Blank canvas ... help me with placement

[BrianIllinois]

Hoping for some advice on plant placement. The pix below show my raised beds. One photo shows my two new ones -- each 4 feet by 18 feet. The other photo shows the one I put in last year -- 8 feet by 16 feet.

[img]https://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g338/brianillinois/IMG_5796.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g338/brianillinois/IMG_57982.jpg[/img]

Here are a couple of my issues:
1. The older bed had mostly tomatoes last year, also a couple eggplants, and some other stuff. I wouldn't mind putting my tomatoes there again this year, but I've seen posts suggesting rotation of tomato plantings.
2. I want to put a few blackberry and raspberry plants somewhere. I've read that you shouldn't put blackberries where tomatoes or eggplants were planted before, and that you shouldn't grow tomatoes or eggplants too close to the berries.

Here's what I mostly enjoy growing: tomato (favorite), eggplant, zucchini, lettuce, turnip, cukes. I'm also putting in 10 aspargus crowns, which arrived today and are soaking in water, ready to plant tomorrow. Two triple crown blackberries are on the UPS truck.

As you can perhaps see, I've got a few cold-weather items in the older bed. If I need that space for tomatoes, I'm willing to dig up some or all of the cold-weather stuff.

One of my main questions is, can I put blackberry in one of the new beds, and tomato in the other? Or will they be too close?

Thanks in advance for your help. Just found this forum recently, and I've been devouring it!

[DoubleDogFarm]

I will start with observations.

Your beds are on the North side of the house. When were the photos taken? Have you been watching shadow patterns? How long will the house cause shade?

The tree is dormant. It will also cause shade after it fully leafs out.

One bed is East / West while the other is North / South. Was this for aesthetics? Looks like you may have set it up to fence out the pup?

Eric

[BrianIllinois]

Thanks, Doubledog.

The beds are actually on the south of my house. The house pictured is a neighbor's. The shade you see in the picture is from my shed, 12 by 12. The picture was taken very late in the afternoon.

The tree is probably coming down, at least after this year. It's a volunteer that popped up after the tree was completely sheered off during a storm.

The two new beds in the L-shape run parallel with two of my property lines (south line and east line). Next year, I will probably add another bed, same shape, between the dog and the bed that is closer in the picture. You can maybe see the round manhole cover in the picture, which was one of the factors in why I arranged the beds the way I did.

Thanks for your observations. Any suggestions?

[garden5]

Well, for a main rule of thumb, keep the taller plants and plants that you are going to trellis on/near the northern side and the west side if you get the morning sun/east side if you get the evening.

The point is so that the taller plants don't shade the smaller ones. However, this can be advantageous with plants that can't handle heat well and like to be shaded.

[jal_ut]

This time of year and especially through June, the sun is high over head. You don't need to worry much about garden plants shading each other. The tree will shade the beds a bit, and tree roots sure suck up water. I will let you decide the fate of the tree.

About rotating the tomatoes, If you had no diseases last year, I would not worry much about it.

I have never grown blackberry plants, but will say a few raspberry plants will soon take over your whole bed unless you draw a line and keep jerking them out when they cross the line.

I would put the asparagus in a bed where the berries are not.