Got my 1st SFG planned

10 years ago

I made four 4x4 beds. I've got them filled with Mel's mix. And today I constructed two trellises from conduit.

Ok, so the beds are placed in a square with about 2 1/2 ft between them each way.

I placed my trellises on the north side of the two most northern beds. I made them so they would be about 5 feet above the bed frame. Is this a good height?

Here's what I picked out to plant: 6 sq tomatoes, 1 sq peas, 1 sq cucumber, 4 sq carrots, 2 sq broccoli, 2 sq cauliflower, 2 sq cabbage, 1 sq onions, 4 sq peppers, 2 sq lettuce, 1 sq spinach, 16 sq strawberries. That leaves 6 open squares to fill. I'll probably put in some bush beans. I was going to use the fourth bed to grow 1 small pumpkin, 1 watermelon and 1 honeydew vertically. I would love to hear your thoughts on my choices here.

I'm not sure how feasible that fourth bed idea is. I'm still investigating the possibilities. I'm thinking about using cattle panels and making a dome type trellis, but I'm afraid my beds might be too close together and it would cast too much shadow. I've already planned out the two northern beds. Any thoughts on that?

Another puzzle to me is about using floating row cover. How do I use it on the beds that have the trellises? Does the row cover go over the trellises too?

On a side note, I've ordered my seeds and strawberry plants. I think it will be time to start my seeds indoors pretty soon.

Thanks in advance for your much needed help!

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Comments (6)

LoneCowboy
10 years ago
I made a visual to help understand what you have planned.

1. If you have that much space, make 2 4'x10' or 2 4'x12' boxes instead!!! You don't need walkways north/south on the interior, use that space for more food!

2. My set up shows where I would plant things.

3. For the pumpkin, I would grow it on the edge of your 4th bed and force it to extend beyond the bed for maximum growth as indicated by the arrow.

4. with 2.5 feet between, shadows shouldn't be a problem as long as you plant taller plant north and shorter plants south.

5. I don't know about the floating row cover... maybe attach the trellis on the outside of the bed by 3" to make room for the cover?

6. Make sure you also order heat mats for the indoor seedlings :) Look into a good T5 florescent light too!

Good luck! Lets see some photos of your project!
organic_flutterby
Original Author
10 years ago
OMG thank you so much! Having a visual is extremely helpful.

I will post pictures soon. I started my seeds a couple days ago and have some sprouts already! I'm so excited.
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LoneCowboy
10 years ago
One thing I forgot to mention is that if you want 4 tomatos in 4 sqft you'll need to prune prune prune, probably single stalk. I grow 8 tomatos in a 6" high bed, 3.5'x10.5' . 3 toms in the front and back rows, 2 in the middle. 7' cages, each 17" wide. Good luck!

This post was edited by LoneCowboy on Wed, Feb 26, 14 at 12:54
organic_flutterby
Original Author
10 years ago
There's so many things to learn and I'm really thankful for the help and advice I get on this website!

I have 2 beefsteak type, 2 mid size tomatoes and 2 cherry tomatoes planned. What should I be pruning? Will they branch out sideways into other squares? (complete newbie)

And will they grow higher than my 5 foot trellis?

My beds are 1 foot deep but I didn't fill them up completely because I guess I miscalculated when I bought my mix ingredients. I hope that isn't going to be a problem, they are probably 8" or 9" deep.
LoneCowboy
10 years ago
I'm going to post a photo of gardenweb member steven's square foot tomatoes and a link to a YouTube video on the subject. Last year, each of my toms took up apx 9 square feet. They took over the 4 foot tomato cage too (this year is 7 foot cages). So your 5 foot may get taken over without Pruning. While I love square foot gardening, this year I have dedicated an entire bed to just tomatoes and without the square feet layout. Toms are so prolific, they really need space if left unpruned.

There's no need to go any deeper than 8" :). Just keep up with consistent irrigation. You'll find that with effort to provide quality soil ingredients, the roots will not have far to search for the food it needs therefore staying shallow and probably not more than 4-6 inches deep.

{{gwi:1263199}}

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato pruning in SFG

This post was edited by LoneCowboy on Fri, Feb 28, 14 at 13:13
organic_flutterby
Original Author
10 years ago
That is a beautiful picture!

Here is a picture of my beds. I took this about 9:45 this morning. You can see the shadow from my house on the lower beds as the sun comes up from that side.

You can see where I put my trellises. Did I do that right? Maybe I should have oriented my boxes at a different angle?

You can also see that the beds are covered with plastic and they have snow and ice on them from our recent snow.

I posted a picture on the "growing from seed" forum that shows my seedlings growing under the light. It is just a 2 bulb T8 shop light.

I have two 4 bulb T5 lamps that I use for my citrus trees. I would have used those for the seedlings except I couldn't figure a way for the seedlings to get close to the bulbs without blocking the light from the citrus.

Thanks for your help. I will be reading up on pruning tomatoes.

Here is a link that might be useful: seedlings