Annual P E T C Meeting

[lakngulf]

Ok, folks, it is time to pony up and come clean at the annual P E T C (plants everything too close) meeting. We have made a lot of progress with some over the years but still, every little bit of bare soil seems to be getting a seed or a small plant. And then what happens? We see the reason so many belong to the PETC club.

In this one spot = six tomato plants, eleven stalks of corn and one egg plant.






But, hey, I am learning. Look at the space I left between these two row of tomatoes at my Mother's house. Of course, I have running vines of sweet potatoes ready for that spot

[Lindsaylew82]

Every single thing in my garden is planted too close. Everything! Yet there's still plantless ground. Must fill. I put out more tomato plants than I have stakes for, so some will be strung laterally between shared stakes...it's gonna get messy!

I *should* thin my okra... But I likely won't. Maybe I could thin and transplant into open spots!!! Beans will not be thinned, and I literally planted the rows 6" apart, so I won't be able to weed them using any tools.. Nice pickins there! I also planted 2 more rows than I normally do because I didn't want to "waste" seed.

My mulch was HEAVILY seeded with wheat... I'm currently growing an unintentional cover crop/lawn AS MULCH!.... One of these years I will learn. In the mean time....

Marlingardener, I'm really glad you give your excess to the food bank! We do that here as well with stuff that doesn't freeze well or can well! Squash and zucchini are always in excess here!

[kayjay]

Hello, my name is KayJay and I plant everything too close together.

I don't have much choice, though... my vegetable gardening space is about the size of a closet. If you look at the pic below, the sun basically goes from right to left all day. Where you see shade, that's shade all day except for the jog in the fence on the right. That gets late-day sun, hence the tomato in a bucket to give it needed height earlier in spring.

I'm getting better at managing it, though. I forgot about my radish seeds last year, and this year, I want to interplant them. I also want to max out my leaf crops like lettuce and spinach, because I can yank them and eat them any time I decide I want/need more space. And this year, I'm going to sacrifice those pretty purple petunias in the baskets with dwarf cherry tomatoes.

[imafan26]

It should be the too close and too many club. I sometimes start too many and run out of room, so even planting closer, I still have too many left over.

[applestar]

I am currently in denial ....

[Lindsaylew82]

Today I planted 3 types of corn. Their spacing ranged from 8" to 16" apart. So I just planted them all 10" apart, and I didn't leave space between blocks. Harvesting should be interesting...

[Gary350]

I did good this year I planted 4 rows of corn, 20 foot long rows, 36" apart, 6" seed spacing, that gives me 160 plants. As we all know a small crop of corn does not pollenate well so I may have stalks with no corn. I am guilty of P E T C for many years of other corn crops.

[Taiji]

Had I known there was such a club I would have joined years ago!

[PinkPetalPolygon]

Teehee! You know? I really really really try to avoid belonging to this club!!!

When I met my MIL (we kinda started gardening together 3-4 years ago. I say kinda because she has been farting with flowers for years, and growing tomatoes for 3 years... but together we go BIG!!! It is kind of like she thinks it up and I execute it because I'm more able to do the physical stuff than she is... actually, she should be on bed rest/not overdosing on gardening because she is having surgery in July. So I will be her gardener then. And her son will help me. Hah.)

Annnywaaay, when I met her she told me that she thought tomatoes liked being next to eachother, like on top of eachother.

I had to try to convince her that wasn't the case. I think she had 15 tomatoes in a place where only 6.5 would actually fit fit one year. Her sister gave her seedlings, and she kept planting them.

I know last year she had 12 plants where 6 would fit. And we didn't know the definition of "bush type" tomato plants then when we bought them from the store??? I actually feel vaguely guilty about the bush goliath and roma tomato that perished beneath the early girl and the I don't remember what. They didn't have a chance!

After ripping out their unfortunate corpses from beneath the canopy of tomatoes last year... (okay it wasn't that tragic, to be honest I forgot about them both one day until I happened to be digging under the branches of leaves when the plants were like 7 feet tall, and happened to look over to see 2 deceased tomato plants beneath the other I didn't even remember existed )

I asked Sue (my garden partner) if she remembered other tomato plants having been under or between such and such tomato plants, and by golly, she remembered there had been a bush roma and a bush goliath, but had also forgotten about those plants in our sea of tomatoes too until I mentioned them. So not quite upsetting but definitely a waste.

This year it was up to me to plant and space everything! Ooh I actually picked out most of the tomatoes. the first time. No comment, haha. (Okay so the second time/when we had to buy some replacement plants we didn't research enough and ended up with some forecasted to be 5 feet tall plants/compact type plants in places I wouldn't of minded having a giant plant?) But I'm hoping that won't matter and everyone will bush out and not stick out like "what happened there"

Yeah huh, wouldn't idealism be nice.

I'll be darned if I didn't like, uhm, bring some plants over (a lavender and chamomile) and not have a place to put them where I wasn't crowding things. I put the lavender in a pot, and I haven't decided where to stick the chamomile. After that I know I'm DONE putting stuff in the ground until fall.

I looooooooove the part where I spaced the tomato patch that had 15 tomato plants all crazy with 7 plants this year, specifically the part where now they are finally big enough to use all their space!!! (MIL was a little worried that they looked sparse or wouldn't fill out, but omg...

In the other part of her yard I'm actually doubting some placements of tomatoes!!! And I thought there would be more than enough room. I stand corrected!! It isn't "bad" exactly but the dimensions impressed me. (Hehe that's a pleasant mistake to have though, I must admit! Your tomato plants being much huger than you ever imagined. to a certain point)

And I definitely found that certain point in my own garden at home.

Omggg, I planted a baby barbeque rosemary next to my black beauty zucchini? I had no idea in the world zucchini plants grew so big?

I gave it the sunniest spot in my garden, and last year it had one of the least sunny spots?

I planned that part of my garden based on what the zucchini plant did in the shade without ever being fertilized the year before.

I might hafta eventually remove a few leaves of the zucchini plant so it doesn't put the lil' rosemary directly UNDER it for all of time.

I actually didn't even BELIEVE in having flowers in the same pot until I saw a big book teaching you how? Like uhm, planting them together?

I looked at my MIL like she was crazy when she talked about wanting to put stuff together in pots to make it look fuller. I would always suggest my line of thinking that if you plant two plants together and just leave them there (unless they literally compliment eachother and are "meant" to be grown together) - I always felt like two plants in the same pot just fight each other for nutrients? And eventually you'd have to repot them.

I guess eventually you have to repot everything but I don't like the idea of having to repot things because one thing is killing the other.

It does kind of feel like rooster fighting or dog fighting but with plants!!! Slow motion but still a fight. (I am against humans putting creatures against each other obviously, or I hope that's obvious!)

I think in the book I read, you planted everything together, then let it grow, and everything would work great for a while, and then of course, they're flowers so they burst and bloom and in this case with the arrangements, after a few months you'd make yourself another one. So it wouldn't really matter if they were "fighting", it would just be a pretty fight you set up to get fought out, then you switch it out anyway.

Actually it sounds kind of fun. But I am kind of into... planting a plant, seed, or cutting, then giving it enough space so it doesn't have to fight anything else... then repotting it eventually. And trying to keep it. Rather than just watching it go brown quickly and then I "lose" it. (Hah sentiments!)

I guess the types of plants I put in pots are ones I am trying to keep for as long as possible as opposed to the ones you'd replace after a few months.

I like herbs! & I digress.

But I liked your OP.

I read a lot before I do anything, and I actually kind of force myself to measure and then give it like 5 more inches than I "have" to? And know that it'll still probably need 1 foot more than "they say" if you're lucky/rewarded for your efforts and you have a bumper crop?

I mean, I giggle, at humans trying to force plants into spaces, and I hope all the space runs out and they don't know what to do with all their produce*.

*unless the lack of space becomes seriously detrimental!

P.S. crop rotation is of serious importance, as is gentle!! & timely fertilization but that's another subject.

[lakngulf]

Teehee! You know? I really really really try to avoid belonging to this club!!!


It does kind of feel like rooster fighting or dog fighting but with plants!!! Slow motion but still a fight. (I am against humans putting creatures against each other obviously, or I hope that's obvious!)

Ahhhh Hmmmmmm With that being said....I think we will adjourn for tonight!

[Lindsaylew82]

Teehee! You know? I really really really try to avoid belonging to this club!!!


It does kind of feel like rooster fighting or dog fighting but with plants!!! Slow motion but still a fight. (I am against humans putting creatures against each other obviously, or I hope that's obvious!)

Ahhhh Hmmmmmm With that being said....I think we will adjourn for tonight!

HaaaaaaAAAAAAAA!

[applestar]

I always felt like the big vining winter squash/pumpkin are like army/ground forces on the move, branching left and right to be aimed, directed and moved but zucchini and squash are like tanks rolling over everything in their path, nearly impossible to change directions, though I sometimes will execute the extreme roll -- flop the vine from one side to another to very "slightly" alter course.

[lakngulf]

I always felt like the big vining winter squash/pumpkin are like army/ground forces on the move, branching left and right to be aimed, directed and moved but zucchini and squash are like tanks rolling over everything in their path, nearly impossible to change directions, though I sometimes will execute the extreme roll -- flop the vine from one side to another to very "slightly" alter course.

Very good description. I seem to always have squash near okra and this time of the year the okra is trying to decide if it is safe and warm enough to take off and the squash just sends big leafs everywhere. Just the other day I broke off a few zucchini leaves so some okra could get some sun.

[Lindsaylew82]

It's time to thin some seedlings I just started.....

And by thin I mean tuck the extras into every nook and cranny I can think of, which will DEFINITELY crowd things even MORE!

[lakngulf]

Here's what one section of my garden looks like today.






That one area has Okra, Squash, Corn, and Tomatoes in the containers. When a tomato plant dies (as it is apt to do in older soil) corn is immediately planted. Oh and one sweet potato in a pot.