pointer80
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Location: northern Michigan

help with garden layout

Hello all, Does anybody know of a good resource to help me design my 400 sq. ft. garden. it is a row garden and need a good layout. I want to plant tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, corn, watermelons, squash, cukes, pumpkins, and cantaloupe. Is this too much? Thanks for the help..

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rainbowgardener
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well.... it depends on how many plants of each you want and the varieties, but watermelons, pumpkins, cantaloupe are all very large spreading plants. Squash can be, but there are bush varieties that are more compact. Cucumbers can be, but they are not hard to grow up a trellis to save space. It would help if you would grow smaller varieties of watermelon (like sugar baby) and pumpkin (baby pam, small sugar pumpkin). But still your pumpkin plant is going to be 15 ft wide or so and the sugar baby watermelon has a spread of 6-8 ft. And that will basically produce one or two watermelon and one or two pumpkin. If you leave out the pumpkin and watermelon, you can grow a LOT more of everything else! (And who even eats pumpkins!)

imafan26
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Location: Hawaii, zone 12a 587 ft elev.

It also depends how you are going to manage it. If you are using big toys it would be managed differently than if you are just going to use hand tools.
How about a fence to keep animals out
https://www.sunset.com/garden/garden-bas ... try-garden

https://www.growveg.com/guides/how-to-p ... tep-guide/

I like to start out with a plan that has already been worked out for companions and note the compass direction for the plants to make sure they don't shade each other. I look at several of them and pick out the one I like best and resize it. I substitute plants I don't really like or can't grow with other plants that will still be good companions and work in the plan.
https://www.celpics.com/?image=https://pl ... n%20Layout

https://www.bhg.com/gardening/plans/vegetable/
Sometimes you don't need the whole plan but can use some of the ideas. Like locating the compost pile in the garden. It is a good idea since that would be the fallow plot and the compost would be right where you need it. The compost pile would rotate with the other plants. Hoop beds are good if you plant cabbages and other things you want to protect from insects as much as possible.
You also have to figure out even if you row plant, how you are going to navigate between the rows. If the whole plot is corn, it would be laid out differently from a mixed garden. In a mixed garden you want succession planting. At the same time you want to have continuous harvest and hopefully not everything comes in at the same time. The first year will be a lot of experimenting with what works and what doesn't and how much of each thing you want and how to space the planting so you prolong the harvest. You will also have to experiment a bit to see which varieties will do the best for your growing conditions.
https://www.groundedandsurrounded.com/ve ... rden-plan/

pointer80
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Posts: 233
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 1:50 pm
Location: northern Michigan

thanks so much

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jal_ut
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Can you tell us what your garden dimensions are? In other words what is the shape of the garden? Square? Long and thin? If it is something like 15 feet by 25 feet, you could put the rows the short way and have 15 foot rows. Plant 3 rows of corn, move over plant 3 rows of beans. move over and plant the other plants in what space is left. If you wait till the corn is three inches tall you can plant the squash and pumpkins in the corn patch.

pointer80
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Location: northern Michigan

the garden is 34 long by 12 wide. the 34 length runs north/ south, 12 is east/ west

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jal_ut
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Excellent. I am thinking plant four rows of corn then. "12 feet long, spaced 30 inches". Corn is a big plant so it needs some room to grow. It also benefits from company so it gets pollinated right. Have fun!

pointer80
Senior Member
Posts: 233
Joined: Sun Mar 24, 2013 1:50 pm
Location: northern Michigan

thank you



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