Garden Plan and a few questions

I have finally gotten the chance to sit down and work on my layout for this year. Unfortunately my hopes of creating a new garden area with a few new boxes is being put on the back burner for the year and I am going to have to work with what I have which is just a single box. However, it will give me the opportunity to learn more about having a successful garden since this is going to only be my first full year of trying to garden.

Anyways I was hoping you all could take a look at my plans and make any suggestions or comments on if anything should be moved around or changed. I just started my seeds today so I have some time before they are ready to get put outside.

T	G	J	J
T	G	C	C
T	A
T	A	S	S

T= roma tomatoes
G= Green Beans
A=Alaska Peas
J= Jalapeno Peppers
C= Cayenne Peppers
S= Sugar Snap Peas

The open spots I am thinking about either doing red and yellow onions or transplanting the basil and oregano that I have growing in my window sill.

Also I have found in the ANSFG how many tomatoes and SS Peas, Basil, Oregano and Green Beans to plant per square but I am not sure about the peppers. It does say something about bell peppers (or at least that is the picture that is there, does that include all peppers? The tomatoes are on the north side of the box and sunlight gets to the south and west sides the most.

Are your green beans pole beans or bush beans? If they are bush beans, I might move them to the right edge of the box so the peppers don't shade them and for ease of picking.

Gena575 wrote:Are your green beans pole beans or bush beans? If they are bush beans, I might move them to the right edge of the box so the peppers don't shade them and for ease of picking.

to be 100% honest I don't know. The package that I bought last year got torn open and I don't have the label on them anymore so I have no clue at this point whether they are bush or pole beans.

Peppers are 1 per square! But they do not like beans.

Hi scmelik,

Are the Alaska peas and Sugar Snap peas also going to need a trellis? Or are they bush varieties? I've never grown peas, so I don't know. But if they need to grow up, you're going to have to move them to the eastern edge. Or give up some tomato real estate.

I agree with Gena, to put your green beans at the edge, too, if they are bush type. Not just for shading, but to make them reachable and give them room to fall out of the box. I used to plant 9 beans per square, like Mel says, but found they were too crowded and flopped over into a tangled mess that way. Now I just do 6 per square and it is more manageable. Also, I set some garden netting across those squares, about 6 inches up so the plants have support when they get bigger.

Finally, the good thing about the onions and basil, is that you can put them in the little pockets of space inside your tomato squares. That will still leave you with the two other squares. Plus they are good companions, especially the tomatoes and basil.

scmelik wrote:

Gena575 wrote:Are your green beans pole beans or bush beans? If they are bush beans, I might move them to the right edge of the box so the peppers don't shade them and for ease of picking.

to be 100% honest I don't know. The package that I bought last year got torn open and I don't have the label on them anymore so I have no clue at this point whether they are bush or pole beans.

Are they white or brown?

I've found white are pole, brown are bush. That's among 4 types of beans I have/had.

As for how many per square, check your pepper instructions for how to space, then do accordingly. If you don't have the package, can you find the same type at the store?

Ava

AvaDGardner wrote:I've found white are pole, brown are bush. That's among 4 types of beans I have/had.

I've grown bush beans only: Top Crop is a dark brown, almost black seed. Contender is tan in color. I just checked my seed stash to confirm those two. But I've grown Blue Lake Bush in the past and could have sworn they were more white. That was 2 years ago, so it's very likely that I'm wrong because my brain has written over that information to save space!

Is it possible that you posted that backward from what you meant? I have a bed full of kentucky wonder pole beans sprouting up right now. They were brown seeds. Most white bean seeds that I have seen were from a bush variety plant (like the navy beans or lima beans that you buy in bags at the grocery store).
But then again, I certainly don't claim to be a fabaceae expert! LoL! What other pole varieties have you experimented with and found good success?

AvaDGardner wrote:

scmelik wrote:

Gena575 wrote:Are your green beans pole beans or bush beans? If they are bush beans, I might move them to the right edge of the box so the peppers don't shade them and for ease of picking.

to be 100% honest I don't know. The package that I bought last year got torn open and I don't have the label on them anymore so I have no clue at this point whether they are bush or pole beans.

Are they white or brown?

I've found white are pole, brown are bush. That's among 4 types of beans I have/had.

As for how many per square, check your pepper instructions for how to space, then do accordingly. If you don't have the package, can you find the same type at the store?

Ava

I checked the package of my Cayenne and Jalepeno peppers and the spacing is 12 inches!

Your Sugar Snaps will require trellising, so on the west side of the box with a trellis will work.

The peppers like to rub shoulders with other peppers so 1 per sq is fine.

If your Green Beans or Alaska Peas are vining types, then they will be crawling up all over those tomatoes so not a good place for them. They need an outside edge and trellising.

Okay I have done some adjusting according to all of your suggestions. How does this look?

S	T	J	J
S	T	C	C
T	T
A	A	G	G

I am planning on putting a trellis on the north side (the left hand side of the table) and the west side that way if the beans do vine instead of bush, which for some reason I am thinking that they will, they will be able to climb. The only thing I worry about is that the trellis on the west side (bottom of the table) will shade out to much of the other plants but we will have to see.

Looks good, you should try some basil and onions in your open squares!

cheyannarach wrote:Looks good, you should try some basil and onions in your open squares!

i plan on putting basil in one of the squares.

Remember, tomatoes can be staked so they don't need a trellis. Just be sure its a tall and strong stake.

Basil loves tomatoes even in the garden so growing in the square next to it is good.