had no idea about plant diversity and that we had given a breeding ground that there would only be one pest and no predators.

We haven't written off this type of gardening, but plan to be smart with this type of gardening. We want to try plant diversity in the rows rather than give squash bugs a buffet. Any pest will have to work around all the smells of herbs, squash, tomatoes, onions, etc. It is more difficult for them to find their desired plant when they aren't bunched together. Even if they do find their plant they on get one plant not the whole row.

Jason Aikers Gardening – Jason Aikers aka, the self sufficient gardener, has a unique way of going about gardening. He favors using cardboard, newspaper, and mulch to kill the majority of grass/weeds in the garden area and then plant seeds without digging up the soil.

He reasons that when you till up the ground you ruin the entire micro organism life that is going on underneath the surface (Which is true) and that you would be better off to allow whatever grows with your garden to grow with your garden. No weeding, no tilling, and no watering. He believes in letting nature do its own thing.

We are giving it a go with all four gardening types and will keep you up on the results.

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