jason9111
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:46 pm
Location: North Carolina

NEED HELP WITH VEGETABLE PLANTS

I am kind of new to the whole gardening thing, but this year I decided to give it a try. Went to a local greenhouse, bought a bunch of plants, peppers, cantaloupe, squash, tomatoes, okra, eggplant, and some watermelon. I made a garden using raised rows, really just for neatness and not knowing any better considering my soil is not very sandy. Tilled everything up, put up a nice fence to keep rabbits, squirrels, and neighbors dogs that they don't keep on a leash out. The garden is approximatly 16'x20' with the rows being 16' with about 2' space between each row. I just planted all this stuff, with the exception of the watermelon. After seeing the spacing, I decided to stick that somewhere else. My entire garden receives full sunlight and I water at early morning. This is my setup from left to right:
1st row - Tomatoes (8)
2- Cabbage (8)
3-Empty
4- Cantaloupe (4)
5- Squash (4) opposite end of cantaloupe (spacing)
6- Okra (8)
7- Green peppers (4) & Eggplant (4)
8- Habanero (4) & Chili peppers (4)
9- Empty row

This is the problem. I am looking for something to plant on the final empty row and I would like to know how you all feel about this layout. Completely new to the gardening thing. I lost my whole garden and had to replant all of this after overfertilizing. I changed a few things but pretty much left it all the same. Also, every afternoon around 5pm the plants look like they are just starving for water. I just planted them about 3 days ago and have watered them every morning very well. I don't know if I need to put some mulch or something around them to absorb a little moisture. They look limp, but after I water, they perk up. Thanks for all your help.

chefshelle
Full Member
Posts: 52
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 11:34 am
Location: Jefferson City, Missouri

Hi Jason! Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you are off to a good start.

One thing that I have learned is to put vine plants, like cantaloupe, cucumbers & squash on the outsides of my garden. Because they are so large and spread out, I am able to at least lead the vines out of the garden so they are not growing on everything else.

I also plant my garden by height as much as possible. The tallest starts on the North...so corn is always on the North side of the garden. This helps prevent the other plants from being shaded by the taller ones.

Mulch would not be a bad idea to help retain the moisture. How much water are you giving them in the morning? Maybe a soaker hose & timer would help. I know that when I am just standing there watering, it's never long enough!

What about some bush green beans in row number 3? Striker is a good one. Maybe for the last row...cucumbers?

Just my 2 cents. Hope it helps! Send pics if you can...I'd love to see it!

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jal_ut
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Posts: 7447
Joined: Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:20 pm
Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

You are off to a great start! I think your plants will do better with the watering after they have had some time to get new roots going. Right now they are still working with the roots that were in the pots.

Also you mentioned starting over because of overfertilizing. Are you still in the same soil? Too much fertilizer draws the water out of the plants and if you are still in that same soil, you may have to water diligently until the situation repairs itself. Good heavy waterings help with this situation.

What to plant? Green beans would be good. What do you like to eat? Plant something you like. Spinach, lettuce, carrots, radish. Most all garden varieties can be grown from seed planted where it will grow in the garden. In many cases direct seeding produces better results. Squash, cucumbers, and watermelons always do better direct seeded. I like to get tomato and pepper plants from the nursery. Everything else I grow from seed planted directly in the garden where it will grow.

Layout? As your plants grow, you will get a feel for how large they actually get. The squash especially get huge. You may find your squash and cantaloupes crawling all over the stuff in the next row.

You can plant radish in between squash and cants and they will mature before the squash get too large, or plant them between your peppers.

Enjoy!

hmmm
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:05 pm
Location: Raleigh

I would move the cabbage back a row and plant onions. Tomatoes and cabbage do not go well together, but onions and tomatoes do.



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