Aside from shortening the rows of any given plant to 12" (meaning you can plant a new vegetable in every single square foot of soil, not long rows), one of the most important parts of Square Foot Gardening (SFG) is the raised bed. It is a simple thing that really makes a world of difference.
A raised bed does a number of things. First and foremost, it keeps people off the soil. Trampling the soil compresses it and makes it very hard for good roots to grow. Plants don't grow in soil. They EAT the soil. Plants grow in the spaces between the soil, so a fertile, loose, loamy soil is best.
After years of feedback and research, Mel B. found that it took about seven years of planting and treating the average batch of backyard soil before it was really considered "good" soil. That's a long time, and many people don't even stay in the same place that long! So, instead of digging down, SFG says to build UP. Most vegetables only need about 6" of soil to grow anyway, so a wooden box laid on the ground and filled with quality soil mix is the perfect way to get a head start on your crop production.
We have this mentality that we buy this expensive soil for our inedible flowers, but we use the garbage dirt in the back yard to grow the plants we intend on eating. That soil has been sprayed with chemicals, walked all over, and is nowhere suitable for good gardening. That dirt will become the foods we eat, so the soil is the most important part of the entire garden. SFG raised beds allow you to know exactly what you're planting in. Also, this method completely eliminates plowing and tilling! That leaves me more time to run back into the house and PLAY MINECRAFT!!! w00t!!!
A raised bed does a number of things. First and foremost, it keeps people off the soil. Trampling the soil compresses it and makes it very hard for good roots to grow. Plants don't grow in soil. They EAT the soil. Plants grow in the spaces between the soil, so a fertile, loose, loamy soil is best.
After years of feedback and research, Mel B. found that it took about seven years of planting and treating the average batch of backyard soil before it was really considered "good" soil. That's a long time, and many people don't even stay in the same place that long! So, instead of digging down, SFG says to build UP. Most vegetables only need about 6" of soil to grow anyway, so a wooden box laid on the ground and filled with quality soil mix is the perfect way to get a head start on your crop production.
We have this mentality that we buy this expensive soil for our inedible flowers, but we use the garbage dirt in the back yard to grow the plants we intend on eating. That soil has been sprayed with chemicals, walked all over, and is nowhere suitable for good gardening. That dirt will become the foods we eat, so the soil is the most important part of the entire garden. SFG raised beds allow you to know exactly what you're planting in. Also, this method completely eliminates plowing and tilling! That leaves me more time to run back into the house and PLAY MINECRAFT!!! w00t!!!
In Minecraft, raised beds are used to establish boundaries for small crop gardens utilizing the SFG method. When a player, villager, or livestock walks all over the growing veggies, what happens? They destroy your plants! You've been waiting on that wheat to finish growing so you can finally make that cake, and the idiots are over there trampling all over everything! It's not uncommon to see squares within a garden with seeds floating over them (meaning the soil has been disturbed enough to give them up without yielding any crop), or even fully reverted back to a grass block (meaning the soil is no longer suitable for planting until it is hoe'd up again). I swear, it's enough to make you look around to make sure no Iron Golem is looking before you beat the living crap out of that villager. They never learn though. C'est la vie.