North

Trellis in bed 1: pole beans
Trellis in bed 2: cucumbers
corn (actually I wouldn't bother to try to do corn in a 14x4 bed unless I was doing corn in the entire bed) in summer / lettuce in spring
okra
spinach (deliberately placed where it will be shaded)
tomatoes in summer / sweet peas in spring
peppers
summer squash
broccoli
bush beans
turnips
carrots
collards
onions-bulb and bunching

South

I would never try to grow that many plants in only two 14x4 beds. 112 square feet is just not enough, unless you're only growing one or plants of each.

But in general you want to order them from tallest (most northward) to shortest (most southward) so the tall stuff doesn't shade out the short stuff. Some plants can handle shade and some will actually require it (like the spinach, which will probably bolt anyway).

Thanks gamebird :) Anyone else want to chime in? Looking for several opinions here to get a consensus!

Kathy

I pretty much agree with gamebird. I also agree I wouldn't try corn in the beds due to space. I'm planning on planting most of the same stuff you are (no corn, broccoli, spinach, collards) but I'm planning on 4 beds that are 4x16.

Brian

Kathy,

Maybe I am just tired today and shouldn't even try to answer this question until my body and brain are more well-rested, but my initial response is that it really doesn't matter and you are over-thinking this. (I mean that in a nice way!)

To me, the most important factor in how I build my beds and plant my crops (especially those that are not in raised beds) is the contour of the land and the issues of drainage and erosion. So, I have rows that run east-west and rows that run north-south, and some that first run east-west and then curve north-south, and it is deliberately planned that way to minimize run-off and erosion. Of course, if you are on flat land and not on a sloped area like I am, then erosion and runoff may not be a big issue for you. Having said that, within my garden, I try to plant corn and pole beans on the north side, but everything else is mixed together with no regard for the plants' ultimate height. If you have full sun, all the plants will get all the sun they need no matter where you place them.

I do agree with Gamebird and Brian that planting corn in beds this size is problematic. If I was trying to plant corn in beds this size, I'd only plant one type and, assuming the beds are side-by-side, I'd plant the corn in a block in each of the two beds so that I'd have one larger block of corn with the pathway dividing it into two smaller blocks. I'd put the corn at the eastern end of the beds. This (the large block) is important to get good germination. I know that your original question had nothing to do with how to plant the corn, but I just know that I get much better tip-fill on the ears when I plant in large blocks. I have planted corn in three parallel raised beds, where the eastern end of each east-west running bed had corn plants, so that the corn covered a large block at the end of all three beds. Nowadays I just plant corn elsewhere away from the raised beds because it doesn't really need raised beds, even in my slow-draining soil.

So, going with the assumption that your corn is planted in blocks in part of each of the two beds, I'd do the following:

Bed #1: Pole beans on a trellis at the north side of the bed in whatever is left of the bed after the corn blocks are planted, then a row of tomatoes alternating with peppers so the tomatoes can give the peppers some shade which cuts down on sunscald, which pepper fruits are prone to in our hot summers. In between the beans and tomatoes, I'd plant spinach and lettuce so they are shaded between the two taller crops. I'd then plant my collard greens because research shows that flea beetle damage is decreased when the collards are companion-planted with tomatoes. On the southern side of the bed, I'd plant a row of bush beans and then south of the bush beans I'd plant a row of carrots.

So, if you divided your bed into four long 1' wide rows, the first (northmost row) would have pole beans trellised to grow vertically. The second true row would have tomatoes and peppers alternating. In between the first and second row, the lettuce and spinach are companion-planted to grow in the shade of the two main crops. The third row would be the collard greens, and the fourth row would be the bush beans and carrots. If the space left doesn't allow for single rows of both bush beans and carrots, I'd alternate one bush bean plant with little mini-blocks of carrots. Anytime you break up a row by alternating two or more crops, it disrupts and confuses pests like Mexican bean beetles who like to move from plant to plant as they travel down a row.

In the second bed, I'd plant my cucumbers on a trellis on the north side of the bed (after the corn blocks have already filled up whatever portion of the beds you're going to give them) and you could use up to half the bed's northernmost row for that. (I don't think you really want too many trellised cukes--that would be a whole lot of pickles! Also, I'm assuming that you're growing vining cukes and not bush cukes.) In the other half of that row, I'd plant the okra which, unless it is a dwarf type, will easily get 5' to 6' tall and perhaps taller--mine often goes 7' or taller. I'd plant a row of broccoli plants next, interplanted with turnips. (I'm assuming you're growing the turnips more for the root than for the leaf.) So, the broccoli mostly occupies the above-ground portion of the garden and the turnip mostly occupies the below-ground portion. Alternately, you could plant the broccoli alongside the cukes and the turnips alongside the okra. In the next row, I'd have 1/3 of the row be onions, 1/3 be summer squash and the final 1/3 be peas. No matter where you put the summer squash, it will get very big and overwhelm whatever is next to it, so I really wouldn't put it close to anything, but that's not an option you gave us. You could move the squash to the southernmost row of corn and let it grow there. They are good companions for one another with the corn growing up above the summer squash.

You have to watch where you place the onions--some of the things you're growing are either antagonistic to onions or the onions are antagonistic to them. (Onions don't like peas and beans and they don't like onions.)

Honestly, though, I still feel like it doesn't matter that much what goes where. I plant and interplant tall/short plants together all over my east-west and north-south beds with very little preplanning. It all works out fine and they all produce fine. Like I said earlier, in our hot climate in full sun, everything will get all the sun it wants not matter where you put it.

You also could plant less initially, and succession plant heat lovers like okra later on, using it to replace an earlier-maturing crop like broccoli, but I tried to plan everything for a spring planting since I assume that is what you want.

Dawn

I put my rows at an angle northeast to southwest as an experiment, I'm simply planting the shortest things on the south to the tallest on the north row. Stawberries are in a square the whole width on the west side. If that is any help... just following the path of the sun. I do have an oak tree on the northwest...so I'm catching the max of the sun path.

Hehe, Dawn, no offence taken! The question came from a debate that a gardening friend and I were having. She's a "stick to the book" gardener and I'm not. Though she was the one that was wanting to put corn into a bed that was that small and other things as well. I told her that doing that for her two person household might work, but the ears wouldn't be full, but for my five person family with three hearty male appetites, it wouldn't touch the surface. Since I don't have a lot of room, I tend to just buy my corn from the farmer's market rather than try to do it myself and cramp them up. Though I am going to do a few plants for ornamental corns and perhaps some of the strawberry popcorn. The ornamentals are for the birds anyway, so it doesn't bother me as much if they don't fill in, and the popcorn is a smaller one, so I'm hoping for some to show the boys how to just put it into a brown paper bag in the microwave. So that one's more for amusement than for actual crop.

Everything else that was contributed was pretty much what I told her as well, that normally you plant taller plants to the north, but it's not a hard and fast "if you don't, you won't have a harvest" thing. It really came up when I said something about putting a few taller plants (peppers) on the outside to shade some of the less heat tolerant things.

LOL, so, looks like I won the debate! But I will probably spring for a nice lunch and have her take care of the manicures. :)

Thanks everyone for the input!

Kathy

Kathy,

Well, I am relieved that the friendship survived this "what to plant where" crisis. LOL

I hope y'all enjoy the lunch AND the manicure.

Personally, I believe garden "rules" are made to be broken in most cases, although there's a couple I'd never break.

Where to plant your plants is, I think, highly subjective and would vary with the terrain and soil. Because my veggie garden has shade encroaching upon it from both the north and the west (and from huge trees we will not cut down), I have planted many full-sun plants in areas where they get significant shading, and my yield remains outstanding. So, in our climate, I think some shade in the veggie garden is helpful.

Oh, this weather! I guess none of us will be out planting veggies any time soon.

Dawn