Best source of info on Sq.Foot Gardening is the Sq. Foot gardening forum here or the SFG website http://www.squarefootgardening.org/.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Sq. Foot gardening forum

Thanks Dave. I looked for the square foot forum prior to posting this here, couldn't find it.. Sorry for my ignorance, I'm the new kid on the block

Joe

There is a lot of conflicting advice out there. For example, in the official materials, Mel says you can plant an indeterminate tomato every foot. But a lot of secondary sources say that's not enough, at least without some seriously intensive daily pruning; they recommend a 2'x2' area (with a cage instead of a trellis) at least. He also puts onions at 16/sq, but those are some pretty small onions. It also depends on where you are. Peppers and eggplants are supposed to be 1/sq, but Mel has obviously never grown them south of the Mason-Dixon! They get pretty big down here - sometimes even filling a 2'x2' square.

Oh, and on cucumbers and melons. Officially cukes are 2/sq, but the woman who runs mysquarefootgarden.net swears she plants them 8/sq (in two four-plant lines on either side of a trellis, like you would do pole beans or peas) and they grow and produce just fine. Melons and winter squash are supposed to take two squares each (plant them in the middle) but I've heard you can do 1/sq too.

I think a lot of this is going to depend on the health of the soil. Eliot Coleman "grows" healthy soil... super healthy soil, and spaces indeterminate tomatoes at 24" in a 30" bed. Says he could get away with less, but likes the ease of care at the wider spacing. In my experience, Toms need lots of air circulating around them to prevent disease. I don't know of anyone who grows more intensively than he does (12 rows of carrots in a 30" bed. Impressive!

Here is a link that might be useful: Lively Dirt - The Garden Blog

I'm doing sqfg this year too. I was planning on one tomato per square and my variety is better bush hybrid, so are you saying one square is not enough? This will mess up my whole plan LOL!
I was also under the impression that Mel suggested one cuke per square so if I can plant more than one that would be fab...my variety in spacemaster 80 Any advice???

I would rather see picture or videos than Liston to print in a book... From the videos I seen you can get nice yield out of trellised cukes with 4" spacing, I would go 6"spacing though... Planting tomatoes every foot does not seem like a good idea.. That being said your bush type us probably a determinate and stays fairly smaller than my indeterminate heirloom varieties i have... That's the exact reason asked, I didn't want my plans ruined! It's kind of good for me, I had to much space in my garden anyways! Perhaps I'll plant a cover crop...

Joe

I've been planting tomatoes for many years.
4 plants in a 45 inch row (less than 1ft apart)
I keep bottoms trimmed at least 1 foot from the soil.,
and trim back almost all outer growth so they just touch each other.
Stake them up straight with a SS tube, keep them tied to the stake.
The summer sun never hits them till around 1pm.
I have had great tomatoes, and plan to keep doing this with square foot this year.

Joe. ..too much space? That would be nice!

the reason there is conflicting info over the spacing in square foot method is some people do not read all info and details in book but only the spacing. Which is like try to garden from the cliff notes.

This post was edited by thegreatcob on Sat, Mar 16, 13 at 15:01

aillideSpain... again, Eliot Coleman goes into great detail about how they space and prune tomatoes and cucs for maximum production... but the health of the soil is still the most critical part.

Alilidespain:

I should of worded that differently,Could never have enough space for a garden, just for my plans at the time....

Thanks for all your post,

Joe