Square Foot Gardening

[Siliman]

Put the tomato on a corner?

Yea, here's a poor photo showing some tomatoes on corners of the beds. The most prominent is the grape tomato on the left box. Like 3/5 King said, you really need to control them better than this, especially if it intrudes on your walking paths or you just don't want things overflowing on the lawn. But stake them high and well, you get a lot of production.

In the right bed, at the back, are Early Girl and San Marzano. The best combo shown is the Chimayo pepper and the Beef Maestro (photo clipped on the right). The Maestro is a determinant that stayed low and produced a lot.

Tomatoes, peppers and onions can be good companions. Tomatoes can help provide shade, they usually fare better than most battling the sun. I'm sure they get overwhelmed in record TX heat waves, but that is where the tight spacing would be essential. The corners are prime real estate in a little box.

Anyway, this photo should help sq-ft gardeners realize just what they are in for. I might be an advocate as a "2-sq-ft gardener" in most plant companion situations.

 

[stickman]

The ground there is pretty much entirely clay, so there's no way I'm putting my stuff in the ground directly.

Why not? Add some sharp sand, gypsum and lots of humus (Compost). If you add enough compost you don't need the vermiculite. My Mom lives in western Massachusetts, and she has a lot of clay and blue shale in her soil, and she just adds lots of compost in the fall and ploughs it in. The sand will help open the soil structure up a bit and the gypsum will loosen it a bit so you don't get hard clods.

 

[nitwit]

good information sharing here

please try to do more than one strategy

if you have room consider a compost from your own stuff

like MAYBE consider composting everything that will break down

instead of putting it in the trash can put it in the compost pile (or bin)

if you dig into the unusable soil and try adding some composted or other stuff to it

it might come out the AMENDED clay stuff will work better than anything you can buy

(look at windchicken's grow it is in red clay) if you do not make an attempt it will never be found out as to how good it is

worm jizz is gaining some popularity also and it is almost FREE ( use the compost to feed them)

 

[snowmanaxp]

Here is my two cents.
I, like many other pepper growers, tend to start more plants than I have room for. I also have limited full sun places to plant my peppers and tomatoes.
One bed is in ground and is 14x4. The other is a raised bed of 8x3.5.

In each bed I put the peppers in the front and tomatoes, cucumbers and cantoupe in the back. I only do two rows in each bed, so there is about 2 feet of space between plants in different rows.

The first year (2009) I did 1 foot spacing down the row for my peppers. It worked, but it was a jungle and very difficult to get to the plants behind them.
In 2010 I did 1.5 foot spacing. Really not much better. Ast year I did 2 foot spacing and it was manageable. I could even get to the plants in back without too much trouble.

I think I'll stick with 2 foot spacing this year.

Overall, C.Annumms could probably deal with the 1 foot spacing and be OK. It was the C.Chinense that really spread and take over.

As for in ground vs raised bed, the in ground does better for me. The plants get larger by at least 50%. My raised bed is almost 100% strait compost. My in ground is a lot of "clay". I say "clay", because it really is rare to have very heavy clay. It may look like pure clay, but I would be surprised if it were.
Now don't get me wrong, the raised bed does a very good plant size. I'm in 7A/B outside of Raleigh NC. in ground my C.Chinense get to 4+ feet tall and close to that wide. They always hang way out of the beds. In the raised bed they don't get nearly as wide. But they still get to be over 3 feet tall.

 

[Nagel]

I used weed cloth under my raised bed with no problems. I just staple gunned the weed cloth to the underside of the wood frame.

No weed cloth for me.. On any bed, be it garden or flower. If it can't decompose on its own, I don't want to deal with it. Not to mention, I landscaped for a number of years on a crew, and pulled up miles of this stuff (in favor of putting in a proper raised bed).. I'd rather build my beds with mulch, compost and soil.. A properly made bed will never need landscape fabric. And think about it, if it prevents stuff from growing thru it, it also prevents roots from growing down. I'll post pics of my beds this summer when they are in bloom, and you'll see, mulch, plants, little to no weeds and almost no weeding on my part either

 

[patrick]

One of Marco's AISPES buddies could give you the info you need.Tony maybe? He posted some pics not that long ago of a couple of his pepper plants that were dripping with pods and would have fit in a 12"x12" space. He tied all of the branches together and forced them to grow up. Anyone else remember those pics? I and many others were seriously impressed.

 

[etothepii]

Yea, here's a poor photo showing some tomatoes on corners of the beds. The most prominent is the grape tomato on the left box. Like 3/5 King said, you really need to control them better than this, especially if it intrudes on your walking paths or you just don't want things overflowing on the lawn. But stake them high and well, you get a lot of production.

In the right bed, at the back, are Early Girl and San Marzano. The best combo shown is the Chimayo pepper and the Beef Maestro (photo clipped on the right). The Maestro is a determinant that stayed low and produced a lot.

Tomatoes, peppers and onions can be good companions. Tomatoes can help provide shade, they usually fare better than most battling the sun. I'm sure they get overwhelmed in record TX heat waves, but that is where the tight spacing would be essential. The corners are prime real estate in a little box.

Anyway, this photo should help sq-ft gardeners realize just what they are in for. I might be an advocate as a "2-sq-ft gardener" in most plant companion situations.

Raised bed + square foot = win!