Have Lots of Questions

[ninnymary]

As some of you know I have a small garden of about 120 sq.ft. The portion that is in full sun is 12' long and 7' deep. The rest of it curves in and is another 12' long by 3' deep. This portion is partly sunny, about 6 hrs. of sun a day. It is south facing. My weather is cool, foggy, overcast summers.

I have a 16' wide and 7' high concrete reinforcement panel/trellis 18" away from the fence for my tomatoes. I have room only for about 2 rows of veggies in the front of that trellis, with the rows going from east to west.

Questions:

1. How many tomatoes can I plant on the trellis? They will be 2 early girls and the rest heirlooms.

2. Does anyone know of a good zuchini that is a bush and resistant to powdery mildew?

3. I am considering those wall o waters for my peppers and eggplants. Do they really work? Has anyone used them? Comments?

I am trying to plant veggies that we like, are expensive at the store, and give high yields for the amount of space. I am going to plant:

3 rosa bianca eggplants
4 jalapenos
1 zuchini
swiss chard
kale
green pole beans
sugar snap peas
garlic
onion
spinach (maybe)
beets
bok choy
lettuce
4. Of these, what do I plant on the full sun portion and what goes in the part sunny portion?

5. Some of you have me interested on trying potatoes. Do I have enough room? Are they worthwhile?

Also, I just pulled my cannas from the back of my perennial border. Can I plant a thornless raspberry back there instead? It's full sun.

6. I also have another bed that is 2'.6" deep and 5' long where I planted 12 strawberry plants last yr. They were from Home D and did not do well. I'm thinking of replacing them with Chandler strawberries that a gardener here has and produced tons of fruit. (It was their 3rd yr) Should I replace them or give them another year? Maybe I should plant something there instead from the above list?

Please feel free to give comments/suggestions or move things around.

Mary

 

[curly_kate]

I would do maybe 8 tomatoes to the trellis, but I am spatially-challenged, and ALWAYS end up planting my toms too close together. I grew a yellow bush zuke from Baker Creek (can't remember the name of it), and I never got powdery mildew on it. Can't say that it was actually resistant. I might have just had good luck with it! As for the sun/shade question, I would think that anything that doesn't flower (aka greens) would be OK in partial shade.

 

[digitS']

Mary, I think that a tomato every 24" should be fine if you can do a little pruning on them. It is certainly a nice tall trellis you have for the tomatoes.

It seems to me that you are being a bit impatient with those strawberry plants. Still, if a local friend is having real success with a different variety . . . you may want to cut your losses real quick and get on that bandwagon!

I usually plant spinach where it gets afternoon shade. Lettuce can take quite a bit of shade, so can bok choy. In other words, I'm agreeing with Kate .

Is it mid-day sun in your partly sunny area? I really dislike a morning shade growing location. Actually, it seems my plants dislike morning shade but I can empathize with them .

Raspberries can suffer from mildew if they don't get enuf sun. So, you may have a good spot for raspberry vines.

Mildew on zucchini? Yeah, I've had trouble with that, also. Here is a chart from Cornell that we probably both would benefit from studying:

Zucchini Squash: Disease Resistance Table

Steve