Hi all,

I have a fairly newbie question about thinning and spacing. Last year I did all seedlings from the nursery. This year I'm going to try starting from seed for beans, squashes, cukes and melons.

I'm confused by what seems like contradictory information I read on SFG about intensive spacing, vs. what I read on the packets, vs. what my rodales and other gardening books say. Should I just average them out? Are there any hard and true spacing guidelines that are good across the board?

Then I am wondering about thinning, as almost always when I get seedlings from the nursery, there's 2-3 plants growing out of each cell pack. (i.e. looks like they sowed 2-3 seeds and they all germinated). So most of the time the nursery says "don't then them"... but then SFG dictates some fairly specific spacing.

I'm doing most of these vining things all on trellises except for the zucchini which is going in a large bed.

So for example, if the melon seed packet says to thin to 10 inches apart (for growing in rows), could I interpret that as 1 per square foot on a trellis? Then again, it says on a hill method, to thin to the strongest 3 seeds on a 2' hill with a 5' diameter. So I may just average the 2 and try 2 or 3 on a 4' trellis.

Another example, my zucchini packet says you can do a "hill" method, sowing 5 or 6 seedlings, then thinning to the 2 or 3 strongest plants on a hill. If I'm understanding this, it means I can take my 4x4 planter box devoted to zucchini and actually grow 2 or 3 plants. Right? Except that the SFG method says only 1 plant per 9 square feet. So I just want to clarify.

Thanks for your insights,

KMama