In my opinion, if you are only planting 2 or 3 tomato plants, there is no reason to stagger them. I am in zone 7 North Carolina, so my growing season is likely different than yours, however, my tomatoes grew and produced all summer long and into the fall some, not just 1 month. Plus the tomatoes you are planning to grow are 3 different types used for 3 different purposes (roma, slicing, cherry) so it is ok to have some of all at the same time. Do check to make sure if the tomato varieties you are growing are determinate or indeterminate. Indeterminate tomatoes can easily be trellised 1 per square foot by keeping the suckers pruned as it grows upwards. Tomatoes do not grow onto a trellis by themselves like beans do - as they grow, you weave them in and out up the trellis. I have left about a little over a foot of room behind my trellis that I can walk behind it and tend to my trellised plants from the back side. In fact, my garden interior dimensions are approx 18 feet x 2.75 feet (31-32 inches). I have that 32 inches divided into 3 squares - 12 inches, 12 inches, and 7-8 inches deep for the back square where my trellis is. My trellis sits about 3-4 inches in from the back garden edge over the middle of my 8 inch square. This was plenty of space for my tomatoes planted one plant per 8" deep x 12" wide square last year. I did keep them pruned to one main vine only. I have read that sugar baby watermelon can easily be trellised. I have those seeds myself and will be trellising them this year. I will also note that I have a very strong trellis. I will be growing the following on my trellis ... peas, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew (if I can ever find any seeds!), cucumber, blackeye peas (cowpeas). Peas and beans are planted on the trellis in 2 rows of 4, one row on each side of the trellis, all in one square foot, which will give you 8 bean plants per square foot. Cucumber is planted 2 per square foot in one row along the trellis. Unless you are pickling cukes, I think 1 or 2 plants is plenty. If you do 2 squares of beans, 1 square of cukes, and 3 squares of tomato, that is your 6 feet of trellis. However, here is an idea ... you were going to originally have 2 beds of 4x4, I am assuming they were side by side ? If so, could you do one bed of 3x8 ? There is no such thing as too much trellis in my opinion ! With 8 feet of trellis, you could also trellis your sugar babies. If you do not trellis the watermelon, I think you should plan on putting it elsewhere, as they take up a lot of room on the ground. Or possibly plant it in a corner of the bed and sprawl it outside of the bed. Assuming 3x6, with your 6 squares of trellis planned for, that leaves 12 squares ... I recommend the following ... plant your 2 pepper plants in the middle row next to the tomatoes on your trellis. The 10 remaining squares can all be broccoli and carrots and the watermelon. Staggered planting for those would be good. I have read online to plan for 5 to 10 broccoli plants per person and 20 to 40 carrots per person. Obviously, you will not have room for all that, so do what you can. Mel recommends 16 carrots per square. My carrot packages call for 2-3" spacing between carrots which would be 36 carrots per square on 2" spacing (6 rows of 6) or 16 carrots per square on 3" spacing. Last year, I think anniesgranny planted on 1.5" spacing at 64 carrots per square !! She harvested some of them as baby carrots though and reported great results. Watermelon will likely yield 1-2 melons per plant. This is also my first year for broccoli. I have read that once you cut the first head, more little ones will sprout from the cut area. Broccoli & carrots are spring/fall veggies, while all of your others are summer veggies. In the south, we have a definite spring season and a very hot summer season which does not work for broccoli & carrots thru the summer. My broccoli will be done by about June 1, at which point I will put something else in that space (bush beans) and then in the fall I will plant the cool weather crops again. You grow girl website has a seed planting chart based on last frost date that is easy to use ... http://www.yougrowgirl.com/grow/, click on The Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart. For companion planting, this website has a long descriptive list http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html. If you do end up using cinder blocks, a lot of people use the holes in the blocks to plant other things like herbs, flowers, onions, etc. Be sure to calculate the width of the blocks in your plan to account for what the interior dimensions of your garden will be. My bed is built with 4x4's of treated lumber and 2x8's of untreated lumber. I do not have an answer on the slugs question, as I luckily did not have a problem with them. I have just started my first compost bin this year as well, so am not speaking from authority, but I think there is no problem with compost being in the shade from what I have read. Mine is, so I really hope it is fine ! You can build a free compost bin by using shipping pallets (find for free on craiglist) and tie them together with wire coat hangers. It also looks pretty nice in my opinion with the boards oriented vertically. Do a google search for compost bins made from pallets. Finally, check out the square foot gardening forum on gardenweb and also read the FAQ's for that forum. Sorry this reply is sooooooo long ! : )

Thanks again everyone! I'm inspired to expand, and to try to become more and more self sufficient. I will most likely cultivate the 900 sq ft area outside the cage in the fall or next spring. Socks, right now I've been sharing basil and Armenian cucumbers with friends as those are incredibly prolific and we are having trouble keeping up. As for the other vegetables, my family and I will have no problem eating everything - there are 6 of us and we're all vegetarian. Canyonsister, I started all my tomatoes, peppers, basil, and eggplant by seed indoors at the beginning of January. I then started all the cucumbers, squash, cantaloupes, watermelons in mid February. I transplanted everything in mid March and directed seeded beans, more squash and cucumbers. In April I direct seeded okra, tepary beans and more cantaloupe. With heavy mulching, close planting, and shade cloth most things are holding up very well to the 100+ degree heat right now. In the winter, I wasn't as well organized but I did have a small selection of greens (kale, broccoli, rapini, arugula, lettuce etc) as well as beets, carrots, spring onions, peas, bok choy etc. You can start seeding the fall/winter vegetables as early as August and September if you provide some protection from the heat incase it stays in the 90's all the way up to November as it did this last season. Basically, you can seed, grow and harvest something in Phoenix year round!

sinfonian: how much land do you have? 5 acres.. Is that valley yours, yes....The top of the hill in the picture is about 1/2 way on the lot.. This is a Google Sketch-up that I did of the property using the survey as the base.. or is that what is going to be developed? - Click on picture and I have marked what he wants to develop. The lots would have a nice ocean view but you can see the buildings on the lot that would make putting in a road difficult. Is your garden close to your house? No.. I have 3 ways to go from home in Paradise to the garden... 1)4 lane divided highway it is 40 km (25 mins). 2)By pass Highway and Local = 36 km (30 mins) 3)The very scenic and slow local road = 32 km (35 mins) And a picture of some Swiss Chard in the garden yesterday! I went out to the local organic farm today and was able to buy some Latah Tomato seeds. These are being very grown successfully here with our short season. So maybe next year I will actually be able to grow red tomatoes.. We have just had 2 beautiful days of weather after the hail last week! Here is a link that might be useful: Article on the Latah Tomatoes

Hrm, that might work for my beds built out of wood, but 5 of my beds are built out of recycled plastic timbers - I'll have to figure out a better way than nails to attach those ones. As far as the seedlings, I found that instead of cutting an X like you do for transplants, I made a circle (3 inches in diameter or so) and then put little rocks around the seedling on the black plastic, it kept the plastic from flapping and damaging the seedlings. This does allow for a "couple" weeds to grow, but it's almost non existent, and still gives you the benefits of warming the soil, water retention, etc.. No matter how "tight" you get the plastic across the bed, when you cut those X's they are going to flap in the wind, so you need something localized to hold them down. Thanks for the ideas, I'll have to think about how I will secure them, as I really love the plastic.