Now that you have read part one in our series and you have collected all the materials that you need, you are ready to assemble your Square Foot Garden. First let me say that anyone can do this. Seriously. I am more awkward in a lumber yard than Michael Vick at Humane Society convention.

That joke work for you? No? Too dated? It’s okay, I have more.

I am more awkward in a lumber yard than Sandra Huxtable when she told her parents Clair and Cliff that she was going to skip graduate school and open a wilderness store.

Wow, a Cosby Show reference. That was really dated.

I am more awkward in a lumber yard than Willy Wonka at an Oompa Loompa union meeting when they realize that they are being paid in cheap chocolate and demand a living wage with full dental.

Too obscure? Okay, I give up, but you get the point. I am totally awkward in a lumber yard.

1: Cut the Boards
First you need your boards to be the right length. You will need two 8′ boards (You can buy them at that length) and two 4′ boards (My incredible math skills tell me you can buy one 8′ board cut it in half.)

Notice: My instructions will technically give you a box with an interior space that is 4′ x 7′ 9″. If you really need it to be exactly 4′ x 8′ then you probably should not be getting your construction instructions from me.

2: Drill the Holes
Next you need to drill some holes where you are going to insert screws. That means three holes at each end of the 8′ boards about 1/2″ from the end.

3: Screw the Boards Together
Now that you have the holes all pre-drilled it is time to line everything up and screw the box together. I suggest laying the boards out on a flat surface to make sure everything will line up well enough. The box does not have to be perfect, but if any of your boards are too warped you will have trouble getting the corners to align.

Dufus alert: Make sure you are using the appropriate bits for the screws you bought. The appropriate bit is almost for sure a #2 Philips head. Also you may want to not skimp on the screws like I did. I got the silver colored inexpensive deck screws. Some people have advised me that you should get the darker more expensive screws. This will hopefully let you avoid stripping one screw after another. Did that last sentence sound dirty to anyone else?

4: Seal the bottom
Now that you have a totally awesome box you need to seal off the bottom so you can keep your soil mix separate from the native soil.

For this step I am assuming your box will end up on the ground where some grass currently is. There are other methods for special situations. For example, people that have trouble bending down - the elderly for example - can use boxes that have a solid wood bottom so they can be lifted to table height.

Roll out your landscape fabric and make sure you have enough to cover the entire bottom of the container. Now staple the fabric to the box every 12″ or so all the way around.

Bonus Infestation Tip: Have that gopher from Caddyshack always popping up and gyrating all over your yard to classic Kenny Loggins songs? You may want to add a couple of layers of chicken wire along with the landscaping fabric. This will create a physical barrier that will keep burrowing animals from getting in to your raised bed.

5: Add the Growing Mix
Now that you have your raised bed fully assembled you need to put it in place. After we add the soil-free mix it will be more challenging to move it than a… nevermind. No more “jokes”. Just put the box where you want it.

The mix is very simple. It is:

• 1/3 Vermiculite
• 1/3 Peat Moss
• 1/3 Compost

Pour the ingredients in to make three even piles and then mix thoroughly.

When you are done your mix should look something like this and it should be almost to the top of the box.

6: Build a Grid
Now you have something that looks like a garden! Time to setup the grid. The grid is the part that makes this technique go from raised bed gardening to Square Foot Gardening. You can make this grid any way you like. Some people seem to prefer hard materials for the dividers. They will use things like thin strips of wood, cheap window blinds, etc. But I prefer something I can easily remove and replace whenever I want.

What I use as a divider is Mason’s string. People installing concrete use it to mark the lines where they will be doing their work. It’s a lot like me. It practically glows in the sunlight, it’s durable, it does not move much once you get it installed and it’s cheap.

Measure at the center of the boards on the top of the box and mark every 12″. These locations are where you are going to install screws to mount the Mason’s string on. Now predrill each mark as close to the center of the board as possible and insert a screw in to each drilled hole. Make sure you leave a centimeter or so of the screw above the surface so you can tie the string to it.

Click here to view a video of how I installed the grid. After I was done I tightened the end screws to make sure the knots hold.

In the next post in this series I will tell you how to plant in each square. To hold you over until then check out my article on Planning your Square Foot Garden planting in Excel.

Potatoes suck to grow. There, I said it. There’s a laundry list of problems with them:

• You can’t really grow anything in the spot you grew potatoes in last year for fear of disease.
• You have to dig them out of the ground when they are ready so you usually break a few potatoes just harvesting.
• The foliage can get quite large for the size of the harvest.

But after reading about a couple of other methods like this one I decided to try them out.

I found a 36 gallon Rubbermaid storage container on sale for $9 and thought it would be a good fit. The nice thing about containers for potatoes is that you can dump the soil on a tarp at the end of the year, separate out your potatoes and you are done. No shovels involved!

36 Gallon Rubbermaid storage container

Here’s what I have done:

Bought a few pounds of seed potatoes and left them on a sunny windowsill until sprouts were coming out of the eyes.

Drilled holes all over the bottom of the container every few inches to make sure water could drain.

Here are the holes when I finished.

Put a layer of landscaping fabric to make sure the soil does not seep out of the box.

Mix some soil for the box that is half compost. Put 4 inches of compost in the bottom and distribute your seed potatoes as seen here.

Now when you cover the potatoes with a thin layer of soil you are all set for a while.

Soon the plants will sprout and start growing quickly. When they are 12″ tall, add 4 more inches of dirt. Repeat this step until the container is full, add some fertilizer a couple of times throughout the season and you should have more potatoes than you know what to do with.

As my crop grows I will share pictures and add a second post about the harvest.

How do you grow potatoes?

Click here to read part two of our series. Growing Potatoes in Storage Bins - Part Two: Earthing Up

Here’s a great idea I saw on Lifehacker. You can grow small vegetables on a wall with rain gutters mounted to it. Gutters are a great fit for this. They are designed to mount securely, they are as water tight as you need them to be and they are cheap.

I have my own vertical gardening experiment in effect right now. Photos coming soon…

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I’ve been sold on raised bed gardening for a while now.  I’ve seen great results year after year. What I have never gotten around to trying is Square Foot Gardening - even though I own the book:

What is Square Foot Gardening?
Square foot gardening is an intensive raised bed gardening technique where you build a box about 6″ deep and fill it with a specific soil mix. Then you greate a grid on top to form 1 foot squares, pick a crop for each square then put a new crop in whenever you harvest. Think of it as gardening for control freaks.

There was one reason for me not trying out this type of gardening. It’s a dastardly ingredient that is required for this technique. A material so elusive that no home improvement store, garden supply store, giant box store, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, doghouse (Movie Reference) or mom and pop nursery carries. Vermiculite.

Nerd Tip:
Vermiculite is a mined rock that is then put through a heating process that makes it pop like popcorn. After the heating process you are left with a very lightweight material with a ton of surface area.

Well this year I was determined to build that first Square Foot Garden so I did some research. Vermiculate is commonly used in the construction of swimming pools. So I called a pool and spa shop that is on my work commute and they told me they would have it in a day.  $27 per 4 cubic foot bag.  I bought two.

Everything else is easy to find, here is the supply list for a 4′ x 8′  6″ deep box and enough of the mix to have some to spare for other containers:

Supplies:

Lumber: I bought A2 treated lumber. It contains no arsenic. To be really safe you can use untreated if you like. 2 2"x6"x8', 2 2"x6"x4'.

Vermiculite: 8ft³ If you can't find it in your garden center, call a pool supply shop. You need it in bulk to be cost effective.

Peat Moss: 8ft³ This isn't a renewable resource like you would think, but you only need it the first year.

Compost: 8ft³ and as many different kinds as you can find. Most of mine was bought in bulk from a landscaping company. This is the ingredient you will have to replenish yearly. Remember, variety, variety, variety.

Here are the small supplies you will need to build your box like I did:

• Cordless drill with philips screwdriver head and a drill bit appropriate for the screws you are using.
• 12 3″ - 4″ Deck screws.
• Landscape fabric.
• Staplegun & staples.

That is it for supplies. When you have your supplies gathered continue reading our post: Four Steps to a Square Foot Garden - Step Two: Construction