In this case you would make the rows run east/west and then you could have enough room for everything you want.To make the most of your space, you could trellis the tomato plants using string veggie trellis like this http://www.homedepot.com/p/Unbranded-String-Trellis-928/202819857 along one outside edge of the garden and plan on 4 or 5 tomato plants on that 1ftx8ft row. If you use a heavy producing hybrid variety of tomato like Super Sweet 100 and larger variety if you like, you will have plenty of tomatoes. I would also tuck a marigold plant between each of the tomato plants to help with pest problems. My tomatoes always grow better with marigolds around. Plant a 2ft x 8ft row of eggplant, again about 4 or 5 plants, right in front of the tomatoes. Since you'll be able to reach the tomatoes from the outside, you won't need space between the tomatoes and eggplant. Make a 2ft x8ft foot path next to give you good room to move through the garden, then plant a row of pepper plants 1ftx8ft. Depending on the variety, you may be able to get 1 per square foot of this row, so up to 8 plants total. This brings you up to 1ft tomatoes, 2 ft eggplants, 2ft walkway, 1ft peppers with 2ft remaining for squash. Pick a compact variety of squash and plant them as close as possible to the outer southern edge of the garden with the intention of them hanging halfway over the outer edge. Make sure you've amended the soil with a good amount of compost to keep things growing strong. That's what I would do to maximize the space, but I'm no expert. There are also different schools of thought about gardening so do a bit of research and see what fits you best. I loosely follow the square foot gardening method with modifications I've adapted through trial and error. This picture shows my old garden from 2yrs ago using a trellis netting. I used that set up to plant tomatoes the whole 16ft length and in the picture I used it for beans, pumpkin and watermelon. That bed it 2ftx16ft.

For a number of years I transplanted into soil beds which had just been covered with about 8 inches of moderately fresh manure (horse or cow). I was improving soil by introducing the manure, and did not have a ready source of much plant debris. I was putting down about 8 tons of manure a week, and found that the transplants thrived in the straight manure beds. The plants obviously enjoyed the rich environment. Even by the later part of the season the soil was much more mellow, and became very porous and workable. I was more conservative than the organic certification guidelines about wait periods between application of manure and harvest of crops. Since I was amending acres of land, I could choose crops that were suitable for the manure beds, and put crops which I didn't want to get the manure exposure on areas treated in previous years. While it may be nice to add plant debris to animal manures when making compost, it is certainly not necessary. Animal manures will compost well on their own; adding some plant debris may help to capture some N that may otherwise be lost, but the final product of manure-only composting is quite good. These days, I generally do not bring in manure for soil for two reasons: I no longer need the external input, and unfortunately, many of the manure streams near me are contaminated with persistent herbicides. I've tested a beautiful, huge set of piles of llama manure just a couple miles from me which has aged for over 7 years now. It had easily detectable, damaging herbicides still in it. A small commercial grower had used some in their fields, and they lost the crops in that area. For now, if I import organic materials, it will be readily available yard waste, municipal compost and wood chips. Renais

Carol, I have grown Roma II many times. It is sort of the romano bean equivalent of Better Boy or Celebrity tomato---a good, reliable, heavy producer. I usually grow it every year because it is easy to squeeze a row of bush beans into a little bit of space here or there. I don't get very good yields from most yellow beans, but the exception is a yellow roma called Marvel of Venice, which was one of our heaviest producers as a fall bean in 2009. Seedmama, My peas are up about a foot and climbing the trellis just fine, but the recent temperatures in the mid-80s were really hard on them and starting browning/yellowing their foliage. Now that the temps are slightly cooler, the beans seem to be recovering from the heat wave. I hope it stays a bit cooler for a while so the peas get a chance to produce this year. If you're going to be at the Spring Fling, I can bring you some flat bean seed to try.... Jay, Where in the world are you going to put all those beans? Should the horses be worried? Annieokie, You can start planting beans any time now. I think the Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide specifies April 10th-30th and beyond. You can plant succession crops for several weeks, but bean production will drop off a bit when the really hot weather hits. Last year, I planted fall beans in August and was harvesting beans through November. The only beans I have in the ground are Top Crop bush beans, planted earlier this week in our granddaughter's Peter Rabbit garden (with plants chosen because they're mentioned in the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit book, so simple things like beans, peas, lettuce, rosemary, onions, strawberries, potatoes, etc.). Her beans are up and have their 2 seed leaves open and I think she'll have her first true leaves any time now. With the warm days, the beans popped up almost overnight. I'll probably start planting beans next week... Carol, I'm going to try that recipe this year if I can manage to find it again when I am picking beans. I think after last night that I shouldn't have to carry flats in and out any more. I can't believe we went down to 33 degrees here....but that's what happens when you're down low in the valley. My forecast looks good, long-term, and we're 10 days past our average last frost date here, so I believe I am going to go wild planting, beginning today. The tomato plants are getting huge and I need to get them into the ground in the next 3 or 4 days, and then I'll work on the ones for containers next week. After that, I'll repot the remaining ones into larger cups and save them for the Spring Fling, which is getting closer and closer. I know I'll be planting like a maniac for the next week at least, but I'm just thrilled the ground is finally dry enough for planting (more or less...there's still a few really wet spots), it is finally warm enough, and the weather looks perfect, if a bit windy, for the next 4 or 5 days. Carol, you are a fine gardener, even if your plant addiction is a more recent affliction for you than for some of us. I'd put your plant and seed addiction right alongside mine and your gardening ability as well, and you can blame the plant and seed addiction on your proximity to Baker Creek if you want. lol I have been wondering how long it will be before you offer to "help" your son and daughter-in-law put in their/your garden on their new place. I've decided I'm not happy in the spring unless I'm growing a bit of everything and have far more plants than space in which to plant them, and I think you are just like me in that regard. Jay, if they had an edit feature on this forum, those of us who grow "too much" would never stop adding to our lists in the same way we never stop adding to our gardens. Stil, there are times an edit feature would be nice. Dawn

Matt, I imagine the plants will be fine when all is said and done. Rainfall of 5" in a 4-day time span would tend to clog the roots with water, limiting nutrient uptake, and could cause a yellowing of the leaves. Also, keep in mind that lower leaves often yellow as a natural part of the aging process anyway, so you may be seeing yellow leaves developing as part of that natural process but aggravated by all the rain. However, that much rain also could lead to bacterial speck, bacterial spot, early blight, and other foliar diseases, all of which are very common here in spring and early summer. Mulching is very important to reduce soil splash that carries diseases from the soil up onto the plant foliage, but I wouldn't add any more mulch now until the soil has dried out some since mulching helps keep the soil from drying out. Remember too that a significant portion of your raised bed is compost and peat moss, both of which tend to hold tons of water when wet. That will be great in summer when the weather tends to be a lot drier and rain often comes infrequently, but it may be a little bit harder on the plants in April and May when rainfall often comes in huge amounts. For what it is worth, tomato plants in raised beds generally can tolerate a lot of moisture for a prolonged period of time. Last year, in record rainfall that I hope never will be repeated, my garden got 12" of rainfall in one day in May and 24" total in the month of May, followed by another foot of rain in June. That was roughly the equivalent of our entire annual rainfall in two months. My tomato plants looked pretty bad at times, but in the end, they came through it just fine and we harvested tons of tomatoes. Had I not had raised beds that drain well, though, I expect every plant would have died, and I base that on the experience of folks in my specific neighborhood who did not have raised beds. Often, raised beds here make the difference between success or failure since our rainfall often comes in torrential downpours.....or not at all. Hazel, I would expect the yellowing after all the rainfall. I picked about a half-gallon of bush beans yesterday, and as I did so I simultaneously weeded the bean bed and also picked off any yellow leaves that were on the plants. On my plants, it tended to be the oldest two leaves on the plant that were yellowing and since I plant my beans densely, they are yellowing partly because of the rainfall and partly because they are not getting good light now that the plants have filled in and the dense planting means lower leaves are shaded. I also saw just a hint of bean rust on a couple of older leaves. I picked those leaves off as well. Hopefully there won't be more rust developing. I rarely have rust because our normal weather tends to be hot and dry and we spend more time in drought than out of it, but we had lots of bean rust in last year's persistently wet weather. We have been very wet for most of April, and then had light rain last evening that was the last thing we needed but at least it was very light....although that means the bean leaves had moisture on them all night long. The bush beans have been in the ground since pretty early in March, so I would expect yellowing of some of the lower leaves by now. That's fairly typical. The pole lima beans, pole snap beans and southern peas that have been in the ground for only a couple of weeks now and which are just developing their first true leaves show no yellowing, so the moisture doesn't seem to be affecting them as much as it is affecting older plants. Nothing else in the garden seems negatively affected, so far, by the heavy April rainfall, which totaled about 7.5" but we also had a lot of rain in March, so it remains very wet and the lower part of the garden where there are no raised beds isn't even planted yet. At this rate, I may never get that area planted. My potatoes do not have many yellowing leaves yet, but (because of the voles that eat every potato you grow) their beds are raised very high since they have to do all their growing above the hardware cloth that lines the bottom of the beds. Those beds are about 20" high above grade level. I expect they will develop yellowing leaves in May, simply because they always do. Potatoes are related to tomatoes and develop similar foliar diseases in wet weather. Dawn