[gardeners] 4X4 Garden Challenge (fwd)
Sharon Gordon (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:31:32 -0500 (EST)
>
> Would anyone like to try a 4X4 Garden Challenge this year?
>
> The object would be to see how much you can grow in a
> 4 foot by 4 foot square of garden that is planted biointensively.
>
> As examples of the sort of results you can have with this,
> Mel Bartholomew made a spring vegetable planting and got
> the following from his 4x4 foot area in the next two months:
>
> 32 carrots
> 12 bunches of leaf lettuce
> 18 bunches of spinach
> 16 radishes
> 16 scallions
> 16 beets
> 9 Japanese turnips
> (and presumably he got the turnip greens too)
> 5 pounds of peas
> 1 head of cabbage
> 4 heads of romaine lettuce
> 1 head of cauliflower
> 1 head of broccoli
>
> As the spring things came out, he replanted with summer
> vegetables.
>
> I also have a note that Linda Runyon did an experiment with a 10 foot
> square of ground. The wording was unclear and I am assuming
> 10 X 10 rather than 2 X 5. She then spent 15 minutes a day harvesting
> from the square each day for 3 weeks. At the end of the three
> weeks she made a meal for 200 people with the three week harvest.
>
>
> I've had a lot of fun and good results gardening biointensively
> but usually grow things in larger sections. I'll still do
> that this year, but thought it would be fun to focus on
> one 4X4 section just to see what could be done.
>
> Mel makes the point that one 4X4 is enough room to grow ALL
> of one person's salad vegetables during the growing season..
> If you have 2 blocks of 4X4 you can grow all your vegetables
> during the growing season. (More are needed if you can and
> freeze.)
>
> If people want to try it, I'll post more about how to
> do it.
>
> Sharon
> gordonse@one.net
>