Interesting plan - a lot of lettuce. How many are you feeding? I think a 6" square for a cabbage is too small. I did not check my copy of Square Foot Gardening for spacing, just thinking about how much space my cabbages took last year. It also depends on variety. Some can get very large.

I think Sugar Snaps trellis should go in middle of the bed since I don't think you will be able to harvest with that distance on one side. I have three trellises, two in similar width beds and all are in the middle. One had lettuce on one side and peppers on the other. A second trellis of sugar snaps was in a larger bed so I left foot path space. That space was taken over by summer squash leaves etc when sugar snaps were done. Third trellis is used for later planting of pea pods and pole beans. Peppers are planted on either side of the trellis. Bed is probably only 3' wide and I can easily pick beans.

9 beets in a 6" box also seems too dense. It depends on how quickly you harvest starting with greens, then baby beets. Mature beets can be more than 2 inches in diameter. Also, carrots seem overcrowded, too. Basically, size of squares don't seem to take into account size of mature plants. We aren't big arugula eaters but I have two types growing. One, with larger leaves, is easily 1 foot square but should have been harvested at a smaller size.

I see edible flowers but no herbs.

Thank you for taking time to review my plan! One clarification: the boxes are all 12" square with exception of 2 edges as those boxes are 3.5" wide. Think by my 1/2" box comment on my plan to clarify the 2 short rows that are 3.5" wide it caused confusion. Hoping with that clarification the spacing issues for cabbage, carrots and beets has been resolved?

This garden is just for me, assuming I will have plenty to share with friends and neighbors. I have herbs growing in pots in other places in the garden so did not include here. If there are some really beneficial herbs to include in the bed let me know and I can do so!

Also want to grow onions and garlic, but given they will take up the premier sunny planting areas that will be needed for peppers and tomatoes in spring. I plan to put another SF bed in another spot in the garden just for those.

Re: lettuce when i went to bed last night thought the same thing, think I need to decrease the lettuce and increase some other quantities. Great suggestion re: trellis, will move to the middle. it will cause shade on backside, could put some of the lettuce there.

Thanks again!

Babushka

Opps pushed send too soon. Also thought last night that due to only afternoon sun on upper box maybe I should move the cabbage? Considering swapping spaces with the spinach. Any concerns with that approach?

That size makes more sense! But still a little small for cabbage depending on variety. I'm in NH so hard neck garlic is planted in late October and harvested early August. It can be followed by another crop of something especially if you have broccoli plants or similar started and ready to put in. I'm zone 5 so very unfamiliar with your planting season. I put in 12 heads of lettuce this spring and most went to waste since we're not big salad eaters. Now I'd like to have some to go with tomatoes that are finally ripening but I didn't start more. For us, a six foot row of leaf lettuce, mixed, was more than enough.

It depends on what you plant for edible flowers. I have calendula and borage that self seeds to the point of becoming a nuisance. I like calendula as an edge to help be a weed barrier. Borage gets huge but both attract beneficial insects.

I have trellises running north south so one side gets shaded half the day. It does not seem to make a difference to the peppers.

I prefer to grow perennial herbs like tarragon and sage in their own bed close to the kitchen door. Sometimes basil gets put among veggies. I also love lemon gem marigolds which I believe are edible. Foliage is beautiful and lemon scent is divine. Looks pretty with different vegetables. Last year I did a photo op patch with red cabbage interplanted with lemon gem marigolds and edged with violas and white alyssum.

I agree that your plan shows excessive leafy greens unless you are growing for harvest donations to a food pantry or such or unless you plan to eat enormous salads 5 times a day. ;-) It is more difficult to do stagger planting in Fall gardens but if you can that will help prevent the blizzard of leafy greens currently planned.

And you will have limited snap pea production from that size and since they at least can be preserved I'd double or even triple their planting space. Same for carrots.

Dave

No veggie input (anything considered a spring or fall crop anywhere else can be grown throughout winter for you most likely), but...

I'm not sure if your beds are already built or not, but from experience, stapling hardware cloth on the bottom of your raised beds instead of landscape fabric will be much more effective against pocket gophers. At least here in SoCal, they chew right through fabric (and flexible tubing, and chicken wire, and...lol).

Thanks all for your comments, this is super helpful!!! Attached is updated version for your review. I have a couple of additional questions:

I am planning to plant as follows (direct sow, vs starts to purchase vs start myself). Having never grown from seed before, let me know if you have any corrections/suggestions. Have done a bunch of reading on seed starting and am assembling a shelf with shop lights, trays to water from below for proper set up etc.

Direct sow: Carrots, beets, peas, radish, lettuce, spinach, bok choy?

Buy starts: Leeks, Brussels Sprouts?

Grow starts myself and transplant: Kale, Swiss Chard, Cabbage, edible flowers?

Changes made to plan:

Decreased lettuce, increased carrots and added a 2nd trellis for snap peas – great suggestion!!!

I moved the Brussels sprouts (and added 1 more plant, love them!)

I swapped the position of the cabbage and spinach so the cabbage gets more direct sun

I indicated possible need to reduce beet count depending on size planted. If you have any varieties you particularly like let me know. I am not crazy about beets but I plan to pickle and can them as gifts for a few dear friends of mine who are crazy about beets.

Cabbage planned is the Alcosa Savoy cabbage. It says it is supposed to be small? http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-6323-alcosa.aspx

Clarifications: Raised beds will be constructed this weekend with existing redwood (re-purposing from a play structure on the property). Because I am re-purposing the wood, the dimensions are derived from the existing cut lumber. I meant hardware cloth underneath. Late at night fabric and cloth got mixed up in my head! :)

I will make the lower left bed 12” deep vs the top left, as that is premier tomato growing location in spring and assuming they will like/need the deeper soil, vs the greens.

Curious as to why you are mixing different crops in the same bed when it would appear to be unnecessary. Different vegs have different water and nutrient needs and it pays to know what those are before planting, In many cases inter-mixing different needs means neither do well.

For example, snap peas won't tolerate all the nitrogen that lettuces and leeks will need. Nitrogen gives you giant pea bushes with few peas. Same applies to beets next to cabbage.

Plus you have root vegetables mixed with shallow rooted leafy vegetables. The leafy veges will need much more water and nitrogen while the root vegetables require much less nitrogen and higher levels of phos and potassium.

It would be great if water and nutrients would stay where we put them, even if it means feeding and water one square at a time. But they don't. Given the number of beds you have isn't it possible to restrict each bed to one, or at the most 2 crops with similar needs?

Dave

Random thoughts:

- I wouldn't use the square foot system. I don't mean that as "you shouldn't", I mean it literally as "I wouldn't." I'm not saying it's bad, and it has a lot of entertainment and charm, and if you want to use it, you should use it. But if you want other ideas, I could tell you how I would plant those beds if they were mine.

- I'm uncertain about the hardware cloth--would something with wider spacings, like maybe chicken wire, still keep the gophers out? I'm trying to think of the balance between keeping the gophers from getting in, while letting roots out. When I Google a picture of "hardware cloth", the spacings seem very small.

- Also, how high are the beds? You want enough depth for future planting. You referred to 12 inches as "deeper", but to me, that seems extremely shallow--enough for lettuce, but things like tomatoes would absolutely want to be able to send roots deeper than that. (In fact, I would plant them deeper than that--I try to get healthy but tall skinny tomatoes, maybe 18" high, strip them of all but the top foliage, and bury them "up to their necks.")

- You're using some very tight spacing.

I'm discovering more and more that space is my margin for error--a plant with a nice big root system due to less competition is less vulnerable to lapses in watering, feeding, and weed control, and less vulnerable to less controllable circumstances like extreme heat and pests. And while reducing the number of plants will usually reduce harvest, it won't necessarily reduce it proportionately, because the plants will be bigger--unless there are problems, in which case you still end up with some harvest instead of zero harvest. So half as many plants may give you 3/4 the harvest, for example.

I know that Square Foot Gardening is an intensive method with very tight spacing, but the spaces worry me--especially for the peas. You can harvest the greens and the roots as babies, but peas have to get to mature size.

On the other hand, the leeks seem to have a little extra space. Are you imagining exactly four leek stalks per square foot, or are you planting little groups of leeks? I would recommend against little groups--though I haven't grown them that way, so I could be wrong.

- How's your snail situation? Many of those crops are vulnerable to snails. It's been too long since I grew in California, so I can't remember which ones are more vulnerable. I recall that onions are not, so you might want to throw in some more leeks, scallions, that sort of thing.

- Re seed versus start: I agree with seed for carrots (they're hard to get started, but all but impossible to transplant), peas, and radish, and probably beets. I'd grow starts or buy starts for lettuce, leeks, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard. No comment on the others because I haven't grown them often enough. I'd probably buy lettuce starts right now, because it's pretty hot to get lettuce seed to germinate.

- Again: Tight spacing. Really tight spacing. Worries me.

@ Dave - You raise some very good points, will reconsider the plan and post an update. Can I have 2 pea trellis's in the same bed? I thought one would shade out the other one?

@ M Wilson - will check out your post, have not yet had chance to review. thanks for taking the time to review and comment.

I would suggest that you put one pea trellis going down the center of the 4-foot-wide beds, so that there's two feet on either side, and then grow a line of root crops down the edges of that two feet. As they grow, the peas may fluff out to fill the entire two feet.

"Can I have 2 pea trellis's in the same bed? I thought one would shade out the other one?"

Whether they shade or not all depends on how you run them N-S or E-W and what your sun exposure is.

I would run a double trellis down the center of the pea bed spaced approx. 1 1/2 to 2' apart and plant on both. Then as M. Wilson suggests, use the rest of the bed for root crops.

Wilson raises several other good points too. Sq Ft Gardening is a method that appeals to many new gardeners but over time many discover it can be fraught with problems that other methods of gardening do not suffer. As said, it isn't that it is bad. It has some advantages. But it also has some distinct drawbacks so isn't as ideal or problem-free as it is often portrayed to be either. So don't lock yourself into this one method to the point of ignoring other approaches.

Dave

PS: I assume you are aware that there is a Sq Ft Gardening forum here devoted to that method so you might get other guidance from them rather than from those of us who either don't or no longer use its methodology.

Dave

Thanks Dave. Am not attached to SFG. What other approaches should I consider? Am just not familiar with them.

M Wilson - thanks for your thoughtful feedback. Would be interested in your suggestions on alternate ways to plant. Being new to veggies just don't know them. Ask me about roses, I have it covered. Veggies - I need a learners permit! :)

There are keyhole gardens and pottager gardens and Huegelculture gardens and in ground gardens. With in ground gardens long-row and raised mound (aka wide-row) are probably the most common forms. With enclosed raised beds like yours, row planting still works or single crop per bed are common. But that all depends on how committed to raised beds you are and the sizes you have laid out. Bigger beds are easier to work with than small ones.

So called patch gardening where the bed is divided into 2 or 3 crop-specific patches is popular.

These are just a few approaches but all these require much different fill than Sq. Foot so it all depends on what you plan to use as fill. And since you are putting bottoms on your beds that will cause some crop and spacing limitations too.

Dave

If that were my garden, I'd do the following. Well, at least the following would be my first draft. Then I'd rethink it eighteen more times.

I should note that my own "plant plants with like needs together" rule tends to be mainly about water, because that's the limiting factor in my climate. My fertilizing tends to be a one-size-fits-all for every bed. So others with opinions about plant nutrition should usually be assumed to know more than me. :)

Going clockwise starting with the top left bed:

- I'd plant kale and chard in an 8-foot-long line down the center of the 8 X 3.5 half-sun bed. If I were going to let them get big, I'd plant a single row eighteen inches apart. If I were going to cut them young and let them resprout a couple of times, a double row eight to twelve inches apart in both directions. Then I'd run a row of cabbage down one side of them, and a row of bok choy down the other, at whatever spacing the seed packet wants.

- I'd make the 3X3 bed (it's a half-sun bed, yes?) all salad greens, mostly lettuce. I wouldn't divide it into permanent squares. Instead, I'd buy lettuce starts and plant them one foot apart in both directions (starting six inches from the "wall" of the bed). Then I'd run quarter-inch soaker hose between the lettuces (so the soaker hose is running six inches from lettuce in each direction), I'd presprout lettuce seeds, and I'd plant them right next to the soaker hose so they get plenty of moisture to get started with.

That would give me the first two rounds of lettuce. Then I'd probably be bored and would start playing with salad spinach, mache, pea sprouts, and so on.

(If the little bed were in full sun, I would instead have devoted it entirely to carrots, so that I could cater to their prima donna carroty demands without distraction from other plants.)

- I'd put a trellis down the center of both 8 X 4 full-sun beds, and grow peas up both sides of that trellis. In one bed, I'd plant leeks and onions and green garlic in a strip nearest the edges of the bed. In the other, I'd plant beets and radishes and carrots the same way. When the root crops come out, the peas may be taking up all the space. When the peas are done, it may or may not be a good time to plant fava beans in the whole bed.

Continuing the "strip down the middle" theme, I'd plant three brussels sprout plants down the center of the 7 X 3.5 bed. I find young cabbage-family plants to be a little fragile, so I'd probably really plant groups of two or three, at the proper location, about three inches apart from one another, and then nip out all but one when it becomes fairly clear that one will survive. Then I'd plant spinach and arugula on the edges.

Don't go cheap with chicken wire if you have gophers/voles! For one thing it will break down in a couple of years, the critters can easily fit through those holes and it's easy to break through the CW with a shovel! (Well that was 3 things!) You can also break through hardware cloth with a shovel, but it's easier to tell when you hit it and you learn how deep to go.

I've had hardware cloth in some of my beds for close to 15 years and things are fine. Worth the extra $

You really don't want to have to dig out a whole 4x8 bed to replace the wire that the critters have breached! (believe me, I know!) Happy gardening! Nancy

Certainly agree with the hardware cloth and the plants roots will certainly go thru w/o any troubles at all. Ever seen roots go thru a crack in a sidewalk?

A 12" deep bed will be deep enuff if there is soil under it the roots will continue to grow.

I do use the SFG method and think it is more flexible. As with anything in the garden there are no hard and fast rules only guidelines. Meaning you can do whatever you want in your garden.

IF there is one guideline to follow - It is to start small, leave room to grow but start small. Esp if this is your first garden experience. Nothing scares a gardener away faster than when they find out how much work is involved and the weeds have taken over in the heat of summer.

Your pics are too small for my feeble eyes so forgive me if this is shown but I like to have 4ft between my garden beds. The roots from your plants will grow out there also so mulch and water out in the walkways. Feed the soil, the soil will feed your plants.

btw keep a garden notebook.

btw2 I like the first SFG book by Mel better. Google Lasagna Gardening for other ideas. I guess I use a modified SFG method. Do what works for you in your area.

btw3 Do NOT skimp on a soil test. Adding things to the soil without a professional soil test is not only wasting time and money but you may be adding things that are not needed or not good for what you are trying to grow.

M. Wilson says "- I'm uncertain about the hardware cloth--would something with wider
spacings, like maybe chicken wire, still keep the gophers out? I'm
trying to think of the balance between keeping the gophers from getting
in, while letting roots out. When I Google a picture of "hardware
cloth", the spacings seem very small."

Chicken wire won't keep our gophers out long term. I've seen where they've chewed through it (I use it doubled up as gopher baskets for single, permanent non-vegetable young plants), and it also rusts out pretty quickly, which means upending your beds every so often to replace it when it rusts or gets chewed through.

Most southern California gardeners I know use hardware cloth (myself included) as it lasts longer than chicken wire and does a much, much better job keeping gophers out. I do have deeper beds than the OP is using, but I can't see it being much of an issue for plant roots. It's about the only tried-and-true method of protecting plants around here, unless you're willing to risk them destroying some stuff and then try to trap them afterward. You can also get hardware cloth with larger weaves if you're really worried.

My apologies - I missed the word "fall" in OP's title so of course this is not the time of year even in So Cal probably to plant peppers (which I have on either side of sugar snaps).

I think Sq Foot Gardening's spacing guides are pretty good. Seed packets usually assume wide spaces between rows and that's not necessary for a lot of vegetables. This spring I had mixed lettuce planted next to a sugar snap trellis but since I tend to use an organic general vegetable fertilizer for most vegetables, I haven't been paying attention to nitrogen needs of lettuce vs sugar snaps but good point, digdirt. I do tend to give extra specialty fertilizers like bone meal to certain plants.

Sounds like a good start on the seed starting table. I also need to use a heat mat for things like peppers since here in NH I'm starting seeds in winter in a room that's probably only 60-65 deg F.

We seem to like all kinds of beets. Bulls Blood is favored for the dark red leaves which you might consider as a salad ingredient when they are young. We like yellow beets but they aren't typically used for pickling but no reason why not.

Great suggestion to keep a garden notebook. For example, I only like to use sugar snaps fresh (but they do make nice pickles) so I would not plant both trellises at the same time. In fact, this year I planted half of one trellis to Fortex pole beans. Feeding just the two of us except for a weekly family dinner. Hence planting a few short rows of different vegetables is plenty for us. We are not big radish eaters, for example, so a single 3' row is plenty. To me, a crop with a long storage life like garlic is important and so I plant a lot of that.

I haven't learned the knack of growing good onions yet. A neighbor said they are so simple. Another neighbor had beautiful walla walla onions in late June when I gave him my leftover pepper plants because his pepper plants weren't growing.

For those who haven't read the SFG book, Mel took the time to figure out when mixing some plants the idea was that one would mature and be harvested allowing room for the other to use the available space and continue growing. Or to use the shade cast by another.

IMO there are some very practical gardening tips that anyone could use. I esp like how he builds a trellis into his beds and uses a string to grow climbing plants up to save space. I modified his trellis instead of using pipe or pvc for the trellis I use wood.