What a fancy drawn plan! If each square represents l sq foot, the strawberries and the vining crops will be an issue.
One strawberry plant can send out runners for several feet in all directions. You could probably cut off all runners except one to replace the mother plant? Not sure.

Squash will run several feet in all directions. Can you erect trellises for them?

Just some thoughts.

glenda

I, too, was wondering if the vining crops will be trellised.

Jen, I am not sure about the interplanting of the strawberries and onions. Onions don't like to compete with other plants in their root zones, and you'll likely have significantly smaller onions if the strawberries and onions are interplanted with one another. Like Glenda mentioned, strawberries are vigorous and send runners out everywhere.

I am also a little concerned about how close the tomato plants are to one another. How far is each tomato plant going to be planted from the next one?

Dawn

Since I eat onions at scallion size & don't let them grow to be actual onions, would size still be a factor? Also, I figured to have most of the onions eaten before the strawberries really get going. Plus, I've never had luck w/ strawberries, so I wasn't sure just how many to plant. Those are some I planted last year that didn't produce a single berry, & when I was cleaning out my beds I found they were still alive.

My plan was to have two sets of three 4x4 beds, with a 2x4 bed connecting them (each square would be a foot). On the tomatoes, plant one tomato in each corner of the 4x4 beds, then plant one in the middle of the 2x4 bed. I think that'd make about 2-3 feet between each one. I've never had luck w/ tomatoes; maybe I'm putting them too close? Then again, I've planted one solitary one & not had luck either.

Jen,

No, if you're going to harvest as scallions, you don't have to worry about the onions sizing up, so it would be fine.

If the tomatoes are spaced 2' to 3' apart, they should be OK. Planting that closely will not keep them from producing.

Usually, when you someone is not having luck with tomatoes in our climate, it is a matter of picking the right variety and planting at the right time. If you want guaranteed success, go with a proven early performer like Early Girl or Jet Star. Those are two of the earliest producers for me and they produce all summer long until freeze gets them in October or November. I would stick with proven hybrids until I was getting fruit and then the next year branch out into heirlooms if you want to try them. For what it is worth, in our climate, plants that produce smaller fruit and by that I mean anything from bite-sized fruit to 8 or 10 oz. slicers, will produce earlier and more consistently than beefsteak types that produce fruit 1 to 3 lbs. in size.

If your plants grow, but don't bloom and set fruit, they likely are getting too much nitrogen. If you feed them at all, only use a fertilizer formulated for tomatoes like Miracle Grow for Tomatoes (Wal-Mart usually carries a store brand that is identical to the MG) or, if you're using organic fertilizer, something like Espoma Tomato-Tone.

If your plants don't grow and attain a decent size, something's wrong with the soil...it might be a nutrient deficiency or a drainage issue.

If your plants grow just fine and bloom, but the blooms don't set fruit, then you're likely planting too late and they are not blooming until the weather is so hot that the pollen is sticky and clumps together inside the flower and thus, even though you're having pollination, you're not getting fertilization. (Tomato flowers pollinate/fertilize themselves, so they don't even need pollinating insects.) To get around that, if your tomatoes are staked or caged, gently shake the cage or stake so the plant 'wiggles' around a little bit. Do that a couple of times a day, or if there's just a few flowers, you can thump each flower with your finger. That will help shake up the pollen and cause the flowers to fertilize themselves. Generally, you'll start having trouble with tomato flowers not setting fruit once the daytime highs are in the 92-95 degree range or higher and the nights are in the 72-75 degree range, but each variety is affected differently, and humidity plays a huge role in it too. Based on my experience here, the higher temperatures don't impede pollination much during a drought even when temperatures are very high, but it is a whole different story in high heat combined with high humidity.

And, if you're worrying about what I mean by planting too late, I'd say that you need to get your plants into the ground any time from two weeks before your average last freeze date (only if you can cover them up to protect them from late freezes) to two weeks after your last freeze date. Planting any later than that diminishes your chances of having good production.

By the way, the plants that produce really small fruit like any of the cherry, grape or currant-sized tomatoes are not affected by the heat. They will set fruit all summer long.

Stick with us and talk to us in May and June when your plants are large enough that they should be blooming and setting fruit and we'll help you figure out what's happening so you can change your luck.

Finally, if the raised beds are near lawn grass, make sure a 'weed and feed' type fertilizer isn't being used in the lawn grass directly adjacent to that bed. Sometimes, in that situation, the tomato won't be affected enough by the weed-killer to die but it may stall and struggle and have a hard time producing.

I hope this is the year your tomato luck changes.

Dawn

I was glad to hear about the cherry and grape tomatoes, Dawn. I bought a pack of seeds for 20 cents at Walmart of the Jelly Bean grape tomatoes to add to my collection. I do hope to get some good tomatoes this year since I am planting about 5 or 6 different varieties.

Also, about the Espoma Tomatoe Tone. Do you really have to buy fertilizer that is specifically geared toward tomatoes? I always enrich my bed with chicken manure before planting (which has more phosphorous and potassium than cow or horse manure, which is higher in nitrogen). Then I use a high phosphorous fertilizer to supplement during the season. Still, production has been low so maybe that will help? I have lots of pollinators as you might guess since I don't spray or use chemicals at all.

Susan

Susan,

I'm growing Yellow Jelly Bean so I'll have lots for drying. In our garden, Jelly Bean is always a heavy producer and, of course, I grow tons of bite-sized ones for drying.

You certainly don't have to buy a fertilizer made especially for tomatoes, but I get better production when I do.

We amend our soil with everything under the sun....compost, Black Kow composted manure, home-grown manure (so to speak) from our chickens, green sand, lava sand, soft rock phosphate, blood meal, bone meal, etc. and it certainly has paid off. After 11 years, we've turned the soil in the veggie garden from red, red clay to blackish-brown loamy soil full of earthworms. We've lowered our soil pH from a little over 8 to about 6.8. It shows in the results and the soil is the reason I harvest like a maniac all summer and fall.

I choose to use Tomato-Tone, first of all, because it is organic, and secondly, because it contains all the trace elements (micronutrients) that tomatoes need. I don't have to worry that the tomatoes won't have this or that because a key micronutrient is missing. With such a big garden and all the upkeep involved in it, I don't want to run into production problems once the garden is up and running. So, for me, Tomato-Tone is just the 'insurance' I need to guarantee me that, barring some sort of weather disaster, I'll be filling up the three freezers and the pantry and the root cellar. (Not all of that, of course, is tomatoes, but much of it is.)

Dawn