what I've learned with 1st year SFG

...just got back from the Iowa State Fair and watered our SFG like normal...then decided to clear some squares of struggling peppers and green beans to make room for fall seeding (carrots and beets). Immediately I realized I've learned a few things for next year:

1. Do green beans on the edges as they tend to crowd out other plants.
2. Concentrate on plants that you will eat/ enjoy the most.
3. Water, Water, Water...right after watering tonight (what I thought was plenty of water), and turning in some additional compost, I saw that my Mels Mix was bone dry down about 4 inches.
4. Don't go overboard on tomatoes (I've left little to no room to rotate tomatoes next year).
5. Growing watermelon vines is easy...getting actual watermelons is not.
6. Tomatoes pruned into a single vine need some sun/ heat protection...they almost cooked on the vine.
7. You can never have too much home made compost.
8. Water in Mels Mix really well in the beginning before planting. I thought I did and also had some 3-4" rains and I still had some boxes settle around 50% or so.
9. I need to learn more about organic insect control...I planted County Fair cucumbers for wilt resistance, but that does not mean that the cucumber beetles won't still do damage (cucumber and green bean leaves turned into lace).

Thanks for sharing landarch! I am learning a lot in my first year of SFG as well. I am looking foward to next year to see how much I can improve upon what I have learned so far. For a solution to you tomato rotation you might just have to build a few more boxes next year

1. Make sure you read whether your squash is a vine or a bush...
2. Make sure you mark accurately what you plant where.....
3. I really DO like cherry tomatoes when they are homegrown (cue Homegrown Tomatoes music)

GG