Mel Bartholomew Foundation - Square Foot Gardening: Growing Perfect Vegetables: A Visual Guide to Raising and Harvesting Prime Garden Produce

Although raw-food diet proponents promote eating vegetables in their natural state, theres a good reason why you should consume both raw and cooked vegetables. Eaten raw, vegetables such as carrots provide excellent vitamins and nutrients, and the fiber goes through your digestive system without breaking down. But cooking carrots, broccoli, and most other vegetables destroys cell walls, often making crucial nutrients and compounds available to the body when they otherwise wouldnt be. This is true of the essential beta-carotene in carrots and some of the cancer-fighting compounds in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables. Cooking also can enhance sweetness and flavor in ripe vegetables.

Thats why the first chapter in this book offers a brief, basic, and understandable explanation of what ripening is (and isnt). That explanation will give you a strong grasp of what exactly is going on inside fruits and vegetableswhat it is that determines when they should come off the vine or out of the ground.

But the centerpiece to this book is : The Ripeness Listings. Weve broken this list into fruits and vegetables commonly grown in an SFG, those that arent grown in the box because they grow on plants too large for a square foot or because they ripen on a tree, and a third section for fruits and vegetables youll most likely only find in the produce aisle at your local grocery store. Each individual listing, however, provides all the insight youll need to determine if a fruit or vegetable is ripe, no matter where you might find it. The listings also cover how to actually harvest the fruit or vegetable if thats appropriate, and tips on making the most of the ripe produce you bring into the kitchen.

Of course, once you get to the point of harvest, there are a lot of varied ways to take advantage of ripe produce and even extend the life of already ripe produce. Thats why the book wraps up with a short chapter on manipulating ripeness, including ways to make your fruits and vegetables last as long as possible, or methods for using them when ripe and then storing the finished product.

Regular interaction with your plants and basic garden maintenance is your chance to monitor how your crops are ripening, and how to determine when to harvest at just the right moment.

RIPENING THE SFG WAY

Square Foot Gardening is a great way to detect ripeness in your fruits and vegetables, because the garden is contained in such controlled, small spaces that it doesnt take a lot of hunting to see the state of your edibles.

Based on growing one type of plant per square in a 4 4-foot box divided into 16 squares, Square Foot Gardening swept not only America, but the world when it was introduced. It started simply enough, with Mel trying to make a community garden more successful and easier to maintain. The idea grew in popularity until Mel had more people interested in this new way of gardening than he could reasonably teach. That led to him write Square Foot Gardening: A New Way to Garden in Less Space With Less Work in 1981. A PBS series followed, which in turn was followed by more books, including the most recent,