> Im just growing for fresh veggies for my little family of 3 and of > course the love of watching things grow :) Dont want too little and > certainly not an over abundance either i was thinking where i already > have 10 tomato plants to continue that pattern and just do 10 of each > veggie if that works. How big of a space would i need? Danger, danger! One pumpkin can take up as much space as ten tomatoes. :) My opinion: - Ten tomatoes: Assuming that they all live and thrive, that's a whole lot of tomatoes, far more than you're likely to need for fresh eating, but, hey, there's always sauce. I'd recommend giving each tomato a minimum of an eighteen inch by eighteen inch square. - Peppers: I'd give them at least a foot by a foot. They're much less productive than tomatoes; ten plants would be fine. - Ten healthy successful cucumber plants will feed Nebraska. OK, maybe that's an overstatement, but I wouldn't grow that many. My plan for my garden this year is to prepare three spots for vining cucumbers, plant three seeds in each spot, and then thin to one plant per spot when they're all up and healthy, for a total of three plants. - Ten healthy successfun pumpkin plants will cover Nebraska with leaves. OK, I'm really exaggerating, but pumpkins sprawl over a _lot_ of space. On the other hand, if you're not overprotective of your lawn you can plant the pumpkins near the edge of the vegetable garden and let them crawl over the lawn. But i still wouldn't plant more than five, and I say five only because it's always upsetting when you plant only two or so, and one of them dies. - Ten corn plants, on the other hand, isn't quite enough. The customary minimum recommendation for corn is a four-plant by four-plant block, sixteen plants total. The block planting increases the chances of good pollination. I plant my corn at eighteen inches; many people plant it much closer. This post was edited by chickenfreak on Thu, Apr 11, 13 at 0:57

You are generally better off watering longer but less often. When you water small amounts very frequently, the lawn and garden stay wet on the surface nearly all the time, making an ideal environment for fungus problems. Plants also don't put down deep roots since they don't need to, so are more susceptible to drought stress if there is a gap in the watering, and if your sprinklers aren't completely uniform, you get patches that never get enough water. By watering less frequently, but with more water so it soaks down in, the surface will dry out and reduce fungus problems and the roots will go down deeper to follow the water. I water usually once a week, sometimes every 5 days during the hottest part of the summer when days are consistently in the 90's--it depends on when the grass starts to show water stress, but the water will reach a depth of 24 inches or more from each watering. My climate gets virtually no rainfall, so irrigation is all it gets. When we do get measurable rain in late spring, then I will space the watering out further, based on when the grass just starts to show some drouth stress. What I'm getting at is let the ground dry out to a depth as long as your middle finger or a little more, then give it a good watering, then let it dry to that depth before the next watering and set your timer to follow that schedule.

Jennifer, We've grown roses in the greenhouse, in pots, for several years, and they are fine. Just don't let them get too pot-bound. Crepuscule will get big in a hurry. Some comments on your list: Crepuscule -- super easy and carefree in Florida. Lasts many, many years own-root. It gets bigger faster on 'Fortuniana', but grafting is certainly not needed. Gruss an Teplitz -- I'd baby this one along. I don't know that it will be resistant to nematodes, own-root. Also rather black-spotty for us. Le Vesuve -- I think of this as a true Tea, but perhaps not. Always grown own-root in Bermuda; I don't have any long-term experience with it in Florida, but it may be fine. Caldwell pink (pink pet) -- as mentioned above, absolutely fine on its own roots. Lasts for many years that way. Princess de Sagan -- don't know about this one. Duchesse de Brabant -- I'd mulch this one deeply, but I do know that it has been grown own-root even in southern Florida, for a very long time. The Fairy -- never tried it own-root. Bermuda Anne Olivier -- a typical Tea rose. So should grow well, but may not last decades on its own roots. I would agree with posters above, that you should use a very deep mulch on everything. We use pine straw, at least 6" deep, preferably 8". Malcolm

Thank you all for your comments.There seem to be good reasons both pro and con; my own general impression is that ,after a certain point,many plants start sort of "languishing" in pots. I am not good at pot culture; it seems to require so much time and money, not to mention the enormous quantity of water required. So there is definitely a part of me that wants to get as many as possible planted out in the garden, for though watering out there without running water is challenging ,plants are OK with being watered only once a week,whereas the pots need water almost daily,and though I try hard, the "dry out and fry roller coaster" sindrome is very familiar.Plus, the pots are on my terrace-in other words, sit on hot masonry and some do get their sides hit by the sun. The advantage is that here at the house the terrace goes into shade in the PM, whereas out in the garden it's full afternoon sun. My experience with potted trees has taught me that there's sort of a "sweet spot" when it comes to the size of the plant that I put out in the garden. Too small and they just can't hack it, but if they are very big it's much harder to do a good job with planting, plus they seem to be less motivated about getting their roots into the surrounding soil-as if they are tempted just to get by on their existing root system, without reaching out and adapting to the new environment (note that this is the case even though I was very careful to avoid the "bathtub effect" that happens if you plant out a root-bound tree or prep the soil incorrectly) . That happened with one very big potted rose once-I had Melina, the Tantau rose, growing out in my garden, but it wasn't doing well, so even though it was pretty large I dug it up and grew it on in a pot for a while. It seemed fine so after a season I re-planted it out in the garden. It failed completely; grew backwards and dwindled away. Now, there were many factors involved other than the size of the plant that could explain that failure-inadequate soil preparation is at the top of the list,as per usual,but also that particular variety etc, etc., etc. The bottom line is that , once those new shoots harden off, I'll have to let ET dry out just enough so I can pull it easily out of the pot and look at the root system. I have noticed that roses in pots, at a certain point, wind up with too many roots all clustered around at the bottom of the pot; when they are like that I think it's best for them to be planted out. I 'm also toying with the idea that perhaps it might be better to sort of "bare-root" potted rose somewhat, the reason being that I want to encourage them to reach out beyond their little ball of potting soil into the native ground. Of course that's a thin, thin line to walk-you don't want to disturb the roots too much...