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 ! : )

Started my 2 gallon dill fermenting crock (a la Euell Gibbons - "Stocking up III"). Should take about 2 to 3 weeks - will taste test then. I found quite a variety of veggies including carrot, small onion, garlic, Thai pepper, zucchini, cucumbers, ancho pepper - green/red, and some blanched bush beans. Even if it doesn't turn out well from eating standpoint, I may just put the jar in a conspicuous spot - it is so beautiful and colorful - would vie for honors in any decorator contest - LOL! Still drying cherry type toms and apricots - tomatoes OK, but not too keen for the apricots. Still prefer the old fashioned way of sulfur and outdoor drying, but will have to settle for stove or perhaps forget it for canning. They don't freeze nicely either - even with pre-treating with Fruit Fresh. Would like to try some hot pepper jams - but unfortunately peppers still mostly in green stages. Maybe I could fast freeze some apricots and use them in jams later, when the hot peppers finally ripen. Dunno if it would work - apricots are so fragile. Bejay

I had 27 tomato plants last year. Six were romas, two were supersweet 100's, one was yellow pear, and the rest were either big heirlooms or hybrid, but mostly heirlooms. I was feeding just myself and my husband and I liked having some to share with family and friends on occasion and plenty for freezing/canning. I was so glad I planted that many in the end, because I didn't account for the ones that ended up with blossom end rot due to the drought we experienced last summer, nor the ones that the tomato worms would ruin, or the ones that the birds/squirrels/rabbits would nibble on. I ended up with just enough for ourselves, and some for GOOD friends and family, and I froze about 20 quarts of tomatoes and 10 pints of tomato sauce. So, this year I have, I think, 42 tomato plants. I need to recount with my latest purchase. But I decided to grow more so that I'd definitely have plenty for us and the critters and pests. Plus, I just love to grow different varieties. This is my long-winded way of saying plant at least 30 plants for a big supply of tomatoes. In perfect circumstances, 15 might do you fine, but you never know what weather or animal factors might come into play.

Definitely mix the fertilizer (controlled release or organic) and lime (1 tablespoon per gallon) into the mix thoroughly. Although a balanced CRF works best, you can use a complete organic fertilizer like Tomatotone or Dr. Earth if you prefer. You will need to use twice as much organic fertilizer (2 tablespoons per gallon of mix compared to 1 tablespoon of Osmocote), and you will need to add it again every two weeks or so during the season since it will be washed out of the mix. Even using a CRF, I also fertilize with a water soluble chemical fertilizer every few weeks after fruits start to form. You don't need to rinse anything for the 5-1-1 mix. But it is best to dampen the ingredients, especially the peat and perlite, before mixing to keep down the dust and make sure you don't have clumps of dry peat in your mix. Five gallon containers are very small for things like tomatoes. If you can use 10 gallon containers, at least for the tomatoes, you will need to do a lot less watering. I do one tomato in 20 gallons of 5-1-1 and generally don't have to water more often than every three days even during 95 degree heat spells. A tomato in a 5-gallon container might need to be watered more than once a day at those temps. The difference between water retention in 5-1-1 and in a typical soilless mix is not as big as many inexperienced gardeners think it will be.