I have grown bush beans at 9/sf and have been happy with them. Before I ever heard of SFG, I planted using wide rows spacing beans at about 3" in all directions.

I think there are a few things people have found do better with a bit more space, maybe broccoli & cabbage I think? I'm sure others will chime in with their experiences.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tales of a Transplanted Gardener

I've grown pole beans at 8 to a sq ft for many years with great results. I grow tomatoes 1 to a sq ft, pinched to 1-2 main stems and trained up a string.

Good gardening, Mary

I grow everything according to Mel's spacing except for tomatoes, which I give the same space but allow to spread out and blend together.

Pole beans do very well at Mel's spacing. Bush beans were a disappointment, though maybe not due to crowding. They didn't germinate well either.

As for Mel's spacing working or not, just check last year's spring and summer blog posts to see my first attempt at gardening anything. Of course, there are 100 ways to grow a tomato, so to each their own.

Good luck and enjoy your garden!

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

I grew pinto beans about four inches apart one year (I broadcast the seed across the raised bed, so some were about three inches apart) and they did marvelously! They acted as their own living mulch, shading almost all the weeds out and keeping the soil from drying out (things were so moist in there that some beans I missed in picking sprouted in their hulls!). I got more beans from that bed than I ever harvested from a same sized bed planted conventionally spaced.

I've had success with the pea/bean spacing for pole and bush :) Broc and cauli are 1 per sq ft.

Have you had good luck with the broccoli and cauliflower spaced 12 inches apart?

The bed I am setting up is 20 ft x 4 ft. I plan to put bush beans around the perimeter at 6 inches apart, and then put broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and lettuce in the center of the bed - with 18" between all - but 8" between the lettuce. This gives enough room for 80 green beans, 12 lettuce, and 8 each of broccoli, cauliflower, and pepper.

Since others believe that spacing even 3 - 4" apart for bush beans works, I might try to space 4" apart - if I do that, it will allow me to plant 96 beans instead of 80.

I plan to freeze a lot of the stuff this year so we'll have some over the winter time as well.

Woops, my math was off for the beans. It would be 96 beans at 5" apart, but 120 beans at 4" apart.

I would think giving the broccoli and cauliflower spaced only 12" apart would create some crowding problems. When I would grow broccoli by itself, it seemed to take up about a 2 square foot area - which is why I plan to use 18" - a "happy medium" between the 12" from Mel and 24" I've witnessed.

It is tight at 1/SF for broccolu and cauliflower, but I did it last year and it worked. Mostly I had a problem with the broccoli growing sideways out of the bed to get out of the cauliflower's shadow. This year, the broccoli goes in front.

I had good initial results of growing brocolli and cauliflower. But, my mistake was that I put them all in one box. So, I had 16 brocolli plants in one box. The problem came with the bugs...planting them like that was the equivalent of making my brocolli patch an airport landing for pests....I never did it like that again, but, it does work when you put one here, another there...etc...

The biggest issue that I have had with broccoli at 1/sqft is the shading of other veggies. Last year I put them in the "back row" of my square gardens and it worked well. I also pruned leaves that were overstepping their area into other's light and braised them like collard greens or chard.

I am always surprised, but the tight spacing of onions and carrots and bush beans work really well.

When trellising, I have trouble putting the seeds in the middle of the square, they have to get so long to reach the trellis. I tend to plant them closer to the edge of the garden.

Snibb said "The problem came with the bugs...planting them like that was the equivalent of making my brocolli patch an airport landing for pests....I never did it like that again, but, it does work when you put one here, another there...etc..."

Row covers will keep the bugs (especially the lopers) off the brocolli.

Your probably right...Im just too lazy to go out there and put that stuff down..I wonder if that was my problem. All my leaves were eaten..does that sound like what it was?

Most likely. The eggs are layed by a pretty little white butterfly and within days, the loper worms are all over the plants. They especially like cole crops, like broccoli and brussel sprouts. I set out some seedlings to harden off last summer and within a few days they were eaten down to nothing. The butterflies sure are pretty though.

Glad to hear the positive comments about the bean/pea spacing.
I just planted 9 squares of bush beans and snap peas and was thinkig "Damn this is a lot of seeds in a small space" :-)

I plant my Tomatoes on the south trellested end of my box, two in a 1x4' area and it works great