By MorinvilleNews.com Staff
Morinville – With signs of spring appearing slowly but surely, local gardeners are getting anxious to get on with the season once the season is willing. But the Morinville Public Library is not waiting for the snow to melt to start people on their 2011 gardening plans. They’ll be hosting a talk on the joys and benefits of square foot gardening Apr. 5.
Unlike conventional row gardening, square foot gardening packs more produce into a smaller space with less maintenance and a better yield, according to Lynda Truhn who will be speaking about the process Tuesday night. Truhn was turned onto square foot gardening by fellow librarian Margaret Meetsma four years ago and has been doing it ever since.
“We had a half a yard of garden quite a few years ago,” Truhn said, adding once her children left home she converted the area to flower beds, interspersing the area with vegetables. But once she discovered square foot gardening, she has not looked back. “We get more out of that than we did a half a yard of a garden.”
Truhn attributes the difference in harvest to the soil used in square foot gardening, a three mixture that she says is superior to the conventional garden soil. “We get no weeds; you have no rotor tilling; you have no work,” she said. “You just reap the benefits.”
For Truhn and other square foot gardening aficionados, those benefits are plenty of vegetables grown in Alberta’s short backyard growing season as well as considerably less water needed to feed the plants. Not to mention less money needed to get going. Truhn estimates square foot gardeners can get started for as little as $40.
As to what those plants are, Truhn said she has grown all sorts of vegetables, including beets, a plant many people are sceptical can be grown in just six inches of soil.
Tuesday night’s seminar will discuss the tri-mixture soil and how to make it as well as how to preserve the bountiful backyard harvest into the fall.
The session runs from 6 to 8 p.m. with a cost of $5 per person for library card holders, $8 for non-members. For more information contact the Morinville Public Library at 780-939-3292
