My north garden is about 24 x 44 running west to east. The first year I planted it I ran the rows length wise which I like better, but because of the slope it works better running the rows north and south, also my irrigation tubes give a more even flow if they are short and near level. Each garden pretty much has to be designed to fit you personal needs and conditions. The rows in my south garden run east to west because that is what works better there. I have never done tee pees and know nothing about them. Most of my trellises run west to east but when I ran them north to south they were fine also.

Thanks slowpoke_gardener.I'd like to only do 3 rows that way i have enough space in between to work and so the plants get enough sun. So next question can I put my cucumbers and squash on 1 row, the zucchini and okra on another and the tomatoes on the last. Or is that to crowded?

I don't know a whole lot about planning veggies, but you might think about the shade that the okra will give, good or bad.

Personally, I would plant in sections.

Lisa

BB,

You plant it in the way that makes the most sense to you, taking into consideration the mature height and spread of each variety you're growing.

Regardless whether your run your rows east-west or north-south, you should have good results as long as you put the taller plants at the northern side of the garden, the shorter plants at the southern side, and anything medium-sized in the middle. When you trellis something like cucumbers, put them wherever the top of the trellis fits, size wise. I'd put a 4' tall trellis in one part of my garden, but I'd put an 8' tall trellis in a different part further north unless I deliberately wanted the cucumbers to shade something planted to their immediate north.

My garden is on a serious slope, so I position 4' wide raised beds both east-west and north-south in different parts of the garden to help slow down the water flow and reduce erosion. Most beds have pathways between them that are about 12-18" wide, another in a newer area where I'm just now building raised beds, the paths will be 3' wide. Even if you are planting at grade level, if you plant in wide rows with narrow paths, you'll still have room to work but will get a lot more use of the planting space.

Without knowing what varieties of each veggie you're growing, we can talk about spacing only in general terms. Okra, for example, comes from short versions that get only 12-18" tall and wide to average-sized plants from 4 to 6' tall and 3' wide, to very large plants that can get 4-6'and 4-5' wide or, in the cases of some cowhorn okras, 8-12' tall. So, without knowing the type of okra you have, we would only be guessing on where to plant it or how to space it. Refer to your seed packet for recommended spacing or to the Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide which I have linked below.

I plant okra plants that get really tall and really wide so they are on the north side of the garden, but I often put a dwarf form of okra called Little Lucy in the southernmost bed. The only thing to the tall okra plants' north is a 10' tall fence (to exclude deer) where I always plant pole beans or pole southern peas to climb the fence. I usually put and squash right in the center of the garden, and cucunber placement varies depending of whether I am growing vining types or bush types. My tomato plants are on the east and south sides of the garden--having them on the south is very important to me because I grow tall, caged tomato plants, including cherry and currant tomatoes in that bed, and they will serve as a windbreak for other plants, protecting them from the southern winds we have throughout the summer. I try to position peppers, whether they are grown in containers or in the ground, in a place where they will get partial shade during the heat of the day in July and August. This helps them deal with the heat better and helps prevent sunscalded peppers. Sometimes I interplant okra and peppers or tomatoes and peppers in the same beds, letting the taller plants give partial shade to the peppers.

Because I grow similarly-sized plants in 4' wide beds with pathways on all 4 sides of each bed, nothing gets shaded by items in its own bed or in adjacent beds unless I intentionally planted tall and short plants together so the tall ones could provide some shade for the shorter ones.

Oh, and you mentioned lettuce. If you haven't already planted your lettuce and you are here in Oklahoma, it is too late to start lettuce from seed now with any reasonable expectation of a harvest. My lettuce has been growing since early February, and with temps at my end of the state having already hit 88-90 a few times this spring, my lettuce plans, one by one, are bolting and going to seed. With luck, the most heat-tolerant lettuce varieties may keep giving us lettuce thru mid-May, but the early heat is definitely putting an early end to the lettuce harvesting season. If you look at the OSU recommended planting dates, lettuce ghould be planted from Feb. 15 through Mar. 10th and that is because lettuce planted after March 10th is less likely to make a good crop before the heat sets in. The later you plant it after March 10th, the lower the chances of a good harvest.

If you'll click on the link to read OSU's Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide, you'll see two lists at the end (one for cool-season crops and the other for warm-season crops) that give very specific planting info, including general spacing recommendations, for each type of veggie. That's a good starting point, but I still tailor my spacing in different ways depending on whether I am planting a variety that is the average side when mature, or bigger or smaller than average. Actually, I do not necessarily follow their spacing recommendations very closely because they are intended more for standard agriculture where you have long straight rows with wide pathways in between them, and I plant in wider rows with narrower paths so I use a different type of grid spacing.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide

Thank you so much. You guys have been very helpfull. I would have never thought of doing sections, in my case I think that might work better for me. The link above helped a lot. I guess that I will have to pass on the lettuce this year. I started my tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers by seed and they are doing great and ready to transplant.