Squarefoot Gardening
A quick bit of info about square foot gardening. If you are planting in the ground, go by the directions on the seed packet for how much space to leave between plants and rows in your garden. You should follow the square foot gardening plan if planting in raised beds. You can grow your plants closer together and get a much higher yield from your garden.
Here is a quick chart for square foot gardening to help determine the seeds you will need if you use this planting method.
As you can see, square foot gardening influences what you need to plan for in your garden plan.
Veggies for your squarefoot garden
Tomatoes – There are two types of tomatoes. Determinant variety will grow to a certain height, put on the fruit simultaneously, and then stop. They sell these plants in pots because they stay shorter. They stop producing fruit after about two weeks of ripening.
Indeterminant tomatoes are plants that keep growing and producing fruit as long as the weather stays warm enough. Some plants will grow to twenty feet or more if adequately supported and cared for. I plant determinant varieties in grow bags and indeterminant types in the raised beds.
There are about 10,000 varieties of tomatoes to choose from. When planning your garden, look at ones in seed catalogs or what others recommend and decide what type of plant they are and where you need to plant them. Look at the space you have and determine what you can grow. Order the seeds you want to try.
Here is how to start tomatoes in the bigger starter pots and solo cups. Put the seed in the cup with about one-third of the cup filled with starter soil. As the plant grows and you thin it to one seedling, you keep adding soil until you get the soil close to the top of the cup. That should be good to get it to where you can put it in the garden. Doing this gives the plant a strong solid root system.
Peppers – There are wide varieties of peppers. There are several types of sweet peppers. There are the standard bell peppers, and there are many hot peppers. Decide what you like and what you will want to use them for. Decide your space and the type you want. I seed some peppers in the solo cups and some in the four-inch starter pots. They both did well.
Cucumbers are one plant they say you should plant in the ground. I started several cucumbers inside; this is how they looked when they entered the garden. This is a space master cucumber with flowers about a week after I planted it outside. I have gotten over 100 cucumbers off the three planted plants, and it is still going strong with two more months to produce. The plants are covered with flowers. Starting inside gave them a gigantic head start.
Peas–Peas are a good veggie to start inside. If you get them started early and get them a head start, they will produce much better. Peas are a cool weather plant, so the earlier you can get them to produce the better. Peas dislike it when it gets hot in July and August. You can also start them inside again in August to plant outside in September to get a fall harvest.