Vegetable Garden Layout

Vegetable gardens can be laid out any number of ways. The single most important consideration is sunlight. Choose a spot that gets AT LEAST 6 hours of sunlight a day.

The size and the design will depend on how much space you have, how much space you can reasonably tend and what you want to grow. No matter how you lay out your vegetable garden, remember that you can only reach about 3 feet with your arm - remember to leave ample foot paths so you will be able to get to your veggies once they are growing.

Our vegetable garden is in the front yard - the only place where we get sufficient sunlight. It's about 14'X21'. We have a single 8'X8' raised bed in the center, surrounded by 3' deep beds, with 3' wide grass pathways (wide enough to allow the push mower and the wheelbarrow through).

Last year, we tried the Square Foot gardening method which suits our small space well. Square foot gardening lays out your vegetable garden of 4'X4' raised beds in 1 foot blocks, with different crops planted densely in each area. I found this worked well for some vegetables - carrots, lettuce and radish thrived in our square foot planting. The tomatoes, beans and cucumbers which were growing vertically using a trellis did not do so well. The tomatoes, particularly, seemed very susceptible to blight.

This year, we tried a variation on the square foot method - maintaining the principle of dense planting, but giving some of the bigger plants more room to grow. Rather than 1 square foot, each tomato enjoy abouts 15"x20". The beans (about 24 plants) climb a trellis in a 9 square foot area, another 30 plants share space with the corn. The cucumbers (about 14 plants) cover about 18 square feet. The carrots and lettuce are planted densely in 1 foot rows. I think the tomatoes are still too close together this year.

The only other consideration in layout is adding beneficial plants to the mix. Onions, garlic, basil and marigold all deter pests. In our small vegetable garden, simply having these plants somewhere in the garden helps.

Growing tomatoes

The tomatoes were struck with blight (tomato blight: Yellowing leaves with black spots). I have pruned off all the parts that were affected - huge swaths of undergrowth. The yellow tomato was pruned almost to death. All this wet weather naturally caused the spread of mold and spot diseases. I believe the blight has spread to the nearby eggplant.

Growing leeks from seed part 3

Leeks started indoors in early March. Here they are at 18 weeks. They are finally beginning to look like leeks and are a little fatter than a pencil. Onion varities are a good addition to the garden since they deter a lot of pests, but so far leeks have been slow and painful. In another 3-4 months, I think they could get there.

Growing Persian Cucumbers (part 2)

After an inauspicious beginning, the cucumbers are looking good. The marketmores that I bought as seedlings are larger, but the persian cucumbers started from seed are no less vigorous. The only effort has been keeping them growing along the trellis. A little bit of string and little bit of bending their tendrils did the trick. There are loads of flowers and many wee cucumbers already forming. The cucumbers were not growing earlier in the season.

Knee high by the 4th of July

In massachusetts the saying for corn is that it should be "knee high by the 4th of July." These stalks, planted May 21st are knee high at 6 weeks. The plentiful rain has been fueling their growth as well as every other week feeding. I've planted pole beans at the base of each stalk.

Growing tomatoes

The tomatoes are out of control. Despite my ongoing efforts to keep them pinched and pruned and growing in the right direction, they are running wild. I have lopped off 1/3 of the plants, but they just keep growing. The rain. The rain. The rain.

They are also lightly infested with a diverse ecosystem of insects. So far, they don't seem to be suffering too much from it. I've been feeding them about every 2 weeks with Neptune's garden. Each of the plants have loads of tomatoes growing.

These were planted May 10th from seedlings.

Growing spring vegetables

Despite the cool, wet weather, the spring vegetables were done by early July. The snap peas grew so tall they toppled over. The lettuce, mesclun and mache went to seed.

We've pulled the first round of carrots planted April 5th and ready from 11-13 weeks. There is a second crop of carrots still growing.

I've pulled the snap peas and lettuces. I've replaced the mache with parsnips planted July 3rd, and the snap peas with swiss chard. I'm leaving the lettuce section free to replant with lettuce in late August.

How to grow snap peas

The sugar snap peas from Renee's Garden grew to almost 7' tall (about 16 plants) in our 40"x14" plot. They were planted April 5th. From 11 to 14 weeks they produced delicious sweet peas - about 2.5 lbs worth.

We've had a wet season, but they required very little special care, other than the teepee wound with string to support them. I pulled them down on July 5th because they had grown so tall they toppled over in the wind, but I think they would have easily kept growing and producing peas! See snap peas grow.

I chopped the plants and composted them, but chopped up the roots and left them in the soil. The roots of peas fix nitrogen and pull it into the soil.

I have seeded the area with more swiss chard.

Growing hops

This hops vine found its own way into our vegetable garden this year. It is growing like crazy with all the rain we've had in Massachusetts in the month of June.

It popped up in the middle of the strawberry patch, and since the strawberries are done for the season, we gave it a trellis to climb.

Squash at 4 weeks

Squash plants at 4 weeks

Growing haricot verts

The beans are in!

I planted haricot verts and kentucky blue beans 11 weeks ago. The haricot verts came in first. We had the first of them for dinner tonight.

They were slow to get started, but so far they've been pest free and very little trouble

Carrots ready to eat

The nantes carrots planted 12 weeks ago are ready to eat. About 8" long and delicious. We had some the other night in a carrot ginger puree.

We have about 30 carrots growing in a 14"x20" space. They have been low maintenance and pretty easy to grow.