This topic contains 11 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by Rhys 9 years, 1 month ago.
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Good idea to plant equidistant.
I had not thought of a formula as I work out spacings by experience of what works well.
I think that dividing by three is more viable, the point being that planting ‘on the square’ (equidistant) makes more efficient use of space, so you are planting more closely.Google square foor gardening, you’ll find suggested spacings e.g. Beetroot 4″, carrot 3″, and so on. If you want baby veg then reduce the spacings.
I use equidistant spacing a lot and i’ve seen good harvests, but i also find it difficult for succession planting… garlic -> kale for example.
off: Sometimes it’s ease of harvesting, weeding… row spacing is quite amazing, especially when the soil inbetween is mulched and planted with early crops. For now i only sowed fava beans and parsinps in a garden and i used rows 30cm apart as i will try with early crop of salads, spinach and radishes inbetween. Later on late brocoli, cabbage etc will be planted inbetween maturing fava beans… parsnips are much easier to weed/mulch in rows.
Anyway, i’m a big fan of equidistant. Planted beetroots were amazing last year, also peppers, salads, chicory, celeriac, garlic and many others.
To go from rows/plants to equidistant, i just keep the ratio, i give from row to plant and i come to eq. For example 30cm for rows and 10cm for plants = equidistant is 20x20cm.
This is what SFG recommends :
.. look on the back of the seed packet–ignore the row spacing, just look at the plant spacing.
There are four spacing guidelines:
Extra Large – one per square for 12 inch spacing
Large – 4 per square for 6 inch spacing
Medium – 9 per square for 4 inch spacing
Small – 16 per square for 3 inch spacing.Use the seed packet to find out what spacing your plant needs. A tomato or green pepper plant needs one per square. While radishes and carrots need 16 per square.
Don, out of interest, what do you think of Bartholomew’s book? I can’t help thinking it is no more than raised bed gardening with a lot of hype, and self promotion, but not having read the book, I could be way of the mark.
Years ago the HDRA brought out a book on bed gardening. It gives the spacing and layout for planting the different veg. I just use the in row spacing.
SFG is about promotion of the method itself, a guy and other people are living of this “product”. Book is quite good. It helped me in the beginning of my gardening journey.
Don, as i understand, spacing for SFG is also about each square being planted by it’s own veg and that makes a difference (difference in foliage, root space, take-up of nutrients etc).
It mostly designed to have different crops in small space.
If i would sow parsnips this way, i should sow/thin 10cm apart each way. I wonder what the harvest would be like. Just one example with same doubts as yours.I think we are mostly planting one veg in bigger quantity here (2m long bed of fava beans for example) and with a bit of companion planting here and there.
And i never thought i would use rows so much, i was so against it! I started with wild sowings/plantings 🙂 , then using close spacing and so on.
Now it’s a combination of everything that works and it’s a continious learning process. 🙂I’m so happy to be a gardener, it’s alive and it’s fun, dinamic, did i mentioned fun? 🙂 And food…
Btw, Charles has good tips on spacing for a lot of veg in his books. With many it’s also explained why.
I like your calling it a learning process Zuf, its the same for me all the time. For example this winter I spaced my chard-for-salad-leaves more closely, with good results. And I am planting radish between pea shoot plants as an intercrop, the radish are nearly ready under fleece before the peas have filled the space.
As you say, its fun, and grows more food. 🙂Don
Last year I put 1st early potatoes 25cm * 25cm and got yields equivalent to the ‘recommended’ spacing between rows – 1.0 – 1.5lb per tuber on London clay. I put maincrop 40cm * 50cm and got 4lb per tuber other than two which rotted. So you can certainly halve ‘traditional’ spacings for potato without losing yield per tuber.
My first set of radishes sown in between over-wintered garlics are now coming through (30cm between rows of Elephant, 20cm between Early Purple Wights) and I’m going to try sowing May carrots after the radishes have been harvested, whilst the April carrots will go in virgin soil to hopefully give them the best start in life.
I’m going to give onions a go at 20cm * 20cm for large bulbs and modules of 5 roots sown seven across the 1.5m bed in two rows spaced 20cm apart. If the Kelsae’s actually grow sufficiently to plant out, I’ll give them a go with a 30cm * 30cm spacing.
I don’t know whether it’s possible to combine early carrots (e.g. Nantes) with a maincrop (e.g. Sweet Candle) by sowing alternating rows at 15cm apart (thus leaving 30cm for the Sweet Candles once the early crop has been harvested), but I’m thinking of giving it a go this summer.
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