Square foot placement for some other vegetables

jwd6417 5/28/2011, 10:13 am

I have the book, but there are many vegetables not in it., and I'm wondering how to go about figuring how to put them in my school garden square foot beds. Includes kale, leeks, bok choy, Japanese eggplant, snow peas and snap peas, Japanese turnip, tomatillos, . Also wondering if anyone has had success growing things like butter beans, garbanzo beans and such in the upper midwest.

GreenBlueberry 5/28/2011, 10:31 am

I'm pretty sure eggplants and tomatillos go 1 per square. For the others, you can check what it says in the seed packet or the label. The spacing of the plants printed there will tell you how many to so per square.

elliephant 5/28/2011, 10:40 am

Eggplant is 1 per square. Tomatillos, well, I'm growing them for the first time this year and finding them a bit troublesome. They branch like crazy and end up at least as wide at they are tall.

GreenBlueberry 5/28/2011, 10:45 am

I find the same with the tomatillos. I put them in a tomato cage and keep tucking the branches inside it. Added lettuce in the adjacent squares to take advantage of the shade.

**Furbalsmom** 5/28/2011, 3:10 pm

Mel lists vining sugar snap peas at 8 per sq, two rows of 4.

My package of "Super Sugar Snap Peas" lists 1 to 2 inches apart, another brand of the same variety lists 2 inches apart, in double rows 6 inches apart. I ended up with two rows of 6 each horizontal to the outside edge of the square(so they would reach the trellis better) Looking good so far.

My japanese eggplant are going 1 per sq ft.

Russian kale is 1 per sq ft

Check the growing instructions of your packages and using the "thin to" instructions:

10 to 12 inches apart = 1 per sq ft
8 inches apart (not in the book this is my personal calculation) divide sq in half diagonally and plant one in each half
6 inches apart = 4 per sq ft
4 inches apart = 9 per sq ft
3 inches apart = 16 per sq ft

shannon1 5/29/2011, 12:25 am

Square foot placement for some other vegetables 68739

go be by the thin to spacing. Bok Choy for example comes in different sizes and are spaced differently. And Square foot placement for some other vegetables 654548

Square foot placement for some other vegetables 654548

to the forum.

BackyardBirdGardner 5/29/2011, 10:41 am

Furbalsmom wrote:Check the growing instructions of your packages and using the "thin to" instructions:

10 to 12 inches apart = 1 per sq ft
8 inches apart (not in the book this is my personal calculation) divide sq in half diagonally and plant one in each half
6 inches apart = 4 per sq ft
4 inches apart = 9 per sq ft
3 inches apart = 16 per sq ft

In addition to this, the easiest way for me to remember, since I'm terrible at memorizing charts, is to do a little math...

"Divide by 12 and square it." That's all you need to remember.

6 inches on package.......6 divided by 12 is 2. 2 squared is 4. 4 per square.
3 inches on package.......3 divided by 12 is 4. 4 squared is 16. 16 per square.

The "square it" part goes hand-in-hand with "Square Foot Gardening" for my brain. One of those way will certainly stick with you, too.

Happy Gardening!

Goosegirl 5/29/2011, 10:53 pm

BackyardBirdGardner wrote:
Furbalsmom wrote:Check the growing instructions of your packages and using the "thin to" instructions:

10 to 12 inches apart = 1 per sq ft
8 inches apart (not in the book this is my personal calculation) divide sq in half diagonally and plant one in each half
6 inches apart = 4 per sq ft
4 inches apart = 9 per sq ft
3 inches apart = 16 per sq ft

In addition to this, the easiest way for me to remember, since I'm terrible at memorizing charts, is to do a little math...

"Divide by 12 and square it." That's all you need to remember.

6 inches on package.......6 divided by 12 is 2. 2 squared is 4. 4 per square.
3 inches on package.......3 divided by 12 is 4. 4 squared is 16. 16 per square.

Happy Gardening!

Just to avoid confusion, I think it should be 'divide 12 by it' instead of 'divide by 12', since 6 divided by 12 is 1/2, and so on.

eyeluv2garden 6/19/2011, 9:49 pm

I really appreciate the info on how to figure out the spacing for plants not on his list. Now that I have read it, it all seems so simple but when we were planting I was like :?:

newstart 11/28/2011, 6:00 pm

Thanks for the space information. I was getting Mad

angry tring to findout how to do some things that are not very common in the square foot book. I will be able to plant much better now

JK 2/4/2012, 8:45 pm

I know this is an old topic but I thought my question would probably fit here instead of posting a brand new one.

I understand the spacing for plants based on the square foot method and the 'thin to' distance. I have gotten a few seed packets that specify a 'thin to' distance totally different than whats in mels book. One in particular, swiss chard. Mel specifically lists swiss chard as a 4 per square plant. My seed pack says thin to 12". Big difference there. Is it simply different variety of swiss chard or do we plant some things closer than recommended due to the intensive nature of sqft gardening?

**sfg4uKim** 2/4/2012, 9:12 pm

JK:

Going by the seed packet directions is safe. In the case of the swiss chard it COULD be a variety thing. Then again with leafy veggies, Mel has you grow several and harvest just a few of the outer leaves from each plant.

ALSO some things DO seem a little close because Mel encourages harvesting YOUNG or GOURMET size veggies. Let's take onions for instance. He has them 16 per square. This gives you a nice salad-size or 2-person onion. But I have clients who have large families who decide to plant only 9 per square because they want a big honking onion for a family-sized casserole.

JK 2/4/2012, 9:18 pm

Great, thank you! Smile

I wasnt sure if the seed packs were concrete guidelines or if the sqft method changed things a bit. I hope to follow the leaf harvesting mel suggests so I will go ahead and plant a little heavier than some of the packs say. All else fails I can pull a plant or two if the overall square seems to be suffering. Thanks again for the info.

elliephant 2/5/2012, 9:34 am

Sometime when I know I'm going to do that kind of thing (harvest young, then pull as they get crowded) I will plant 5 to a square (like on dice). Then I have the middle one to leave in the longest.

quiltbea 2/5/2012, 4:10 pm

I've planted Bright Lights Swiss chard 4 to a square. To harvest I cut out a whole plant an inch above the soil which leaves 3 behind. The cut one will regrow new leaves but in the meantime its giving needed open space for the others. Later I harvest another head as needed. You can keep cutting and regrowing 4 in that foot area.

Square foot placement for some other vegetables 06-12-11

Square foot placement for some other vegetables 06-12-11

above: in front Swiss chard on June 12th with early determinate Oregon Spring tomatoes in rear.

JK 2/5/2012, 5:23 pm

Nice! I'll go ahead and stick with the 4/square then. Thanks for the pic, hopefully Ill be looking at something similar in a few months Smile

Sponsored content

Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Thank You!

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables

Re: Square foot placement for some other vegetables


	Hello Guest! Welcome to the official Square Foot Gardening Forum. There's lots to learn here by reading as a guest. However, if you become a member (it's free, ad free and spam-free) you'll have access to our large vermiculite databases, our seed exchange spreadsheets, Mel's Mix calculator, and many more members' pictures in the Gallery. Enjoy.