1st time gardening and I made a mistake...

Not sure if this is the right forum for questions from a beginner, please forgive me if it is not.

Quick background...I have an 8x4 box made from cinder blocks, with a trellis going across the 8 foot north side of the box. I have a couple other boxes too but I didnt mess up on those.

My question is this...I didn't realize that the summer squash and beans I bought were bush varieties, and in addition, I thought eggplant and peppers needed a trellis but I have come to understand they do not. Will these plants still grow fine next to a trellis? Will they ruin the other squares around them since they are going to get big and bushy? What should I do? Should I try to transplant the seedlings to containers? Thanks for the help.

WELCOME to SFG!!!

I think you may still be able to trellis your eggplant with a little work (I heard many members here do it successfully. Sounds like you may need to make a little more room for your bush plants though (bush beans=1 per sq, squash=1 per 4sq?) but you could still plant some shade/cold crops like lettuce around them until they take off....by that time those cold crops will be spent and ready to be pulled. You could even use tomato cages around your beans and peppers to keep them contained to their square.

Gardening is a lot of making mistakes and learning from them....all of us here have done it.

If that is yellow summer squash, then yes it will crowd out anything planted next to it unless it is on the side of the bed and you can train it over the side. That still may not work. It does take 4 squares.

For all of the bush beans I have ever planted in an SFG, you can plant way more than 1 per square. I am at work and don't have my book, but I planted 5 per square last year. But I think many sfgers plant anywhere from 4 to 9 per square. Someone will be along shortly for that answer.

The eggplant only needs one square. I use one short stake to keep mine from falling over. It does not need a trellis and mine did not overtake anything planted in the squares next to it (unless the sun will be blocked out by the differences in sizes of things planted next to it).

I don't know about peppers.

Looks like your main problem is not that they are bush type, but will they shade any plants growing next to them. (except the squash will crowd out anything next to it). You can still plant them next to a trellis but that is wasting the trellis on plants that don't need it or only need a small stake.

Welcome to the forum! Don't feel bad about making mistakes That's how we learn and become awesome gardeners.

I think your garden can be salvaged. First, I always plant my bush beans 9 per square and they do great. They do get floppy toward harvest time, but you can tie a string around the whole square to keep them from toppling over on their neighbors.

Peppers generally don't need a trellis, but I'm sure it won't hurt them to have one either. Sames goes for eggplants (I think; I'm not very experienced with them). The only problem I can see with having them next to a trellis is that you might want to grow something there that can actually use the trellis

Now for squash! There is a technique that you can do with bush zucchini... I haven't tried it, but I know people who have, and it doesn't look hard. It's a technique of careful pruning that lets you grow it in 1 square instead of 4-9. Check out the video on this thread: https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t14294-vertical-zuchini?highlight=zucchini+video It's super cool!

Ah...yes! Soooo sorry for the mis-info on beans! I have no idea why I typed 1 per square....must've had peppers on the brain. We did the bush beans in our container garden of 6 per pot...equivalent to just about a square and they did very well.

What variety of bush beans did you plant? I ask because here on the forum several of us found that our bush beans actually ended up vining and needing a trellis. Mine ended up climbing a stake and were over 4 ft tall. I'll have to look up the variety. On the other had dragons tongue beans are a true bush type and only get about 18" tall.

Here is the topic:
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t7863-my-bush-beans-are-trying-to-vine-as-well?highlight=vining+bush+beans

I planted blue lake 274 and golden wax beans from burpee. I actually put them one per cinder block hole...I gave the yellow squash, green squash, eggplant and peppers each 2 squares. I think I will try the pruning method for the squash, and just leave the beans where they are. Once I harvest the squash ill be planting tomato transplants in their place, and I know those vine! Thanks for all the helpful replies! Still have much to learn.

Peppers...I don't stake my peppers, however I do weave a support line through them.
I sometimes use waxed string tied to stakes on the edges.
Windy storms have done mine in, so a little support goes a long way.