Christine Tomatoes are so versatile! No wonder they are people's favorite to grow. We are eating them almost daily in a variety of recipes. I made this salad recently and came out good. If anybody wants to try it, I included the link. Today, I am thinking tomato soup... Sheri Thanks for the salsa recipe, I will try it, I love salsa! I lived in Arizona for a while, and they had contest for salsa all the time. I have tried so many... I make mine by taste, trying for flavor and adding ingredients as I go along. When I used cilantro, I also add cumin and chili powder. Sometimes black beans or corn or both. When using parsley, I also add hot and sweet peppers, fresh oregano and basil. Salsa makes a super fast chili when added to ground beef or turkey. coastal-tony I don't use Ortho, but I am sure it works to keep the bugs away. Tomato is a kind of crop that has to be sprayed to have a harvest. I do use Spinosad, when this is not available BT will work, you can get it at HD. I could not see the link. Silvia Here is a link that might be useful: tomato salad

Hello again Villian189! I am glad that you are rethinking the size of your beds. There are many knowledgeable people on this forum and I am sure you will receive some great advice. I am happy to share what works for me. I have six 4x4 SFGs with paths wide enough to allow me to run a mower in between the gardens and kneel down at the edges of the garden and reach in to every square. I have a trellis at the north edge of most of these beds made out of 2x3s with nylon trellising for vertical plants. I have found that planting 3 vining tomatoes along the 4-foot wide trellis works best. As gblack mentioned, you will get more production from each plant if they are given the room to thrive. I do prune the tomatoes a little and weave them into the nylon trellis as they grow and also wrap them with twine to the trellis supports. The tomatoes do crowd the row of squares immediately in front of them by mid-growing season. So I plant spring greens in these squares (lettuces, arugula, spinach, etc.) before the tomatoes are planted out. If you keep the lower branches of the tomato plants trimmed, they will provide a nice shade canopy for the greens as the summer heats up. Ok, according to Mel BartholomewâÂÂs The All-new Square Foot Gardening book, suggested plant spacing for the varieties you wish to grow are as follows: Tomato plants, vine type = 1/square along a trellis Summer squash, bush type= 1 in a 9 squares (3x3 area) Winter squash, vining type = 1 in a 2 squares (1x2 area) Basil = 4/square Oregano = 1/square Cilantro = 1/square Parsley = 1/square Peppers = 1/square Eggplant = 1/square Pole beans = 8/square along a trellis Lettuce = 4/square So, if I understood your latest post correctly, you plan on building two 3x4 SFG. This will give you 24 squares to work with. In this following suggestion, I have assumed you will have a trellis along the north side of each garden along the 4-foot side. SFG 1: Back squares: 3 vining tomato plants can be planted along the north side along a trellis. Middle squares: 3 squares of greens and/or lettuces. 1 square herb. Front squares: Peppers and eggplant, they will shade out your lettuce, but it may help keep the lettuce from bolting when the weather gets warm. SFG2: Back squares: Pole beans - plant these towards the back of the bed right along the trellis and they will only take up inches of your garden space and grow vertically. Middle and Front two squares, plus extra room from the partial bean squares: 1 bush type squash (such as zucchini or yellow summer squash) Remaining squares: herbs or a pepper. This should get you started. Let me know what you think. Rachel GrafixMuse's Garden Spot Blog

Last year I tried a 2 x 8 planted 1 per square of indeterminate tomatoes of various varieties. I trained them up twine draped down from an overhead trellis. It worked but was a pain in the neck. They have to be de-suckered and trained to one stem if you are going to try to keep them in 1 per square foot. I have lots of room so this year I planted 12 in a 4 x 12 bed. That makes it 1 tomato per 4 square feet. That is way too much space for one tomato but I get diseases every year and I am trying to keep them spread apart this year. If you keep them all in that 4 x 8 bed, I do not know how you are going to get to the tomatoes on the inside of the box?? Spacing tomatoes is one of the hardest to get right. It all depends on if they are indeterminate or determinate, how you are going to support them and are you going to sucker or train them to one stem. Sorry, I am not much help. Maybe someone else with more experience will come along and help you. This post was edited by yolos on Sun, May 11, 14 at 18:35

Must be nice. Can I have some when they are ripe? My plants are over 4 feet tall. The last blossom sets here were 1 foot off the ground. No rain. No clouds. Intense sun. Either too dry or too hot (days) or too cold (nights) or too something. Now it's very August like weather. The yard is a nice crispy crunchy brown. All next week looks blazing hot. My guess is it will be mid-September before any more blossom set. If I can just keep the plants watered. Dang cracks in the earth never fill up when you stick the running hose in 'em.