Read This and Reap : A Vegetable-Garden Planning Guide

Now is the time to plant your summer vegetable garden--corn and cantaloupes, cucumbers for salads and for pickling, squash and pumpkins, and, of course, tomatoes. But where does the home gardener find the room? People tend to think that vegetable gardening requires lots of space. But this isn’t necessarily the case. For instance, it’s not always mandatory that you plant in rows, leaving wide spaces in between. More often than not, vegetables can be grown much closer together than the seed packets recommend. Rows and wide spacing are for farmers and their equipment; in a backyard, or a front yard, there are more innovative ways to plant.

Beginning below is a rundown of the summer’s favorite vegetables, along with space-saving ideas for planting them. To help you find a place in your garden for each one, we’ve put together this vegetable planner, pictured at left and on Pages 34 and 36. It’s similar to the planners used to design compact and efficient kitchens: Here you cut out the vegetables, put them on their stands and then move them about a plan of your garden until everything fits. Drawn to scale, the cutouts show accurately how much space each vegetable takes up. Some of the illustrations have several plants of a single vegetable grouped together (the corn for instance); it’s pointless to grow any less than what’s illustrated. If you need more cutouts than are provided, simply have these pages copied.

To start your planner, paste these pages to thin cardboard. Cut out the vegetables; then fold on the solid lines. Attach each one to its proper base, or assemble so each can stand on its own, as shown below.

Draw a plan of your yard (a bird’s-eye view) using a scale in which 1/2-inch equals one foot in your garden. All these vegetables require planting sites that receive full sun, so lightly darken areas that are shady during the day; vegetables won’t grow here.

Now position the cutouts on your garden plan. Move them about until the perfect spot for each appears. There is no reason to put vegetables all in one place. After reading the information that follows, you may find that the cucumbers might do best against the fence, while a melon plant could be squeezed into the back of a flower bed. Put tall plants, such as caged tomatoes, corn and trellised beans, on the north side of the garden, where they won’t shade shorter plants.

If you lack garden space but still want to grow summer vegetables, say on a patio or balcony, keep in mind that many thrive in roomy containers such as half whiskey barrels. A number of dwarf vegetable varieties have been bred specifically for container culture and are listed here. On Page 36 you’ll find a cutout for a half barrel.

There are a few basic rules to follow for container gardening. First, the larger the container, the better the vegetable. So, forget the six-inch pots, milk cartons, one-gallon cans and such. You have to buy good containers; the results will be worth the money you spend. Half whiskey barrels are spacious, attractive and relatively inexpensive. Make certain there are at least six one-inch drainage holes in the bottoms.

Fill your containers with a commercial potting soil, and add a time-release fertilizer such as Osmocote. Because most potting soils lack trace elements, feed your plants every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer that contains secondary trace elements such as iron and zinc.

Container plants require far more frequent watering than plants grown in the garden. Apply water until it seeps from the drainage holes for several minutes. In hot weather, water maybe once a day.

Seeds for the vegetable varieties mentioned here are available in local seed racks, or you can order them from Park Seed Co., Highway 254 N., Greenwood, S.C. 29647 or W. Atlee Burpee Co., Warminster, Pa. 18974. Both companies offer free catalogues. Tomatoes

The large, sprawling types of tomatoes are best grown in tall, sturdy, circular tomato cages made out of concrete reinforcing wire. This wire comes in rolls of seven-foot widths and has a six-inch mesh, which makes it easy to pick tomatoes within the cage.

Each cage requires a 77-inch length of wire. Round the wire and crimp it together to form a frame seven feet high. Remove the bottom cross-wires and push the vertical wires into the ground. Anchor each cage with two 2-by-2 redwood stakes. The plants can be spaced three feet apart, and the cages set over them.

Although it sounds as though seven-foot cages are a little high, and indeed you may need a stool to harvest the topmost fruit, they are space-efficient because the plants are growing vertically rather than horizontally. With these cages, you never have to prune the vines.

If you are new to gardening, the following tomato varieties are well suited to Southland growing conditions and will give you huge yields in cages: ‘Better Boy,’ ‘Super Steak,’ ‘Big Girl,’ ‘Early Girl,’ ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Champion.’ You’ll get between 40 and 120 tomatoes per plant, depending on the variety.

Tomatoes are the most popular container vegetables, and there is an array of dwarf varieties. Good choices for the Southland are ‘Pixie,’ ‘Patio,’ ‘Better Bush’ and ‘Small Fry’ (for cherry tomatoes). Cucumbers

Here again, we use “vertical” gardening. A six-foot-long trellis makes an ideal growing structure for cucumbers. Use 2-by-4s, with a 1-by-2 running across the top as a brace, and cover with the same wire used for the tomato cages, or use chicken wire.

At the base of the trellis, plant seeds every four inches, later thinning to one foot apart. Cucumbers aren’t natural climbers; you will have to tie the plants to the trellis until they become established.

If you don’t want to take the time to build a trellis, you can grow cucumbers in a half-barrel container. Anchor a commercially built fan trellis in the barrel, and surround it with eight cucumber plants. Good cucumber choices for containers are ‘Bush Champion’ and ‘Spacemaster.’ Green Beans

Pole beans are far more productive than bush beans, and they are ideally suited for trellis growing, as suggested for cucumbers. Plant four seeds per foot along the base of the trellis. Thin the plants so that they stand six inches apart. Probably the most delectable of all beans is the ‘Blue Lake’ pole bean. Figure on reaping 10 to 12 pounds of beans per 10-foot row.

With bush beans, you can save space by ignoring the recommended 18 inches between rows. Plant them in blocks with plants spaced four inches apart in all directions. Control the size of the block so that the beans can be easily harvested. If you’d like, you can add some color to your bush bean patch by mixing in some purple podded beans (they turn green when cooked) and yellow wax beans. Sunflowers

Giant sunflowers belong in a vegetable garden for their aesthetic value as well as for their edible seeds. These plants fascinate children, but they require quite a bit of space; they should be spaced three feet apart.

You can incorporate sunflowers into your space-saving garden by using them as supports for pole beans. When the young flowers reach one foot in height, plant four pole bean seeds around the base of the sunflowers. As the bean plants grow, the sunflower stalks will support them. Corn

Sweet corn has a reputation as a space-greedy vegetable, but there are ways around this. Ignore the recommended three-foot distance between rows, and allow only one foot between both plants and rows, planting four rows, each containing four plants, for a total of 16 plants, or multiples of this. Corn is planted in blocks because it is wind-pollinated. Plant two seeds in each hole, and when seedlings emerge, thin to the healthiest plant. As space allows, plant corn blocks every 10 days to ensure a continuous harvest.

Irrigate every five days, and feed with a high-nitrogen vegetable fertilizer every month. Always water thoroughly after feeding.

Sweet corn produces one or two ears per plant. With this close-spacing method, most plants yield only one. There are more plants in the same space, though, so production is greater than with traditional planting. Squash

Summer squash types, such as zucchini, scallop and golden crookneck, require generous spacing. Plant eight seeds in a small group (about four inches apart), and thin to the three healthiest plants in each group. Allow four feet of space between the centers of the groups. Each one will supply your family and your neighbors with all they can handle.

Two varieties, a zucchini called ‘Green Magic’ and a crookneck called ‘Butter Swan,’ have semi-dwarf plant habits and may be spaced in groups 2 1/2 feet apart. Both are good bets for containers.

Because of their sprawling nature, standard winter squash varieties are suitable only for the largest of gardens. (“Winter” means that they can be stored through winter, not that they can be planted then.) There are, however, bush-type varieties that can be spaced in the same manner as summer squash. ‘Burpee’s Butterbush,’ which grows only three or four feet, produces four or five butternut squash per plant. Eggplant

Eggplant, with its large velvety leaves, delicate lavender blossoms and glossy fruit is as attractive as any ornamental. Most varieties require 2 1/2 feet of space between plants. One, however, ‘Dusky,’ has a compact plant habit and can get along with 18-inch spacing. The modern hybrid eggplant varieties produce up to 20 fruit per plant. ‘Dusky’ also makes for good container growing. Peppers

Among the most ornamental of all vegetables, peppers have a tight, compact plant habit and can be spaced 18 inches apart. Bell peppers yield about 15 peppers per plant. Hot peppers will yield much greater quantities.

Most pepper varieties make magnificent container plants. However, ‘Gypsy’ is a good pick. Pumpkins

Most pumpkin varieties require ample garden space. Plant seeds in small groups, allowing six feet between groups, and thin to the two strongest plants per group; each plant yields about three pumpkins.

There is one pumpkin variety that is designed for limited-space gardening. ‘Cinderella’ may be spaced in groups three feet apart. Its pumpkins are good for pies, but not so good for jack-o’-lanterns. Melons

Grown by traditional methods, cantaloupes and other melons command large areas. The recommended spacing on seed packets calls for plants to be spaced two feet apart in rows five feet apart. However, there is an alternative method.

Lay out a 3-by-12-foot plot. Plant two seeds at 18-inch intervals centered down the 12-foot length of the plot. When the plants emerge, thin to the strongest plant.

Each week, as the vines spread, tuck them back toward the center of the plot to make a mounded maze. Expect about 30 cantaloupes per 3-by-12-foot plot. The same method can be used for watermelons; you’ll reap 15 per plot.

To grow cantaloupes in barrels, choose either the ‘Honeybush’ or ‘Muskateer’ variety; both are suitable provided that the vines are allowed to cascade over the sides. PRODUCED BY ROBERT SMAUS AND LINDA GREER FRENCH