we do our version of square foot gardening at home--i built the boxes--16 of them--and did the soil the way he says inthe book--i love it!!! i put chicken wire under mine because of the gopher problem that we have had for several years and it worked great!! it also helped us keep the veggies from being in our water logged soil--because of the long growing season down here in the south i planted the boxes over a month and a half--that way it was not all ready at once--it made it really nice to stagger the harvest out over a period of time--