New bed, plant spacing

I have a new bed, filled with good compost.
I have tomato and cucumbers to go into it.
It is roughly 10'x16".
How closely would you space them?

Determinate or indeterminate?
Trellis or cages?

Indeterminate.
The eaves of the greenhouse are right above,so I was going to try strings and clips.
I guess that counts as a trellis.

I haven't tried growing tomatoes on string yet. I still do it the old fashioned way. It's very different but it looks like it can work very well. Here are a couple of websites that explain tips and tricks and how to do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNqhwtfCtFA  
https://www.theartofdoingstuff.com/turns-im-never-really-satisfied-anything-including-tomatoes/
Happy gardening

I tend to crowd my veggies in.   I'd be comfortable with 6 of each in that space, if they are growing vertically.    Are you planting in the cinder blocks as well?   I'd do basil, parsley, marigolds, in there.   Maybe some dill to go with the cukes ;)

I've planted them 1 foot on center.
I've added green onions around the perimeter 8"on center.
I may sow seeds as a ground cover.
Any suggestions?

I have "planted" into three of the cavities, mulberry branches that had new growth more than a month after being pollarded.
If they take, I will prune them to provide summer shade.
I want to leave most of the wall open to sit on.
Are there herbs that make a nice cushion?

Thyme is small enough and low growing that it might tolerate being sat upon. Lots of different varieties with different flavors, could be fun to place different ones in different blocks.
If the holes aren't topped up completely there would be some space for the thyme to compress without being crushed.
You could also cap off some seating spots with patio blocks or stone flagging, and plant next to them so you could still touch the herbs and smell them, but not sit on them directly.

I like to crowd as much in a space as I can get. Basil, mint(in a pot), carrots, radish, marigolds, calendula, and nasturtium, alyssum all make great companion plants for tomatoes. They help with pests,  pollination, are edible and pretty.
Good luck. Look forward to seeing what you do.

Hi William,
Can you tell us what kind of tomatoes and cucumbers you are growing there?
Will they get enough sun between the block wall and the greenhouse when they are still little?
Are you not using your greenhouse this summer or if you are, what are you growing inside? Or are you providing much needed shade for the greenhouse.
Can you tell us what direction this is facing?
......I learn a lot by asking questions.

I love the questions!
The block is a little high for the plants, I wanted 3 courses and I ran out of finished compost!
We shall see how they do.
The sun is high in the sky and they are even getting reflections from the glass behind them.

There are some mortgage lifters,  some random cherry tomatoes and I think the cumbers are national pickling?

Seasonal shade from plants is one of the goals.
I have used white pva  shower curtains  inside the greenhouse to make it reasonably comfortable.
They breath and hold up to humidity well.
I was a little surprised it worked on the inside of the glass, but it did.
I was talking to a friend who grows vegetables professionally and she suggested snow fencing as a shadecloth alternative.
I like the idea, but I don't think it will work well inside the greenhouse.
I think it would absorb the heat from the sun it blocks, instead of reflecting it.



The greenhouse was wedged in along the east side of my yard.
It's long and narrow, running north to south 😕.
It will only ever grow low light crops, but I'm ok with that.

It's not done yet, hell it may never be done.
I wish I could see things through in a timely manner, but I really have a hard time doing that😕.
Rather than bemoan my fate,I just do what I can, and some things get done.

My wife wanted tomatoes and cumbers, and the beds in front of the greenhouse needed to be finished, so that's what I did.
There has been lots of rain and the plants are doing well .

When things start to cool down in the fall, I plan on draping these beds with plastic to extend the season a bit.
The eves of the greenhouse extend over the beds ,so I'll hang the plastic from there.
If I leave it in place, it will provide a double layer of glazing for the plants inside the greenhouse proper.
That might be too much light reduction, but we shall see.
The climbing plants could be replaced with winter hardy greens,  legumes or rye.
If I can get a pile of leavesor woodchips, I'll cover the soil in that, add pee and put my wintersowing containers on top.


I was thinking I could protect the seedings from drying out by planting breakfast radishes thickly, and harvest/ thinning them as they grew.
Radish greens are delicious.
I was going to mulch with rabbit bedding, but I used up everything they had!
I am considering buying alfalfa hay, but it goes against the grain.
Maybe some peas?
I got a bag from the grocery, very cheap.
By the time they are ready climb, I could cut and eat them, or chop n drop them.



The greenhouse has two refrigerators that were destined to become wicking beds.
Because I need water for the beds anyway, and I have been recently obsessed with growing azolla, I'm considering using one of them as an azolla grow tank/rainwater storage.
Azolla likes partial shade, it fixes nitrogen and it seems like fun.
I need the fridge to be filled with thermal mass anyway, so it would be two(three?)birds with one stone.
I am liable to get distracted by something else, but will probably come back to it.

Sounds like you have a great plan! You said....”I wish I could see things through in a timely manner”. Don't look at it that way. I have had 2 mottoes (mantras) since I started.... 1. It's a work in progress. I'll get to it when I get to it. And 2. It doesn't have to be perfect!  Always makes me feel better.

And Mortgage Lifters are a good choice. And I really love when one project accomplishes several things at once, then I get to cross lots off my list at once! I have a really awful old greenhouse attached to my house. But they put it on the east side under big trees where it gets very little light. I tried using fluorescent lights for a few years which worked well enough but was a real pain and often wondered if I could cover the back wall with mirrors to enhance the sunlight. But  it also has no overhead vents so it gets to about 100* by mid March  so I finally gave up trying to use it.

I've never tried radish greens. Sounds interesting. Usually the pill bugs ruin all my radishes soon after they sprout so I occasionally plant some in a pot in a safe place. Someone suggested surrounding the radishes with roughly crushed egg shells to stop the pill bugs. So I might try that this year just to see what the greens taste like.

I started my peas on March 1st because they really need cool weather. I've been harvesting them every 3 days for about 2 weeks now. All the ones I've grown only reach about 2 and ½' tall except for the Tall Telephone peas grew to about 5'.  Last week as I harvested I stuck my finger in the ground every few inches and dropped in a bean seed. So beans will start growing in a couple of weeks just as the peas are finished.

I have always wanted to try growing tomatoes on a string so I hope you will let us know how it is going. O.K. I've shelled some peas and finished my break. Back to the garden. Happy farming.

I went to sow some old mustard seeds into the bed and found lots of seedlings popping up.
At first I thought I had undersown the maters already and just forgot.
I liked closer and found some that had their first true leaves, which were compound.

Vetch?
No, its probable black locust!

Don’t know how helpful it is, but I seem to always crowd my tomatoes too close. The big slicers like “mortgage lifter” really do sprawl all over given half a chance. And if there’s humidity I end up need to thin out the leaves in the tomato bed to keep enough air circulation to ward off the spread of fungal and viral diseases.