If you are going to stake them, you could go as close as 12" apart. I've done this, without staking. Mine were a mess to pick, but didn't have any more problems than farther apart.

I'm assuming that your bed is free for the roots to go down as deep as they want.

I'd just add the manure as I planted and not worry for awhile. Actually your ground is very good. and the ph is almost perfect. All I would do is the manure in the hole when planting. Perhaps side dress when blooming, but I would do much else.

Hi
I've been running a small market garden for years and indeterminate toms. are a big part of it. My spacing is 18 inches and I prune to two or three leaders. This works well for me. I haven't noticed that the toms need much nitrogen compared to some heavy feeders. I do add about three tablespoons of equal parts Blood meal, kelp meal, and Azomite at transplant time. If you are not going to prune and train your vines you will need quite a bit more spacing.
I grow the viking purple potato and harvest at early maturity, full size spuds,gently hose off and sell at $2.50/lb. The skins are very fragile at this point but exceptionally pretty. Customers are a little hesitant about price until they eat them and then they are very enthusiastic. Martin

Thanks - already started planting 2ft apart (a couple CP and rest BW). Just ran back in the house for cutworm collars, newpaper, and filling a 50-gal barrel with water. I wasn't planning on pruning those, just clipping to remesh fence behind them. I'll plant the determinates closer together (will have to weave those, no room in row next to fence).

Martin - thanks for the info on potatoes - think I can sell Red Norland/Pontiac and Yukon Gold for that? I emailed Ag Dept, offered them new potatoes for $4/quart (about 2 lbs) and mature potatoes for $10/half peck(about 7.5 lbs) or $5/2qts(roughly 4lbs). No answer - but they haven't gotten back to me about edamame either and I need to know ASAP so I can plant enough for 30 families!

Sheila, I think you could get that for Norlands and golds.

On the tomatoes, if you have a lot of foilage, then you will need to get some air circulation. You shouldn't have any trouble with 2' spacing.

If your USDA hasn't committed by this time, they are really running late. They should have told you by March or before, so that you can order whatever seeds.

Marla

Oh, I have the seeds - ordered them last year but it was so wet and cold my peas rotted in the ground so I never planted them. Don't know how long they keep.

I don't know either, but just normally, normally you wouldn't needed time to get them.

Yeah, I was talking to them last Jan, so ordered the seeds but it was just an awful weather year. I should have asked them earlier this year, but I didn't even know they were still running the program. I seem to have dropped off their mailing list (and they never added us to their website, even though I originally emailed them a write-up in Sept 2010 and then sent it again sometime in 2011).

We're literally "off the map" - farthest southwestern corner of town, and the farm map doesn't show the whole town, though they do have a farm listed that's not even *in* town!

Sounds like you've slipped thru their cracks. Sometimes people that think they can handle things, just really can't, but they can't see.

Yeah, well, if I bothered to drive the 25-mile roundtrip whenever they're having the Ag Comission meetings (Wed evenings, 1-2x/mo) maybe they'd remember me. It's tough, they put things like the meeting schedule and Sampler subscription notices, even a weekly farm happenings column, in the town paper, but our mailbox is in a different town (different county!) so we don't get it, also don't get the town TV station (maybe you need cable, but our neighborhood is on a different cable system anyway).

Anyway, I updated the farm info (not going into a lot of detail so I don't have to update it next year when my strawberries, raspberries are bearing, or delete potatoes if I don't plant them again) and emailed it to them again this AM.

Yeah, I know about being in another county.

You have cable? That's great, we're still antennae only.

No we personally don't have cable. It's in the neighborhood but I never watch TV (DH does sometimes), the kids only watch videos (well, sometimes DD watches PBS) so it wasn't worth it for them to run 660ft of cable and $100/mo or whatever. We've got an antenna, just don't get ABC.

I understand, I wouldn't pay that either. We can get dish, but that's all. We get 6 channels if we're lucky. It's nice for the winter, but not enough time for it during summmer. Our nearest cable is about 12 miles away or more.

I guess we can just watch the plants grow, IF we get enough water.