Planting my garden

I'm still building my garden's framework, though it's almost finished. I'm hoping to have seeds in the ground before next weekend. We just have to figure out how to move the frame from the garage to the great outdoors.

This week I've been deciding what to plant in my 28 squares of my square foot garden. I have two rows of 14 squares each. In my research into different varieties and types of each plant, I've selected a small sampling. This is mostly so that I can learn what will grow in our garden. Secondary to that is to learn which varieties we prefer. I'm particularly interested in the tomatoes. My favorite tomato is the campari type. I can eat an entire plate full with just a little salt. I'd eat them at every meal -- even breakfast. Unfortunately, I can't find the plants available for purchase anywhere, and I'm not talented enough yet to grow them from the seeds leftover from dinner. Because my entire family feels the way I do about a tasty tomato, I've chosen to go with all indeterminate(means produces until the frost) varieties. We'll see how that pans out as the season goes along.

My garden has taken quite a bit of thought, and of course an Excel spreadsheet. I've copied and pasted things around in Excel for weeks trying to come up with the perfect combination. Because so much of what I want to plant will need to grow vertically, the entire back row will be trellised. All of the plants requiring trellis subsequently have to be placed on that back row. Good thing we went for a long garden!

Here are the intricate details:

The Back Row:

• Square #1 -- Cucumber(Marketmore 76) from seeds


• Square #2 -- Jet Star Tomato


• Square #3 -- String Beans -- Bush, Blue Lake 274 Beans from seed and Tendergreen Improved, Bush, Beans from seed
  
  
• Square #4 -- Early Girl Tomato


• Square #5 -- String Beans -- Pole Burpee's Stringless Green Pod and Kentucky Wonder, Rust Resistant Pole Beans


• Square #6 -- Better Boy Tomato


• Square #7 -- Peas -- Alaska Wilt Resistant Peas


• Square #8 -- Grape Tomato


• Square #9 -- Cucumber from transplant, also a marketmore


• Square #10 -- Beefy Boy Tomato


• Square #11 --Peas -- Little Marvel (dwarf) peas


• Square #12 -- Brandywine Tomato


• Square #13 & 14-- Zucchini

The Front Row:

• Square #1 -- Cucumber(Marketmore 76) from seeds


• Square #2 -- Lettuce -- Romaine(Parris Island Cos Lettuce) -- I'll be rotating the planting in this square. The first planting will be a transplant from the store. I'll also plant seeds at 10-14 day intervals after that for good crop rotation. I'm a bit worried about when the lettuce will go to seed because of heat. But, since I don't know when that will happen, I'm going to try to grow as much as possible until then.


• Square #3 -- Lettuce -- Salad Bowl Lettuce -- again, I'll purchase one then plant the others from seed.


• Square #4 -- Lettuce -- Great Lakes Lettuce -- again, I'll purchase one then plant the others from seed.


• Square #5 -- Lettuce -- Bibb Lettuce-- again, I'll purchase one then plant the others from seed.


• Square #6 -- Green peppers


• Square #7 -- Herbs -- small patches of cilantro, parsley & chives


• Square #8 -- Red peppers


• Square #9 -- Spinach -- Teton Hybrid Spinach from seeds


• Square #10 -- Jalapeno peppers


• Square #11 -- Spinach -- transplant from the store


• Square #12 -- Yellow peppers


• Square #13 -- Onion -- Spanish sweet and red onion


• Square #14-- Sweet 100 Cherry tomato