New 4 x 6 bed

[hangin'witthepeeps]

Okay so we got a new 6 x 6 bed which was a discarded shipping crate. I have been adding my chicken poop/goat droppings with hay bedding in there. So currently it is my compost box/bin. I will add my flower pot and container dirt after I harvest my veggies and the flowers die back. I will also add some leaves and my coffee grounds.

All of this prep for next spring when I will plant 4 zucchini plants. I will plant them so they are similar to this pattern

0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 X 0 X 0
0 X 0 X 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0

Does anyone have advice as to what else I can put in there to ready for spring planting? How's my spacing idea? I also plan to cover the bed with landscaping fabric and cut holes in the fabric to plant my zucchini's. We had squash bugs this year. I will also set up drip irrigation under the fabric to help with the mildew.

I only got 2 zucchinis this year off our 3 plants. I got 5 yellow squash off of 9 plants. I have heard that they are prolific, I guess I did something wrong. So I want to maximize my air flow and use the cover to help with bugs.

Suggestions please....

 

[journey11]

You'll want to put some plain ol' garden soil in with it too. Maybe 50/50 (Anyone got a better ratio? I've only done one raised bed so far.) Compost and manure by itself will be too rich. I also limed mine a little to help balance pH, which will lean more toward acidic b/c of the compost and manure. You know...too much of a good thing.

 

[lesa]

You know, I think it was just a bad year for summer squash...I battled the squash bugs, and cucumber beetles all summer. Your plan looks good to me. If we have a good year, they might get crowded...I think from day one, you just have to be out there squishing bugs!! I was pretty good at it, by the end of summer. Did you have trouble with vine borer? I forgot about those- it is a miracle I got any squash!
I planted winter squash as well. They worked out great- no bug problems and very prolific. They did spread out- a lot...
Good for you, doing your spring planning already! Happy Gardening!

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

I think lime may be the one thing I forgot to do. My soil was probably too rich/acidic for all my plants this year. I will be adding soil in also, because the compost will amend my beds next spring.

I did not have VB but I had the black fuzzy mold and had to take all my squash plants out of my beds. I was very sad. I love grilled zucchini and could eat it every night if I had it. I love yellow squash sauteed with butter and onions. I would have loved to put some in the freezer. I still have 2 zucchini's planted in old tires. They got put out late in the season and it's just been to cool on them at night. They have grown and just starting to put out flowers. I probable won't get any zucchini's off of them, but it was an experiment and showed me that the tire idea was not good. The guineas really did a number on them.

 

[bid]

I did not have VB but I had the black fuzzy mold and had to take all my squash plants out of my beds.

Don't despair, I had the same problem this year. It just wasn't a great year for summer squash for some of us. High humidity and lots of rain. My summer squash set plenty of fruit, but not very many made it to maturity before I tore them out.

I think your layout is fine, although I might space them out just a bit more and for sure take advantage of the extra space with some other plants. I grew some basil with some of my squash this year as opposed to radish to try and repel squash bugs. I can't say it worked, no huge amount of squash bugs but that may have been luck, but the basil did very well so the bed wasn't a total loss when the squash did so poorly.

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

I really want the four plants and would consider companion planting. What arrangement would you do in order to incorporate the basil?

 

[bid]

I just planted some basil interspersed among my squash. It wasn't really for the basil, but rather as a deterrant experiment. I transplanted basil plants that were probably 4 to 6 inches tall when I planted the squash seed and just hoped that the basil would grow tall enough, fast enough so the squash didn't overtake it and shade it out.

Sometimes I have a tendency to try and put too much in one area and may be advising you to do the same (I hope not!). It just seems that you could put a few more plants in with those zuchini and maximize all of the growing space.

 

[dragonlaurel]

Beans and corn are traditionally planted with squashes. You could scatter some radishes around them to repel bugs.
Pole beans and some squashes can go up supports to save room. I used bamboo bound together teepee style last summer for it.

 

[vfem]

I just like to till in some top soil and amend it with compost when I start a new bed.

Which I just did a 4x4.... going to do a new fenced in 50' x 12' fenced area soon myself. Lets see how many raised beds I can fit this year.

 

[Mackay]

regarding beds this is how I did mine this year and it worked great. I actually used very little soil.

I used the Lasagna gardening method that I learned mostly about on Youtube.. In this method you essentially build your own soil.. so in doing this you really don't need to have it tested..

After the bed was built I lined them with cardboard. This keeps weeds from the soil below from coming up. Then I made alternating layers of compost I had made on my own, staw, tree leaves, an inch of topsoil we had brought in for some lawn work, layer a of alfalfa hay, green grass clippings and I repeated this two times. The order this stuff goes in does not really matter, It came up to about 4 inches below the top of my 18 inch tall beds.

I also mixed in some paramagnetic minerals and some bioactive soil stumulator that stimulates the soil with micro-organisms.. Its about $20 a bag and I still have plenty left... I probably used more than I needed to. This stuff, though the microbes, pulls the minerals out of soil and compost and makes them bio-dynamically available to plant roots.

On top I mixed some of that top soil with a large bag of planting mix and coverd all the beds with about 2 inches.. This is what I put my seeds directly into. ( stocked up already in planting mix from fall sales for next year)

Over the summer the contents of the beds sunk down as they composted on their own with the plants growing on top. In the end I had about 5 inches of good soil.

This did not work out well for the carrots who all grew L shaped as they grew up against the wire mesh at the bottom of the bed to keep the volls out. Next year I will fill the beds all the way up to the top... so I think I will have about 7 inches or so of good soil at the end of the season and maybe my carrots will have more room... or I may put them in a different kind of bed

All my plants did really well, it was my first garden.