My question is: What can I plant as ground cover? What have y'all used and had success? I had a crazy idea to let one or two watermelons run underneath. I appreciate any suggestions and or help y'all can give.

Second, using any actively growing ground cover instead of the standard mulch will leach nutrients from the tomato plants so you will have to monitor soil nutrient levels carefully and supplement more aggressively than normal.

Don't get me wrong - ground covers are beneficial IF used during the off-season and then turned into the soil prior to planting so they can decompose and provide nutrients. But during the growing season the use of one of the many good organic mulches such as straw is far more beneficial. It no only cools the roots and helps retain soil moisture - vital in your zone - but also slowly decomposes and provides some nutrients rather than using them up.

Just some things to consider.

Dave

I started mulching last year and intend to continue mulching this year.

Planting on an 18" grid in 48 square feet would be 21 tomato plants. Planting on a 16" grid would be 27 plants.

That means at least 3 rows of plants.

So if you're pruning, you'll have to reach between the plants in the outer row to get to the plants in the middle row. Now, the plants in the outer row have been planted 16 - 18" apart, so after the first few weeks, the leaves of adjacent plants would touch. And of course the leaves of the plants in the outer row would touch the leaves of the plants in the middle row too.

And every time you have to do something to those middle plants, you'll have to reach through the outer row. And besides pruning the plants in the middle row, you'll need to reach in to tie the middle-row plants to their stakes, remove caterpillars (if you can see them), and pick the ripe fruit (probably not a good idea to put the green-when-ripes in the middle row). And to do any of that, you'll be peering through the leaves of the plants in the outer row.

Watermelon vines range from 10-20' long and go in all directions: in other words, you can count on a single watermelon plant taking up a 20 - 40' diameter circle.

I honestly can't imagine tomato plants planted that intensively being successful. Even the Sq. Foot method calls for 2 sq feet for each plant.

"Companion" as in the so-called companion planting school of thought? Not too many advocates of those practices here. Too much evidence to the contrary. But if you just mean something to cover the ground then the proper mulch accomplishes that quite well.

A far more commonly recommended alternative would be to avoid such over-planting and doing such aggressive pruning. I assume you know that pruning isn't required for any reason much less aggressive pruning such as you describe?

But hey, it's your garden.

Dave

Due to shortage of space I also plant my tomatoes at 18" spacing, in a zig-zag pattern.. So every 3 plants base make a triangle. In the center of those triangles, I plant things like basil. if it gets enough sun. And naturally I do prune the tomatoes.

Another option, if you are familiar with FENUGREEK. You can sow fenugreek over the enyire bed, way before you plant your tomatoes( roughly one per inch sqr.) So when it is time to plant tomatoes, say they are 6" tall. Just pull the ones where you want to plant tomatoes and leave the rest. Fenu greek, in addition to its culinary use, is also a nitrogen fixer to the soil, just like alfalfa You can buy Fenugreek seeds real cheap at Indo-Pakistani stores, by the pound.

So . . . With that warning, I think that if you're thinking of companion planting, it depends on what you want the tomato companion to accomplish for you. A commonly praised pairing is tomatoes and carrots. It is often said that they have a love affair. But I'm just throwing out a common pairing at random. There are lots of options for tomatoes that you can find online. But what benefit do you want the companion to give the tomatoes or receive from them?

Angie

I know this isn't really live ground cover, like you are asking, but for ground cover, I use 4 foot wide ground CLOTH (was expensive originally, but I reuse it for years) AND I use 4 foot wide sections of old carpet that I have taken out of my houses for the last 15 years. The carpet makes a surprisingly good ground cover and is reusable over and over. I cut it into strips of about 8 to 16 feet long. Sometimes people kid me about "Carpeting" my garden, but I like it and it is great for keeping down weeds.

Then, I plant many pumpkin plants and vine type squash plants, around and between tomatoes and along the edges of the garden, and by mid to late summer the pumpkin plants have covered all of the carpet and extra space. I do need to check periodically at first and make sure they are not trying to climb the tomato cages and suffocate my tomatoes, but if I do this once a week and remove any misbehaving vines then by later in the year it isn't a problem.

I do spend a fair amount of time in the spring and early summer pulling and cutting down weeds, but once the tomatoes and pumpkins get going then they suppress those weeds around them and the ground cover/carpet does the rest.

I was going for the density used by Reagonite71 (SP?) on YouTube. Don't know if y'all watch him, but in a 4' wide bed he plants 3 rows of staked/trellised tomatoes. Seems to work for him very well. Although he does seem to add plenty of amendments.

I planted 4 tomatoes in a 2x4 space (half of a 4x4 bed) last season with good results.

YouTube isn't commonly regarded as an ideal source of knowledge but there are literally 100's of videos there about growing tomatoes and very few of them advocate such close planting methods. It goes against the nature of the plant.

I can't find any tomato videos there from anyone by that name (tried several different spellings) so could you link to it for us?

Dave

http://annieskitchengarden.blogspot.com/2011/03/march-24-2011-my-buckets-got-hole-in-it.html
t

I plant 1 row of 4 plants, 2 feet apart, then another row of 4 plants 2 feet apart, and each plant is also 2 feet from the other row. Essentially it is 2 double rows on a 2 x 8 grid. Then I go 4 feet on each side of that and plant another 2 rows past it and another 2 rows on each side, etc. At least that is the MINIMUM spacing I will use. I have cut my yearly tomato plants from about 160 to around 120 and I often space them 3 feet apart, now, but it is still too close. 2 X 2 gets the job done. 3 X 3 is better, but I am not your typical tomato gardener. I grow for fun, not production.

I also want to emphasize that. I AM NOT looking for maximum production per plant. I plant so many plants because I am BREEDING them, and all I need is enough tomatoes from the INTERESTING plants that I can save seeds. I eat as much as I can of the rest, since I love tomatoes, and I give them away to whoever wants to come pick ALL that they want, as often as they want, but mostly I watch the rest just fall on the ground and rot.

I also grow the pumpkins and squash for fun, mostly. My wife likes to cook a few in her beans and other dishes. Then in the Fall I let the kids, grand kids, nieces, nephews and whoever come haul off all the pumpkins they want. Most of the rest end up in a pile on my porch for Halloween. I generally get many dozens of pumpkins and squashes of all different sizes and colors. Even after all of the above, some of them often remain in the garden and rot and a lot of the pumpkins I grow every year will come from volunteers from the seeds left by these remaining pumpkins. But I do make sure to always plant seeds from some of the more interesting varieties.

Another option is to to have some DETERMINANTS. They are generally smaller. This year 1/3 of my tomatoes will be DETs. I will plant them On the Southwest side (in front).

Of course for those of us for whom land is not an object, they have the luxury to plant at 3 feet spacing( 9 sqr-ft /plant) . NO PROBLEM

If the melons have their own root space and you keep an eye out for pests or diseases crossing between the two (powdery mildew? Squash bugs?) I think it's worth a shot.

~emmers

You might consider burying a large plastic bin with the bottom cut out for the melons with their fertilizer requirements, in the middle of tomatoes around them with theirs.