Square Foot Gardening Tomatoes?

[javafxnoob]

Probably I mentioned before, this will be my second season in gardening.

This year I will have about 14x12 meter garden at disposal to grow my vegetables. About half that of space will be tomatoes, of course. Not enough space for all the varieties I would like to try, unfortunately. I would like to plant about 100 plants, besides for our own use thinking to give it a try in small scale market gardening.

I was reading and watching YouTube videos about square foot gardening. Almost all of them are based on raised beds.

Now, what I need advice about. I don't have a raised beds, space I will be using is a lawn right now. When remains of snow melt and weather become little warmer plan is to dig all that grass and prepare garden for planting.

I will grow staked indeterminate tomatoes on single stem and hard pruning. Distance between plants I am considering to be about 1 ft in row and about 3 ft between rows. Also straw mulch is planed with hand-made plastic bottles drip irrigation.

I must mention my way is organic, so only organic fungicides. Also, planing to go on lowest budget as I can, so unfortunately not possible to add compost, but I will fertilize plants foliar using some organic fertilizer about every 2-4 weeks.

What do you people think? Is it possible to have decent yield with 1 ft distance between plants? Or you suggest I stick to original plan for 50 cm distance?

Thanks in advance for your replies and forgive me for my bad English.

[PureHarvest]

Your English is good.
You can do 1 foot apart because you are growing single stem. You have (in our system of measure) 46 x 40 feet. That is 1,840 square feet. In a high population greenhouse with single stem plants, we want 5 square feet per plant. 1,840 divided by 5 is 368 plants. So, you doing 100 should be more than fine.
You need to really keep up with fertilizing though.
Maybe lay down layers of newspapers or cardboard as soon as the snow is gone so that you can smother and kill the grass. A lot easier to deal with than having grass that is still alive and rooted well in the space you want to use. You may not even have to till that much if you can cover it long enough before planting.

[jmsieglaff]

I built semi-raised beds and utilize square foot gardening for most crops.

I do not use my trellises for tomatoes--I use those for cucumbers and squash.

In my garden I basically allow 2.5 sq ft per tomato plant, ~1.67 ft x 1.5 ft (my beds are 4ft x 11 ft with the 1 foot depth along the trellis for vining crops).

So in one of my beds I do vining crops along the trellis, the other 3 foot x 11 foot section of garden goes as follows:
2 tomatoes, 9 sq ft of other crop, 2 tomatoes, 9 sq ft of other crop, 2 tomatoes

I semi-prune my tomatoes--I allow about 3-4 main stems to grow from each plant. I have very rich soil that is amended with compost twice a year and do feed plants a few times through the season. If I grew the plants with better spacing they would be bigger and produce more, but my aim to maximize tomatoes (both pounds and number of plants (aka varieties) per unit area, since that is my limiting factor).

I find allowing space of other low growing crops between my tomatoes increases airflow, which helps with the fungal foliage diseases a least a little bit. I heavily mulch with straw.

I hope my experiences help you.

[bower]

Java, too bad you aren't near the ocean (I just looked on the map), as fish waste and kelp are great fertilizers and free. Fish waste will quickly rot the grass you tore up, if you mulch with cardboard as PureHarvest suggested. It's a method we use with potatoes, just turn the sods over when you plant then lay fish before hilling them midseason. For tomatoes I would try laying fish waste between the plants then turn the sods over on top of them, mulch on top of that. There's actually a lot of nutrients in the grass and roots ("sod"), but you do need a high N fertilizer to get them cooking and release it for the plants.

OTOH perhaps your soil is already rich?

If you're keeping any areas still as a lawn, the fresh green clippings are high N and could be used around the plants if you have no other fertilizer.

[PureHarvest]

As for your organic fertilizer, it is recommended here to put down 60-80% of your crop's needs for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium before you plant. It takes TIME for those nutrients to become available when provided from organics.
Let's go with 75%.
A popular guide here would tell you that your crop will need 80 pounds of Nitrogen, 150 pounds of Phosphorus, and 200 pounds of Potassium. These are pounds per acre. You only have .04 acres. So, you need 3.2 pounds of N (80 x .04), 6 pounds P, and 8 pounds of K.
If you apply 75% of those numbers before you plant, you will need: 2.4 pounds N, 4.5 P, 6 K.
But, the fertilizer type will determine how many pounds of dry fertilizer you will need to get those numbers of actual elements.
Let's say you have an organic fertilizer that is 5-3-3 (Plant Tone brand here)
You need 2.3 pounds of N. So, 2.3/.05= 46 pounds of plant Tone to supply 2.3 pounds of actual Nitrogen for pre-plant.
That will mean your phosphorus will be 46 lbs x .03=1.38. You need 4.5. You will not be supplying the needed amount of phosphorus. You could use bone meal to get the additional P you need.
For potassium, 46 lbs of Plant Tone x .03 is 1.38 pounds. You need 6.
You can add sulfate of potash to supply a form of potassium the plants will be able to use this year.
That's probably enough information for now. You still have to account for Calcium, Magnesium, and some other trace elements. I ran some numbers, and it looks like 15 lbs of Dolomitic Limestone will provide the Calcium and Magnesium you need. But it will not all be immediately available. Then there is also what your existing soil already has (can you get a soil test done where you are?). And how will you feed after your pre-plant application. We started with 75% of the total need at pre-plant. You have 25% left to apply. Probably do 10% of the remaining needs 30 days after transplanting, and the last 15% 50 days after transplant.

[Gardeneer]

Square foot gardening is a concept to make the optimal use of garden space.
I thing tomatoes need to be spaces a minimum of 18" ( =46 centimeters ). I have done that by pruning and limiting the number of stems to 2-3. supported by stakes. That translates to about 2.25 sq-ft ( under 5 plants per sq-meter. or 0.20 sq-meter. ) per plant. Lets say 4 plants per sq-meter.
14 m by 12 m =168 m^2. If you use half of that for tomatoes that would be 84 sq-m. Subtract some space for walkway say 40 sq-m you will be left with 34 sq-m. So you can roughly plant 120 tomato plants, pruned to 1 to 2 stems. But you have to do a lot o staking, tying and pruning.

[vegomatic]

With my hankering for as many as 30 varieties in an 11x12" gh, plus other veggies and walking aisles, things were a jungle in a good year. But I kinda enjoy that total immersion in green, you feel surrounded by the lushness.

I gave a 1.5" foot spacing between, but many of my plantings were doubles. I'd start two and grow them out together if both took. One helped hold the other upright and if one took ill, chop-chop, and you could hardly tell the difference. That boils down to just a couple square feet of root space per plant, if that.

End of season when I pulled the plants and removed the roots, I found some plants had lateral roots strung out some 4 feet or more away from the stem, winding among the other plants. Weaker plants had no such well-developed root system. But I kept no records that might indicate a reason other than random chance that one was stronger and better able to cope with the crowds.

If some of the thoughtful and detailed replies above hold true for your growing space, it sounds like you have room to spread them out a bit further than 1.5 feet and still have room for 100 toms.

Me, I always try to squeeze in at least one too many. I already have almost a dozen started on Jan 6th, when I only have room for maybe three max indoors, preferably just two, especially this early in the season! They'll be tall, awkward, gangly teenagers with unfulfilled urges come May!

-Ed

[javafxnoob]

Thanks all for suggestions. Your experiences are most welcomed.

More yield per area unit is what is my goal too, because of limited space. Last year I had about 19 x 12 ft place with cherry tomatoes. After harvest in October I tilled that place again, planted onion, and tilled 1 more area with about 7 x 13 ft area. All rest part of garden is still a lawn (for now, but not for long).

Crops that I want to grow besides tomatoes and already planted onion are cucumber, lettuce, radish and peppers. There is part of garden in partially shade, so that place will have lettuce, tomatoes will go on sunny side.

Well, tomato planting will look like this:

2 x 46 ft rows, rows spaced for 3 ft and
4 x 33 ft rows, rows spaced 3 ft.

Now, for fertilizers. Didn't done soil test, but I guess soil is in good shape. Cherry tomatoes did perfect last year, radish even better. Lawn was there for at least 3-4 years, so my assumption was I don't need to fertilize it this year. But, experience has shown that assumption is mother of all mistakes, so I will probably have to reconsider that no-fertilizing soil policy.

Not sure if I can manage to obtain enough cardboard for grassy area, but you people gave me another idea. In garden all grass will be tilled, but there is still small lawn in front of my house, so I could provide grass clippings every 3 weeks.

There is a product I can buy in local shop. Name is Siforga, on bag says its organic fertilizer. It is in granules (hope that is correct word) with N-P-K ratio 5-3-8. On bag they say 30% of that to be added on Fall, 40% before planting, and rest during vegetation 6-8 inches distance from row.



Dry matter: 90.0%
Organic matter: 65.0%
Nitrogen (total) 5.0%
Nitrogen (organic) 4.6%
Phosphorus 3.0%
Potassium 8.0%
Magnesium 0.8%
Calcium 9.1%

Reason why this product I find interesting is because garden is in urban area and info says that it is neutralized smell (don't want to neighbors start complaining).

Recommended dosage is 5 kilograms per 25 sq. meters.

Well, Fall has already gone, so I could use 40% few weeks before planting, and other 30% later. Today if all goes well my cold frame will be finished, plan is to start seed in start of March, when they sprout to move them in cold frame and transplant in garden in first week of May.

That said, I have 2 more questions (at least for now)

Do you think 5-3-8 fertilizer would be enough?
How to fertilize with grass clippings, just to put them on ground around plants on top of mulch or is there some other way?

Thank you all again for answers, gave some real good ideas to think about.

[PureHarvest]

Your nitrogen will be enough if you use enough of your proposed product. I'll check the rest when I can later. But we still don't know how much phosphorous, potassium, calcium and magnesium your soil is starting out with. We can can't manage what we don't measure.
What do soil labs charge to test near you?
Your product looks good though, and I think you would do well with it because the potassium is high and it has calcium and mag too.
Grass clippings would be good for long term benefits. Microbes over time will break down the material and then it needs to be pulled into the soil by worms or mixed in to get the nutrients where the roots are. Use it as a cover this year to protect the soil and prevent weeds.

[javafxnoob]

I asked my friend who is in agricultural business. Strange, I didn't knew there is lab who do the soil test in my town. And not much expensive too, around 15$. Probably I will do that at some point, thanks for advises.