I couldn't tell what the orientation was, so it's hard to know if some of the taller plants will shade the shorter ones. You may find that 6 foot is a little wide and makes the stuff in the middle hard to reach. It looks like a nice italian choice of vegetables however...when's lunch?

Sorry about that. The back side where I have the tomatoes listed is towards the north.

I can access the garden from all four sides, so I hope that it's not a problem!

I thought about putting the tomatoes and vines in the middel squares and then everything else radiating out from there, but wasn't sure.

I intend to make the most fabulous bruschetta and pasta sauce from my garden this year. I'm drooling just thinking about it!

I'll also have some garlic onions and potatoes in seperate areas around my yard.

I think you might have a tough time growing zucchini right next to your cucumbers, and also watermelon so close to your cantalope. My choice would be to get the compost somewhere else besided the city-too much petroleum/chemical based things in there that you can never remove. Pole beans or bush? I think you will be okay once you move things around a little bit in the box. I would say to put the trellis(made of what?)closer to the edge of the box, otherwise you plants will have to travel and grow a long way before they even start to reach the trellis-put the trellis right where your plants will be growing........this should look real nice when your done though...

You must have really long arms to reach in the middle of a 6x8 bed. :) Mel recommends 4 ft in width for easy reach.

Unless you are incredibly tall, that 6 feet is going to be extremely difficult to work with. I'm not all that short, and I am seriously considering going to 3x5 or 6 for my future beds for easier reach, especially for a bed with trellises. You will not be able to effectively reach through your trellised crops, especially the tomatoes and melons, once they have started to grow. Part of the beauty and effectiveness of SFG is that you never step on your growing soil, and as the summer progresses you will find you have to step on your soil to get at some of your central/back crops. I'd really suggest two narrower beds, and probably putting the trellis on the outside edge, as the things on the "back" of the trellis (at least as the plan seems to show them, probably won't do well (although you might want to put the peas back there, as the shade might extend their useful life). Also, if you put a trellis on a narrow bed (no wider than 3 feet or a bed that is 4x4 so you can reach in from the sides everywhere) you can get away with putting the north side of the bed much closer to a wall, deck, or other obstacle and not have to worry about having to get behind the trellis at all, allowing more room for a walkway and a second bed.

If this size/shape is the only viable option for you I would sacrifice a few squares as literal "stepping stones" filling them with 12 inch square concrete pavers, stacked to reach the desired height of your soil, so that you have somewhere to stand to reach your middle/back squares, and it will save you some soil mix as well. It's better to just give up on the idea of growing something in an area at all than to walk on it and expect things to grow there, as the only plants that will survive that kind of treatment are weeds or incredibly aggressive plants like mint which you don't want to grow in your SFG. (My SFG has fresh, minty walkways around it instead of grass because the mint my ex planted has taken over the whole area, and I find it easier to manage, and more pleasant than grass. ;)

I would second the waring about the municipal compost and all the stuff that people apply to their lawns that you really don't want in your garden (it is also likely to be short, for compost, on Nitrogen, which is usually supplied by composted manure components).

My final two cents would be that you will definitely want some landscape fabric under your beds if the area you plan to build them is a "weed garden."

Ok...so then decrease the size of the beds. I could go to 4'x8' and be ok. I'll just have to seed some grass after the weeds die. I was just using the same dimensions of the old bed to save time. Maybe I will create a second bed on the other end of the patio to mirror the first. That may look pretty good actually now that I think about it.

Given the things that I've listed if anyone would want to create their "ideal" layout of plants I'd be interested in looking at it to get some ideas for planting. I'm not opposed to some flowers stuck in there somewhere.

I'm not opposed to some flowers stuck in there somewhere.

Throw in a nasturtium and marigold plant between the melons and cucumbers. They tend to repel a lot of insects that attack these types of plants and the nasturtium is an edible plant as well (whole plant, not just leaves and flowers) and it makes for a beautiful/exotic addition to salads. The taste is slightly peppery like watercress and I've even heard of people pickling the seeds in hot vinegar as a condiment like capers.

I would not use the City Compost for vegetables. I got some from my city and i found broken glass, cigarette butts, shredded plastic. You have no idea what is in it. Not that you know what is in the Compost that you get at your big box store.

The city compost issue is a bit of a dead-horse, really. Basically you're getting "landfill quality" compost because the city's effort at compost is quite literly only marginally better than them just throwing it in the local landfill and typically half the stuff you'd find it _SHOULD_ be in a landfill anyways.

Check your local craigslist for listings of organic compost for sale, or at the very least, "stable-compost" from horse barns - although I have issues with the high amount of cedar-shavings you'd find in it.

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Ideally this will motivate you to start composting yourself and - in doing so - reduce a great majority of your landfill waste in the process. Between my composting and my city's recycling project my family of three only produces two 13-gallon bags of rubbish for the landfill a month.

You'd be amazed at what you can compost, it's not just veggie scraps. I throw dryer lint, dust sweepings, animal hair, used tissues and paper-towels (so long as they don't have fats or oils on them from foods), used coffee grounds, coffee filters, sawdust, shredded junk-mail and bills, shredded newspaper, all yard and garden cuttings, leaves, etc. etc. etc. Pretty much anything that can decompose that does not have animal waste, oils or fats in it.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!!