I'd plant vegetables and herbs.

In order to get the most harvest in the space available, I'd raise everything I could vertically, using cages or trellises to grow everything possible in an upward manner.

I'd concentrate the most on warm-season crops if space was an issue. With limited space, you couldn't plant very many warm-season crops until your cool-season crops were harvested, and that might get your warm-season crops off to a late start. In general, my warm-season crops outproduce the cool-season ones by a huge margin, likely because we get too hot so early. The exception to that is cool-season root crops like bulbing onions and potatoes, but if all I had was a 100 s.f. bed, I wouldn't plant either of them because they occupy a lot of space for a long time before you harvest them.

I'd grow tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, pole beans and some sort of vining melon--probably a muskmelon(commonly but inaccurately referred to as cantaloupe in the USA). I'll also put in one vining squash plant on a trellis. I'll grow herbs at the front of the bed. They don't take up a lot of space and can sort of hang over the edge of the bed a bit.

For specific varieties of each, it would depend on what you like. If you want a slicing tomato, Celebrity, Jetstar and Better Boy all are very dependable producers. For a cherry tomato, I'd go with SunGold or Black Cherry. Of those two, SunGold produces earlier and more heavily in my garden. If you don't want to grow a cherry tomato plant, your second tomato plant (if you plant two) could be an early-maturity variety like Early Girl, Bush Early Girl or Early Goliath.

With peppers, the ones I'd chose would depend on how I want to use them. In my garden, I grow a lot of jalapeno peppers, but if you don't eat a lot of hot peppers, then a sweet bell or mini sweet bell would make better use of the space. Blushing Beauty is a fairly compact sweet pepper that always produces huge loads of sweet peppers in our garden.

For pole beans, there are many good ones and I'd use one with earlier DTMs to get the best yield in the heat. Rattlesnake is a great one because it produces very well despite the heat. It is not as early as some other pole bean varieties, but it makes up for it by producing so well in the heat.

I grow Hale's Best Jumbo muskmelons using a tomato cage or fence for support and use fabric slings to support the weight of the enlarging fruit.

We like squash and zucchini and eat a lot of it, so I'd likely plant a Seminole winter squash plant on a trellis....and let it escape the garden and grow down the fenceline, and for summer squash I'd plant a Raven zucchini plant on one edge of the bed so it could spill over the edge (if you put it right in the middle of the bed, it is going to crowd out whatever is on either side of it).

If you want to put in cool-season crops you could plant lettuce along the front edge of your bed in the area that will be devoted to herbs later on. You could plant a vining edible-podded pea like Super Sugar Snap in the area where you'll plant pole beans and a vining squash later on.

A single row of onions, to be harvested every few days as scallions, wouldn't take up a lot of space and would you give you a steady flow of green onions for months. You will get a faster crop starting with small plants bought in a bundle. Just plant them an inch or two apart since you're growing them for scallions and they won't need the space to form big bulbs.

You could put in small, round carrots (or shorter ones like Sweet 'N Neat or Little Finger) and radishes. They could grow at the feet of taller plants and not take up much room. Our first year here, I grew lettuce, radishes and carrots as a solid ground cover under my tomato plants. Since they are cool-season crops, I planted them first, scatter-sowing the seed randomly and thinning the seedlings later, and came back at tomato transplanting time and inserted the tomato seedlings right into the middle of them. That bed produced huge loads of everything that year.

For herbs, grow the ones you like to use in cooking. There are some very compact forms of basil available. Chives are another herb that give you a good harvest in a small space. Some rosemary varieties stay pretty compact too. I'd never put mint in a bed with anything else. If you want to grow mint, I'd put it in a pot.

With 100 square feet, I wouldn't plant strawberries. They don't produce long enough in our heat to justify planting them when space is very limited.

I'm going to link an article from Mother Earth News about Rosalind Creasy's 100 square foot garden bed. Although I think her climate is not as tough on plants, especially cool-season ones, as ours is, I think her production from a 100 s.f. bed could be matched in our climate, though we can't get as much lettuce as she did because the heat ends our lettuce season pretty quickly.

Fruit trees can be somewhat demanding and production can be limited by late frosts and hail storms. I grow fruit, but have learned to be content with a good harvest only about one year out of every three. Even with proper variety selection, our erratic spring weather...including too many 'hot' days in the winter, often cause stone fruit trees to bloom too early and then the young fruit get frozen off the tree by late frosts. My last good fruit year was 2010, but it was an exceptionally good year. Last year the trees bloomed too early and got hit by hail multiple times and we didn't get any fruit at all.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Rosalind Creasy's 100 Square Foot Garden

Instead of planting your pole beans after you have pulled out the pole sugar snaps, you might try leaving spaces on the trellis to interplant the beans in April. Pole beans take up more space than peas. (I plant peas 2" apart, beans 4-6") and beans get much taller (some will grow 15 ft if they have a nearby tree to escape into.)than peas. By spacing the beans out you could let them grow to the top of the trellis and then along the top. I can tell you from experience that beans planted too closely on a 6 ft trellis make a tangled mess that is a pain to pick.

I believe you said you will grow sweet potatoes in the front yard, as an edible ornamental. That's a good idea because one plant can cover almost a 100 sq ft. Although we plant ours closer together than that and just let the vines tangle up together.

You didn't mention cucumbers. we love cucumbers and grow them in cages or on trellises. The armenian is particularly tasty--and technically a melon, but looks and tasts like cucumber.

Be sure to thin your beets very early. Beet seed comes in a capsule that has 3 or 4 seeds in each capsule. They won't make good roots if you leave them like that, so even if you sow sparingly, you need to thin. The thinnings can go into a salad.

There are space saving varieties of summer squash that you might try.

If you like radishes, the fall radishes are delicious and store well. We raise Chinese Red Meat and Daikon. (Daikons get huge. Two or three are plenty for us. They are better steamed or stirfried than raw. Watermelon is similar to CRM.

The oriental greens do well in the fall. Bok Choy or Toy Choi are good in stirfries. And spinach and kale are very cold hardy, as are some of the lettuces. In a mild winter like this you can pick all winter if you give a bit of protection. If you like arugula and cilantro they also do better in fall. Dill is not quite as cold hardy but will take a light frost.

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for the helpful responses!

I thought it might help to attach a diagram of my little garden layout. The way I wrote my original post I think it gave the impression that this is going to be one bed. The north and west walls are my 6' privacy fence, which will have cattle panels attached for trellising. The other two sides will have 3' rabbit fencing. Over the entrance (east end) and bench (west end) there will be arbors, each 4' wide, 6' tall and 2' deep. All in all, I think there will be a lot of opportunities for trellising. The sides are made up of two 8'x2' boxes end to end, and the west and east ends have a 2'x2' box on either side of the arbor. The bed in the middle is 4'x8'. I was hoping this would make it easier to rotate crops (plus I am trying to resize my existing beds so I don't need to buy any new wood).

Here is a link that might be useful: My 2012 Garden Plan

We started our first vegetable garden in Spring 2009 with just 64 sqft (8x8) area, within this space we had tomatoes (2), eggplants (4), chill/peppers (6), Okra (6), Cabbage (4), Broccoli (2), spinach, carrots, peas, radish. Production was not bad, we had great harvest, indeed 2009 was one of the best year for gardening. Below are pics of our first garden; I cannot believe we has such small garden!

Spring 2009;
{{gwi:1080725}}

Summer 2009;
{{gwi:1080726}}

-Chandra

Please don't laugh at the tomato cages, I was not aware how to use them that time, I installed upside down, LOL!

Chandra,

I think you're great! Thanks for today's laugh!

Seedmama

I think those tomato cages work just as well that way. I would plant what you like to eat. Personally I have to grow salad vegetables and tomatoes because I can eat tomatoes breakfast lunch and dinner. Radishes and green onions are nice in the spring for the fast results you get. I like cucumbers because I don't eat them at the size you find them in the grocery store. I like them before the seeds get tough. What in your opinion can you buy at the store that tastes almost as good as garden grown? Don't use your space for those things.

i echo helenh's "plant what you like to eat" suggestion. :-)

from your attached layout, it seems like you've got a great opportunity to trellis as much as you can. you also have a great space in the middle for whatever won't or can't be trellised. my suggestion is for you to determine what you really want to grow, and then let your space determine where it goes.

one other suggestion - you can always grow herbs in pots if you don't want to devote the garden space to them. many herbs do well that way, and i echo dawn's advice about mint: pot that plant!

- katie k.

I agree with Helen. Grow what you like the most and what you either can't find in the store or what is a lot better home grown. Although everything is better. You can find some crops that you can buy at a store where the difference isn't as great as other crops. What I would grow in your area would vary somewhat from what everyone else would grow in it. I know several growers who not only plant sweet potatoes in flower beds and borders but also onions, red okra and even 1-2 colored peppers like the yummy. I have grown many of my herbs in the annual beds. They mix them in their beds where they have annuals. They look nice and also provide food value. So there are many ways to stretch limited space. You have some good ideas and have been offered some great suggestions. It is hard for me to suggest varieties not knowing your climate well. What does well for me in my semi arid climate with strong winds may not perform in your garden. Jay

Thanks so much everyone for the responses. You all have given me much encouragement and good ideas, and also some things to think about that I hadn't considered.

KatieK, I think I will try your suggestion to grow herbs and maybe a few other things in the front yard, which is so much bigger than the back yard and faces south, so it gets lots of sun. It makes sense to grow herbs, especially perennial ones, with the ornamental perennials. My HOA prohibits growing vegetables in the front yard, but I think as long as it looks ornamental, nobody will care. So that takes care of the herbs.

Dawn, I've had that very problem you mention the last two years - warm season crops being delayed while waiting on the cool season crops to be ready to harvest. You have given me some excellent suggestions on how to deal with this. I had not thought of planting warm season crops among the cool season, since by the time they need the extra space the cool season crops will be gone. That is brilliant! I was also thinking that if I plant my cold season crops really early, and plan on having to cover them sometimes, that that might help too. Reason is, I adore spinach, lettuce and snap peas, and they are SO expensive to buy organic. Has anyone tried that, and if so, how did it work out? Was it worth the trouble? I actually have some spinach and lettuce growing out there right now, but it grows very slowly due to the shorter days I'm guessing.

Wow, Chandra, that garden is amazing! It is just overflowing with produce. I didn't even notice the tomato cages were upside down till I saw your comment :)

I have a couple of other questions but will post them separately so this thread doesn't get too bogged down.

Thanks again!

Shelley

Dawn, I just read that article by Rosalind Creasy, and that is very motivating and encouraging. Thank you for posting it.

The yields she got were incredible. Gives me hope that my little garden can produce a significant amount of food too, as I get more experience under my belt. I would not have thought that lettuce could possibly produce a pound per plant, and nearly 40 pounds per tomato plant? Has anybody here gotten yields like this??

Canokie,
If you have a place the best way to grow greens, lettuce and spinach early that I have found is in cold frames or hot frames. You can either buy them or build them fairly cheap depending on your preference and how nice you want them to look. I plan on setting out a tray or two of lettuce, spinach in the lean to this weekend. It maybe about finished by the time I'm filling it with plants. If it isn't I'll move it to a cold frame for a few weeks. Another option to extend the season and to protect cool season and early planted warm season crops in low tunnels. I will post a link from another GW forum. You might find it interesting and might give you some ideas for the future. These are growers in the Rocky Mountain region and shows how they grow things all year long basically. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Season Extension

I grow what I like to eat AND what is expensive to buy.

MY #1 every year is all kinds of herbs. They are super pricey in the grocery store, and so easy to grow. Most herbs are carefree. If I could grow NOTHING else, I would grow herbs.

#2 is strawberries. They did fantastic last year and produced a ton before May/June when the drought/heat kicked in. We are still enjoying freezer jam from the bumper crop, with six jars to go. Organic strawberries are insanley expensive, but SO easy to grow (for me).

after that it gets tougher. We like to eat carrots, but growing them is challenging. Plus even the organic baby carrots are pretty cheap at Sam's club. We LOVE to eat tomatoes, but mine didn't do well at all last year. Even so, Tomatoes would likely be my #3 pick. I just love fresh tomatoes so much that I am willing to work hard and sacrifice space for them.

I wouldn't bother with potatoes if space was an issue, because they are so insanely cheap to buy.

#4...probably sunchokes. They are also insanely easy to grow (even invasive), delicious, and cost a million dollars in the stores.

Beans and peas of any kind have never done well enough for me to warrant the space they take vs cost at the store. I do grow a few though because my kids like to snack on them fresh.

For a few dollars (under $5) I bought several Dixondale onion sets at Farmer's Feed in Sapulpa, and I had many many many pounds of onions. That $5 likely returned $100, and they were easy too.

I am trying to grow berries (blueberries raspberries blackberries) because they cost so much to buy. My brambles did pretty well last year. I only got a few blueberries, but the bushes are still very young.

Asparagus is also near the top of my list. It is yummy, pricey, and once you get it established you will have it free for years. I plan to start a large bed of it in a year or so when my house is built.

Jo

Shelley,

Because I don't have an actual space issue in the garden (the issue I have is that I still try to plant too much in the space I do have), I usually don't plant peas and beans in the same bed at the same time, although I have done it upon occasion.

In a year when I put the peas and beans in the same bed in order to use the same trellis for both, here's how I do it:

The pea trellis bed is 30' long x 4' wide, with the 30-foot part running from east to west. The semi-permanent trellis (I could move it, but haven't) has about a 1' wide planting area between the trellis and the wooden edging on the north side of the bed, and a 3' wide planting area on the south side of the bed, between the trellis itself and the edge of the bed. I plant my sugar snap peas in the 1' wide area north of the trellis, planting the peas about 3 or 4" from the trellis. In the remaining ground on that side, I grow cool season herbs and flowers, like chamomile, cilantro, chives, and Laura Bush petunias (they are both cold-hardy and very heat-tolerant). The peas usually go into that bed in February or earliest March.

At about the same time, I plant cabbage plants (mini varieties that do not become huge monsters) and sweet alyssum alongside the board that edges the southern side of that bed. That leaves a big open area between the row of cabbages and the trellis, and it is in that area that I'll come back later and plant beans when the temps are warmer. I usually plant beans in April. By the time the snap pole beans are starting to climb up the trellis pretty well, the sugar snap peas are already pretty tall. This planting plan works because by the time the snap bean plants are tall enough and thick enough to start shading the pea plants a lot, the warmer conditions are arriving and the pea plants are nearing the end of their productive period.

When the peas finish, I cut off the plants above the soil line (pulling them up could disrupt the root systems of other plants in the bed) and yank them out of the bed. If the bean and pea plants have become intertwined on the trellis, I have to spend extra time removing the pea plants without damaging the bean plants. That's the reason I don't plant them this way all the time. I used to plant them in the same bed all the time, but then we raised the garden fence taller the last couple of years and now I grow most of my beans on the garden fence, which gives me oodles of built-in trellis to use.

One could assume the cabbage, nasturtiums and sweet alyssum would be in my way when it is time to pick beans, but they really aren't. Usually the cabbage is through producing by the time beans are ready to pick. How well the sweet alyssum and nasturtiums are doing just depends on the heat and rainfall or lack of such. Sometimes they make it all summer and sometimes they don't, but if they are still there when I'm harvesting beans, I just watch where I stand and try not to damage them too much.

Planting early pays off sometimes and sometimes it doesn't. Even cool-season veggies will sit and stall and make very slow growth when the temps are cooler than they prefer. That's one reason that planting early often doesn't pay off in terms of an earlier harvest if the temps stay very cold after you plant early. If you can cover the early plants with a low tunnel, you can keep them warmer by creating a warm microclimate around them. I have used floating row covers for several years. At first I used them only to protect plants on occasional cold nights that occurred after my recommended planting time arrived and I had plants in the ground, but increasingly I am using them to allow me to plant earlier than recommended by keeping the plants and soil warmer. It works most of the time, and last year I used frost-blanket weight row covers to save virtually my entire garden, including tomato plants that were 3' tall when a late frost and freeze hit our property the first week in May. I shouldn't have a frost or freeze that late, but for the last 4 or 5 years we have. My average last frost date is March 28th, but it is increasingly necessary to protect the plants much later than you'd think I'd have to.

Rosalind Creasy's yields are so high because she is a highly accomplished gardener (she is a landscape designer and author) who is raising crops in a very favorable climate in California, and she knows her climate well. She also chooses very productive varieties. Can we match her yields or come close to matching them? Sure we can, but only in years where the weather is nice and cooperative.

Even here in our hot climate, when the weather is cooperative, we can grow a lot more lettuce at our house in the cool season than we can eat. I usally give the extra away or, if the chickens are whining and begging, I give it to them. The problem is that the heat shuts down our lettuce season pretty early, usually in May or by mid-June at the latest.

With tomatoes, 40 lbs. per plant is absolutely possible with good soil, adequate rainfall or irrigation and cooperative weather. You have to choose really productive tomato varieties, and to get those yields you need hybrid varieties because of their outstanding vigor. I don't think I've ever gotten 40 lbs. of tomatoes off any single heirloom tomato plant, but have gotten that much off some hybrids. One of the most important things for good yield is to select varieties that set fruit well in heat, and that means smaller tomatoes in the 6-12 or maybe 16 oz. range. The tomatoes I've grown that produce really large fruit in the 1-2 or 3-lb. range usually stop setting fruit by the end of June, while some of those that produce smaller fruit will set fruit in June and into July.

Also, to get maximum yields, it helps to plant a bit early so you can get a lot of early fruit set. Even planting your tomatoes 2 weeks later than your recommended planting date can really decrease the amount of fruit you get, and if you can plant 2 to 4 weeks earlier than your recommended planting date and can keep those plants from freezing, you'll get high fruitset early.

If you liked Rosalind Creasy's article on the 100 s.f. bed, you'd love her book on Edible Gardening that was published in 2010. It is the best book I've ever read on the topic of integrating edibles into ornamental beds, and features photos not only of her landscape, but of other landscapes she has designed around the country. Her plantings are so gorgeous and the veggies are so well-integrated that it is just incredible. I find her techniques so inspiring.

Jo, If I had soil like yours, I am sure I'd get great strawberry yields, but I have clay and even when it is well-amended, the strawberries are not terribly productive. I think the heat and drought killed all my strawberries last summer, and if they don't come back this year, I may not plant replacements. I think I'll likely put herbs where the strawberries were.

I used to feel the same way you do about potatoes, but then it all comes back to quality. A fresh potato tastes so much better than a grocery store potato. You'd think that a potato is a potato is a potato, but in the same way that home-grown tomatoes are so much better than store-bought ones, so are home-grown potatoes superior in flavor to potatoes from the grocery store. Still, if I didn't have space, I wouldn't grow them. I hate digging them up in the heat too. We got a couple hundred pounds of potatoes last year, and there I was out in that insane heat digging them up and hating every minute of it....until I cooked up a bunch of them and said "yum, yum, yum".

I do want to echo what you said about herbs. They are insanely expensive at the grocery stores, and so simple to grow, even in containers. A person who likes to cook with fresh herbs can save hundreds of dollars a year by growing their own. Except for cilantro, I don't even buy the so-called fresh herbs at the stores because they aren't all that fresh by the time you buy them and I find them fairly lacking in flavor.

Dawn

I have about 240 sq ft of beds. This year some of them will get borders added. I use Trellis to raise as much as I can vertically. I also had some old chain link that I attached to the 6 ft privacy fence to gain space for growing my peas.

Here is a link that might be useful: Trellis

Thoses trellises sure look nice, mine are made of stained T post, rusty re-bar and warped boards, tied together with red and white binder twine.

I made the trellis out of 4 3/4x10 PVC. Both together ran me about $15 with all the pvc and adapters. They are just slid over 2- 18" pieces of rebar. They are completely moveable and the best part was when everything was done - I just cut the twine and chucked it all in the compost - no trying to untangle everything from the fence.

Dawn,

I was talking to a neighbor this weekend about potatoes and he said the same thing. Now I must try a fresh home grown potato to see what I have been missing.

You know what else he said? He said he grows potatoes in STRAW!!! (?) He covers up potato pieces with straw, then as they grow he adds more straw! Have you ever heard of such a thing? I was shocked.

Jo

I have heard of it. Your mileage may vary.

At my house, when I planted into straw, I had field mice nibbling at the tubers. Of course, I am in a very rural area where there's lots of wee little (and big) varmints running around everywhere. In a more civilized area like yours, field mice and voles might not be an issue.

This year, I have a bunch of old, spoiled hay bales. I've been breaking them apart and using them as mulch for the last year but still have over 100 bales left. I have been toying with the idea of planting potatoes into some of the bales. The middle of each bale right now is decomposing, so the center is filled with good compost. I might be able to stick a trowel into each decomposing center, pour a little more homemade compost into the center of the bale, and then plant seed potatoes into those composty cavities. That still wouldn't solve the field mice problem because the stems, where the tubers would form, would be growing in the hay after making their way up out of the compost, but if I planted a row of catnip right next to the row of hay bales, then maybe the cats would hang out a lot around the bales and keep the field mice under control.

Dawn

To me a potato is a potato. Store bought is fine and cheap, but new potatoes are a different thing. I like to plant a few potatoes for the new potatoes. I rob them from the loose mulch just enough for me without digging up the whole plant. I get them when they are small ping ball size.

Dawn, that's a fantastic new version of "companion" planting - planting catnip so the cats will hang out to catch the mice! Love it, love it, love it! I would never have thought of that.

Susan

Susan,

Hey, whatever works, you know!

Years ago I actually started planting catnips for the cats, and they love it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that if I let it flower, all the tiny beneficial insects came flocking to it, so I planted even more of it for them.

Last year's catnip survivors (not all the plants made it through the drought after I stopped watering, but the ones in afternoon shade survived) are still green and the cats roll on those plants and smash them down to the ground daily.

I'll try anything that will encourage the cats to hang around and kill mice, because if the cats aren't controlling the field mice and voles, the snakes will show up to do it, and I find cats to be more pleasant garden companions than snakes.

I did notice last year and the year before that deer netting doesn't deter our deer or our dogs...they just run right through it, but a lot of snakes get hung up in the deer netting so at least it is keeping some pests out of my flowers. The last thing I want while cutting a bouquet of flowers is to find a snake any place close to me.

Dawn

WOW, I need to make seed bombs of catnip and catmint and throw them down by the fence line that never gets mowed. Maybe the cats would go down there and stay out of my garden.

To me, a garden is just not a garden without a fat cat sunning himself, or snoozing in the shade. My cats are strictly indoor babies, but there always seems to be a stray around outside and I "do" have a "cat friendly" garden (double entendre).

Susan

That is good to know about the deer netting. Are you just catching big rattlesnakes or will it work on copperheads? Do you find them dead or have to kill them?

I am interested in the herbs mentioned. I like rosemary on chicken, herbs in turkey stuffing, and cilantro in salsa, but I am very ignorant of how to use herbs. I would like to know how you all use them.

For some reason many people dislike cats. Also there are discussions on the morning show about being a cat person or a dog person. I am an animal person and appreciate both. I don't expect a cat to act like a dog. Both are lots of trouble, I spent most of today fixing the radio fence that shocks my dogs through their collars when they cross it. There is a big hungry German Shepherd that is either lost or dumped. I don't need another dog and don't want it to eat my cats or Honey a small dog. It is probably a good dog but it is trouble for me. I have much more trouble with my dogs every day. The cats are no problem. I have wood rats making nests everywhere when I go without a cat. I know people in town have to put up with other peoples' animals and children. It is easier to take if you love them and they belong to you.