My project this week is to map out my veggie garden for next year, over turn the grass and put what is in my compost pile on the soil to help build it up for next year. What would be a good starting size garden? I'm thinking tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, peppers. Anything else I'm forgetting?

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I need to do the same thing. Dh is on board to help me. I showed him the composter your dh made. Thanks for sharing that pic.

I'm planning on green beans & peas, too.

I'd like to grow a pumpkin or two for the kids.

green beans seem to grow well for me!

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married 8 years to a crazy Brit, mommy to a banana, she is 4 and a pineapple who is 1 year, mommy to 3 ~angel~ babies

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A lot depends on the type of plant that you are going to use, the squashes can really roam sometimes (cukes, zuchinni, pumpkins). I have pic somewhere of mine. My garden is pretty big though.

I had 8 cuke plants, 4 pumpkin plants, and two melon plants:


They sprawled to about 10 feet out, so they packed a total of a 10'x30' area.

I like to have at least a 3'x3' for each tomato plant, peppers I get away with 2'x2'. That allows access to all sides.

Beans, if you get bush type, should do fine with 2'x2' each, I had peas, which were climbers, and had a fence made for them that was about 6' long, and they need about 1' wide.

My broccoli is crazy, so it's taking at least 3'x3' each plant. I allow a min of 2' between rows so I can get the wheelbarrow in. Onions don't need much width, I ran them about 8" apart though each.

Cabbage needs about 2'x2'.

Corn hates me, but it likes to be planted "together", so rather than like a 12' row, plan 3 rows a foot apart, 4' long.

Lettuce I just plant in a random area, mine was a 4'x4' square.

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Wow Jen - sounds like a great garden. So overall do you think your garden size is the 10x30 or bigger?

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Oh, my garden is 30'x40' - the 10'x30' was devoted to the cukes, melon and pumpkins (no zucchini this year).

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This is my awesome MSPaint drawing :D



1. Snap Peas (climbers, on a "fence" of plastic posts and wire
2.Green Peppers
3.Onions
4.Lettuce
5.Broccoli
6.Cabbage
7. Strawberries
8. Potatoes
9. Pumpkins
10. Melons
11. Cucumbers (pickling and regular)
12. Sunflowers
13. Tomatoes

You can plant tall strong stalked stuff with viney climbers, like you can plant in with the cukes or pumpkins, just make sure they all have enough room for roots (not a lot needed). The vines won't bother the corn, or in my case , sunflowers.

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Mine isn't very big I have a u-shaped raised bed area - maybe 20 x 4 maybe less. I also had some tomatoes in some pots and another area that I planted some pumpkins and peppers. The pumpkins I started inside and I had 4 plants they looked great but I only got one white pumpkin out of it - not sure I wuld do them again. My pepper I will do again - they don't take up muach space and produced a lot. Tomatoes - I had 12 plants in the beds and a couple of other plants in pots - those in the beds did well but the season didn't last as long as I would have liked. Zuchini did well and I will do those again in a heartbeat. Had cucumbers but only got a couple and they didn't do well same with my green beans. This year was mostly an experiment - first time growing most of these things. I would love to enlarge it next year as I loved having fresh veggies. I also had a couple of squash plants and got one crocked neck squash so not to sure about them. I need to pull out the zuchini and start some cool weather veggies pretty soon. Oh I also had some pots with herbs and green onions - one of my favorite things were the green onions. I love them but never finish off a whole bunch from the store so this was perfect I just pulled them as I needed them - still have a ton growing. I wish it would cool down a little we are still getting 100 degrees here or close to it.

I would definely love to have a garden like some of you where you have enough to can - the only thing I had more than we could eat was zuchini. I would love to have had lots of greeen beans or peas and even some more cucumbers.

Figure I may also mention what I got out of my garden...

Cucumbers - over 100lbs. Will do less plants next year!
Tomatoes - about 60lbs or so, maybe more, can't remember
Potatoes - about 60lbs - need to bank them better, didn't do it.
Strawberries - very few, but was fighting with poor take last year and moles.
Peas - about 10 pints
Pumpkins - only 5, but need fight root rot better (lost 2 plants)
Onions - about 20lbs, didn't knock the tops good enough, should have been double
Broccoli - about 10lbs, still going
Cabbage - about 20lbs total, but have leaves coming back, will make something with those (if you cut just the head and leave the bottom leaves, they regrow)
Peppers - about 30 peppers total, but put in WAY late
Melons - 15 but lost some to rot
Lettuce - a lot

I did break down and dust one night with Sevin dust because the cucumber beetles were decimating things (at night so that the bees wouldn't be directly affected). I also brought in about 3 tons of composted horse manure from our farm, and tilled that in. Other than that, I just weeded and watered, no other fertilizer etc. I'd like to get better organic type pesticide next year, but this year I didn't have the money or time to search one out - I would have lost a lot more.

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