The Cheap Vegetable Gardener

Do have have to follow the directions on the back of my seed packet?

15.3 years ago garden planning, seeds

Though the advice on the back of a seed packet gives some great information, they are recommendations and their advice may not exactly apply to your garden.

First is row spacing, many times you read something like “plant seeds 3 inches apart in rows 1 foot apart”  This brings up some immediate logic of why can the plants be 3 inches apart one way but 12 inches in another.  This sort of thinking the premise for intensive gardening techniques such as square foot gardening.  This is where instead of growing your plants in rows you plant them in a grid pattern making best use of your growing space.

Now even these spacing requirements are actually optional.  All plants compete for resources to survive.  This can be sunlight (or even shade from sunlight), nutrients, water, airflow, etc.  Depending on the quality of your soil and frequency of watering you can push the limits of your growing space.  Assuming you add some fresh compost easy season and possibly do some side dressing with an organic fertilizer like fish emulsion or alfalfa pellets you can easily reduce this space and still have high yields.  I did just that with my cherry tomato plants whose seed packet is above.  I planted these about a foot apart and got great growth and yields.

One other factor is how you grow.  If I was growing my tomatoes in cages my foot space probably wouldn’t even be technically possible but since I grew them on a netting this allowed for spread out much more naturally and provide adequate sunlight and airflow.  Keep this in mind when growing sprawling plants such as cucumbers and squash using some vertical space can free up the valuable growing space on the ground.

The last factor depends on when you are going to pick them.  If you are growing onions to simply pick as green onions you don’t have to give then the 3-4 inches needed for their bulbs to grow.  You could easily plant an inch apart since you are going to pick them before they are competing for resources.  A similar idea is growing for micro greens, plant picked when just a few inches tall.

Though I wouldn’t say to completely ignore the back of your seed packets, just make sure to use it as a guide not a requirement.

Tags: compost, garden seeds, organic vegetables, outdoor plants, tomato plants