Too many veggies??

Ok I am sure I have gone overboard! My first inground garden in years and years and years, I was sooo excited. I did a raised bed for veggies - 4 x 6, got it all ready to plant, previously started seeds or bought plants, but now I think I have too many veggies for the bed and am not sure how I should arrange everything and how much I can fit in there. I have a crooked neck squash, 4 zucchini, 4 eggplants, 4 cucumbers, 4 cherry tomatoes, 4 bell peppers, 6 bush beans. I also have canteloupe and watermelon but am thinking I need to find someplace else to grow these, as well as okra that still hasn't germinated and I have 14 creole tomato plants in 5 gal buckets. I have two trellis I bought for the zucchini and squash then I remembered I also had the cukes so am thinking I am getting two more trellis. I thought I would set it out like this:

_________t o m a t o e s________________p e p p e r s
_________c___________b e a n s________________c
_________u__________________________________u
_________k_________e g g p l a n t s______________k
_________e__________________________________e
_________zucchini________________________squash

can I squeeze this much into one bed 4' x 6' and like this? Can I trellis the squash and zucchini together - since I only have 1 squash and 4 zucchini was wondering if I could plant next to each other and trellis them together - or I could buy more squash lol

Help! LOL I spent all day yesterday hauling and mixing soil for this bed and the flower bed and would love to plant them today. Any and all thoughts, suggestions, knowledge greatly appreciated!

Your neighbors will hate you for all the zucchini you'll be insisting upon them, lol.

Square Foot Garden book says a zucchini plant(and maybe summer squash, too) needs a 3' by 3' space all to itself. They're just big plants. My zucchini plant last year didn't seem inclined to climb a trellis.

I'm not much help on the "how much can I fit in" question, sorry! But I did want to remind you that when you plan, make sure to keep the taller things like trellis and tomato plans to the north side, so they won't shade your smaller plants. Also, you might want to make sure you can access everything for care and harvesting. (I made that mistake once with my own raised bed--couldn't reach some of the stuff and it was a disaster. Now I plan for walking space; although it looks like it's wasted, it's better to do that than to not be able to get to the things you planted, IMO.)

Good luck!

Ems_Garden,

I would say that it is going to be quite a squeeze getting all of that in there. You might want to consider building a couple of squash hills just outside of the raised bed if that is possible; that will free up some room. You can also grow tomatoes in containers, although they will need to be fairly large.

Your cucumbers should do nicely on a trellis, as tucsonjill said above, on the Northern Side of the bed, and if you have purchased a vining variety of zucchini, then you will be able to grow that on the trellis as well. Other types of zucchini form a sort of bush, about a meter square usually; they do not climb. Also they are usually high producers, so get out your ratatouille recipe! You're gonna need it.

Best of luck with your garden this year, post a photo when it is up and growing!

-Plantenthusiast

I would cut down the squash to one plant and add some more bean plants.

Can you plant the squash in 5 gallon pots too? I did last year and it worked great for me. You are gonna have lots of pretty yellow blossoms in your garden though. It will be crowded but beautiful.

What, no okra? I would highly recommend a little reading on the French intensive gardening style. I like that style bacause with it, you can plant things closer together using simple math to calculate the distances between each plant.
Also, if I may suggest planting some radish and lettuce in between the rows to make the most use of that between rows space.

There is always zucchini bread, YUM!

Thanks for all the advice! I ended up with this so far

4__peppers__________1_eggplant

1pepper-----4 cherry tomatoes_____

_____6_bush beans_____________

3 zucchini______________1 squash

I put the cukes in a large pot with a trellis

the okra has not come up yet but will container that as well. I am still thinking I need to remove some stuff. Am trying to decide what. I just bought some radish seeds to throw in there as well. Read somewhere that they help with insects. I have been meaning to look into that gardening style Misty, and havent yet - maybe tonight. Again, thats for all the input! and yes - there will be plenty of zucchini bread to go around :)

How much Okra can go into a container? I know the size of the container will be limiting, but I keep thinking that you'll only get one plant in any size pot or it will be top-heavy and tip over as the Okra gets large. Maybe I'm just borrowing trouble :)
Could anyone who has done this comment?

Morning Cat - I was thinking 1 plant per 5 gallon bucket??

I have 6 vines of Clemson Spineless in a 12 inch pot with a 4 ft trellis. It worked great for me last year. The okra was about the same size as the frozen you buy in the store and there was enough to cook with from September to Easter about once a month for 3 families.

Thanks Antoinine! Okay, time for more research on my part. From the ones I've seen, I thought that Okra was more of a stalk than a vine, and not in need of support. I was going to plant in rows an the edge of my corn patch, because the flowers are so pretty. I have three or four different kinds, but I should confess, no Clemson that I can remember. I should remedy that, since Clemson is right next door to me :)

Ems_Garden, One per bucket was what I would have thought, but now I'll rethink. One thin I do have is pots, and I wouldn't mind having those flowers by the front of the house it pots.

Remember my okra was not big. Maybe the biggest about 5 or 6 inches. But there was plenty. Wish I had saved a pic of the pot. Sorry.

I bet the pot was pretty :). All of my packages say to harvest at less than 6 inches, so I'm sure you did well. Now I just have to figure out how to make people try it.....:)

This is how I got my grandsons/god daughters to eat okra. In the summer when we would grill burgers instead of serving just french fries I serve them onion rings and fried okra and fries together all deep fried, Also, one of my favorite recipe is to take a hand full of chopped okra and steam them over a pot of greens (collards, mustards, turnips, or mixed). Also serve my greens with a homemade cucumber, banana pepper and tomato relish. With hot corn bread, they sometimes don't eat the meat and just eat the veggies. And of course, you gotta have your okra in gumbo. mmmmmmm!

I haven't had a harvest big enough to make a decent sized fried okra. I just eat mine raw while I'm working. It tastes like raw cabbage. I love it.

A 4' x 6' bed is great for 6 tomato plants OR 6 zucchini OR 12 eggplants OR 6 cucumbers OR 4 cherry tomatoes OR 12 bell peppers OR 80 bush bean plants. :)