Garden Planners

Asherweef · « **on:** March 16, 2014, 09:44 »

Morning - after getting some glares this morning for taking a crowbar and mini-sledge hammer to the bamboo at 8 I've come back inside to plan the new vegetable patch-cum-backgarden.

I've taken some measurements and don't have a huge space (actual growing space about 32ft*15ft) but from using the Mr Fothergill's planner I seem to have even less space than imagined when you take plant spacing into account. I'm wondering if it's acceptable to ignore the spacings and plant at will - for instance the planner is telling me that I should only be able to get two strawberry plants into a spot that I had 4 in last year…

Any advice would be appreciated!

JayG · « **Reply #1 on:** March 16, 2014, 10:19 »

As someone who also has restricted space I appreciate the problem - there's no 'one answer fits all" solution because some crops will tolerate closer spacing better than others, and the weather and how much extra effort you're prepared to make to compensate for it also makes a difference.

To give a couple of examples, if you overcrowd onions you will get more but smaller onions, if you overcrowd sweet corn you run the risk of the overlapping leaves getting in the way of pollination (unless you cut them off or move them out of the way!)

I've seen the recommended spacing for strawberries up to 2 feet in each direction - mine are half that and do quite well but they may well do better still with a bit more room....

If I had to make a generalisation, I reckon that you will usually get away with knocking 10-20% off the recommended maximum spacing of any crop without causing too many problems.

Asherweef · « **Reply #2 on:** March 16, 2014, 11:14 »

Quote from: JayG on March 16, 2014, 10:19

As someone who also has restricted space I appreciate the problem - there's no 'one answer fits all" solution because some crops will tolerate closer spacing better than others, and the weather and how much extra effort you're prepared to make to compensate for it also makes a difference.

To give a couple of examples, if you overcrowd onions you will get more but smaller onions, if you overcrowd sweet corn you run the risk of the overlapping leaves getting in the way of pollination (unless you cut them off or move them out of the way!)

I've seen the recommended spacing for strawberries up to 2 feet in each direction - mine are half that and do quite well but they may well do better still with a bit more room....

If I had to make a generalisation, I reckon that you will usually get away with knocking 10-20% off the recommended maximum spacing of any crop without causing too many problems.

Thanks J - I suspected as much. I suppose this can be a bit of a trial for me as well… I'm not growing particularly difficult veg this year so if it all goes wrong I'll be OK!

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