Does anyone have any opinions? I would really like some feedback before I get started. Also, in case it wasn't clear, there is a picture of my layout at the link on the first post.

Ok - I'll give it a shot :) I don't do "strict" square foot gardening, but I stick to the basic principles most of the time, so take the advice with that grain of salt.

1 - I've found my minimum spacing for tomato's is 2X2. You might be able to get away with 1 square foot as is in his book, but I think you'll find that's difficult without very heavy pruning.

So for the two boxes with tomato's, personally i'd cut out the rows of green beans in front of them, and only plant two instead of 4.

I can't tell what all the pictures are :) But if that's lettuce and beats or radishes in front of the bottom tomato box, that's fine. Might even be able to plant some more bush beans after the lettuce bolts in the summer in those same squares to get a second round of beans in the fall.

The carrots - that's fine, but that's a lot of carrots :) You can plant quite a few carrots in 1 square foot. So you could replace maybe a row of those with some of the greenbeans you lost from expanding into the tomatoes?

The peppers and eggplants are fine. It's a little tight (specially on the eggplant) at 1 square foot, but it's doable, they'll just be touching hands :)

The squash... you'll probably not be able to pull off that many, but you can try. I assume the middle top box is butternut? I'd be interested to see how that does growing up trellis's on all sides, it might just work - let us know!

If the other one is zucchini, they are difficult to trellis, and tend to be large bushy plants. In a 4X4 box, you might be able to plant 4, and let them spill out the sides, but even that would be tight.

The only other thought is if those things with the red tops and white bottoms are radishes - that's a lot of radishes! I just plant radishes as box spacers (so for example, I'll line the edges of the lettuce square foot with radishes). Then succession plant wherever I find room in the garden as summer comes on. I don't really dedicate specific square feet to radishes, as while I love them fresh, there's not a lot I could do with 50 or 100 radishes all at once!

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

jwstell42

Manday one you need to make the diagram clearer. but from what I can see go back to the drawing board. Since your spacing is all wrong.

jwstell42 - Thank you for the helpful and well thought out response. I will try to make some things clearer and see if they help my design any. I apologize for the confusion with the pictures; I've been staring at PlanGarden's site so long that I'm used to the pics they use for different plants :). And since ribsyhuggins apparently thinks I'm doing one of every plant in each sq ft, I'll provide additional detail for my spacing. If I tried to fit 16 carrot pics in each sq ft on the diagram, it would be impossible to read.

A little extra detail for the boxes starting at the top left and moving clockwise:

The first box is a 2x2 potato tower. Lentils will be planted every 4-5 inches at the first level and then trained up the outside of the box as they grow and as I add levels to the box. The lentils will probably be sprouted indoors so I will be able to place them sideways in the box.

The next box is 12 squares of 9 bush beans each and (originally) 4 squares of 1 tomato each. I think I may be able to convince my husband to cut it down to 3 tomatoes in 4 sq ft and expand the box a little to accomodate them. We're going to be building out boxes out of concrete blocks so I'll just add another block (16 inches) on the tomato side and keep the beans where they are. Does this seem like it would help? Also, do the tomatoes need more room for the plant itself or the roots? If it's for the plant, I could actually put the tomatoes in the concrete blocks themselves which would give them a little more room as well.

The third box is actually yellow squash and I am more than willing to cut it back to, say, 4 plants in the entire box. Would that be a little more doable? I think, from what I've read, that squash plants are super producers so I was afraid to try that many, too. My husband originally had both squash boxes with a plant in each square :) I'll cut those back some more to save our sanity a little.

The fourth box (top right) is zucchini. I'll apply the same thinking as the yellow squash. I'll cut it down to 4 for the square and try to trellis them. If that doesn't work, I'll cut out 2-3 of the plants and chalk it up as a learning experience.

The fifth box (middle row by the bush) has 8 squares of 16 carrots each. I was planning to stagger the planting of these so that I would have 2 squares ready to harvest at a time (one to eat fresh for a week or two and one to freeze). The red topped veggies in the next 4 squares are 4 turnips each and I was going to apply the same logic as the carrots (stagger for eating/freezing in smaller batches). The final 4 squares have one bell/hot pepper each.

The sixth box (bottom left) has 4 squares of 1 cabbage each, the other 4 squares of turnips, another 4 squares of bush beans, and another 4 squares of tomatoes. I can apply the same expansion to this box to accomodate the tomatoes, if you think it will help.

The final box (Bottom right) has 4 squares of 4 leaf lettuce plants each, 4 squares of 16 green onions each, 4 squares of 9 beets each, and 4 squares of 1 eggplant each. I will probably cut the eggplant down to 2 in the 4 squares; I really like eggplant and want to make sure I get some :).

We've also added another 2x2 (not in the picture) of peanuts for experimental purposes.

Does this help it make a little more sense, at least as far as what the pictures mean? I know I'm going to have a lot of beans and carrots, but I'm planning on freezing a lot and want enough to last through the winter. With that in mind, am I still planting too much (or not enough)? I'm hoping the potato tower works so I'll have some of those to freeze as well, but I've read mixed results on those.

Thanks again for looking over my plan and helping me out. I'm hoping to get to the point where I can plant enough veggies for the whole year but I at least want to get enough this year to see if that's possible.

If you have any other comments or concerns, I would love to hear them!

yes it makes lot more sense but there are still a lot problems
with it. I will post more about the problems I see by Friday.
Most time and space related issues that i have post detailed diagrams to show you the problems.

Yes, that makes more sense :)

I still think you are pushing it with the tomatoes, but then again - I "do not" prune. Which makes a huge difference - it's just my preference.

I don't think planting tomatoes "in" a cinderblock would work - they do need room for the roots, as well as for the bush.

Just my opinion though, I've certainly heard of people being able to pull off the single stem method, and being able to keep tomatoes regularly within the 1 sq ft, just hasn't been that way in my experience!

Sorry I don't have much advice on the potato's - that's one that I've never grown personally.

Again, good luck with your garden, looks like you will have fun!