We added mulch and eggplant to our garden today. Fingers crossed everything does well this year.

That's a LOT of tomato plants in a very small area unless they are a very small, determinate variety. In this region, larger determinate plants like Brandywine get really big. Stake them up and prune them ruthlessly like a commercial operation would. If they sprawl they'll take over.

Many squashes, including zukes, can get very big. My zukes get to 6'x6' easily and shade out everything under it, and they grow so fast the peppers wouldn't get a chance to complete. Maybe a cucumber vine on a trellis would work better for you in that empty spot? Cukes get big, too, but you can go up instead of out.

In a normal year, it would be too early for eggplants. (Also too early for any of this!) They like they soil temp to be 75-80F and so they usually go in later than the other summer veggies. But you should be good; I don't see the weather as likely to change back to anything more seasonal.

I grew a mini cuke last year and also a mini melon. Being just the 2 of us, and I am the only one who eats cukes and melons, it worked out perfectly. I still had to trellis the cuke but a small stake worked great. Neither took up much space and I had plenty of small cukes for my salads. Since I can buy larger melons at the farmer's market if needed, I just don't worry about growing something that takes up that much space in my own garden.

Alabamanicole, my squash has never gotten that big! I'm impressed and now worried. I think we won't be adding anything else. I hope to build raised beds along my privacy fence for next year. I will be able to give each one their own raised box. We didn't get a Brandywine, I will have to check what kind we did get. Would zukes in low, large pots work? We really love zukes.

Thanks for all the advice.

Don't worry. If you run out of room, just pull out the under-performing plants and forge ahead. One zuke is more than enough for a family of four for fresh eating and it'll start producing long before it gets huge. You can always succession plant -- so when the one zuke gets bigger and production starts to taper off, the replacement is getting big enough to flower. There's also a climbing zuke that likes growing in containers, but I haven't tried it.

When I lived in California and had a small patio, I gardened square foot style. Most everything grew with precision and exactly as the books and web sites say. In Alabama? I think there's steroids in the dirt. I get monsters here.

I experimented with small melon plants last year, and Minnesota Midget really does live up to the description but all the melons ripened at once and then the plant died. I got 5 4-5" melons off a tiny little plant with a couple of 4' vines, though.

This year I am trying a reportedly smaller zuke plant (cocozelle) and smaller winter squash varieties. I have lots of room but the BF doesn't eat many veggies and I need smaller portions!

Ok, phew, I'm hoping to get enough to freeze for the winter. We love squash and zucchini. I may try to can the tomatoes. I use to do all that type of stuff when I lived at home with my parents. I checked on the garden today before I came to work and I think a couple of the squash plants have already grown.

My husband has been "watering" them the past few days. I put water in quotations because he waters until the mulch is wet then stops. I watered until the dirt under the gardening paper was moist. They seriously grew over night.

I really want some watermelon, and I know it will not be going in the sq. ft. garden. I'm thinking about giving it it's own planter so it can spread where ever it wants.

I may be posting a panic post if these veggies grow like wild fire :).

a good size is to make your beds 11 to 12" tall,4 x 8 or 8 x8 this is mostly for deep root plants,shallow root plants can be 4 to 6'' deep,,,keep beds about 3' apart or more,,,hope this helps

Thanks, it's 8x8 with landscape timbers stacked 2 high. everything seems to be doing well. And we have a surprise plant growing (well we know what it is, pumpkin). Apparently the pumpkin seeds did not compost last year and I now have 20 or more pumpkin plants I have dug up and put into planters and pots. Probably will be bringing a lot of them to the swap.