Allotments 4 All

This is our first try at growing veg and last nyt my hubby and I worked out how many plants we need to a bed. My question is: do you stick to the spacing stated on the seed information or do you do it differently? Would love some advice - because I'd only be able to fit two brussel plants in a bed if I stick with the stated spacing! Thanks if you can help me. Nik :-[

I would say we need a bit more info before we could give you a proper answer simply because some you can vary, but with others, it is not recommended.

What size are your beds and what are you planning to plant?

This is where I come unstuck cos I've worked it out incorrectly. We have a 8ft by 4ft bed for the brussel sprouts and the packaging says to space 60cm x 60cm. I have never done this before so I'm sure I've got it seriously wrong.

4ft is a bit narrow for a bed 5ft would have been better it suits brassica spacing better.

I think I would go 6" in from end and edge and do two rows 15" apart and put a row of anything along the opposite edge e.g. carrots, beetroot as I say anything!

In this way you should get 7 pairs of sprouts plus a row of another veg!;

-  - - - - - - - - - - -   = other veg

x   x   x   x   x   x   x  = sprouts

x   x   x   x   x   x   x  = sprouts

Thankyou for your help - i will see if i can stretch the bed to 5 ft. Thanks very much!Nik

As a general rule, the spacings stated on the packets are pretty reliable for general usage.

Im a complete newbie to planting out so what i did was follow the guidelines on the packets.

I got a piece of cane 2ft long, then using a perminant marker i placed marks on it every 2". I use that to get it as acurate as possible although I rekon you dont have to be that accurate.

sprouts generally are planted at 2 ft spacings, both in the row and between the rows.
If you plant them in rows 1 ft in from each edge, you will get 8 plants in your 8 x 4 bed.
sprouts are a hungry crop and need about 4 square feet per plant for foraging for nutrients and water.

      x   x   x    x
      x   x   x    x      ;)

I usually put them closer together than recommended, you just end up with more small veg, which I prefer.

Quote from: sawfish on May 02, 2009, 00:28:20
I usually put them closer together than recommended, you just end up with more small veg, which I prefer.

Seconded..... aprt from a few Kelsaes I grow to keep my hand in most of my onions get planted in four or five seeds to a module that then goes in at a big over the stnadard single plant spacing..... sseems to give a bigger cropweight but smaller individual plants, useful for me as I tend to be cooking for one....

chrisc

Thanks for all your replies - much appreciated! I think I had a rather late nyt and muddled a lot of my beds - it was for ordering our seeds so it gave me a rough estimate of what varieties we would like to grow. I shall go back over it all once the seeds have arrived later this coming week. Cheers everyone for helping me out!
Nik ;D

If you are planting in beds that you can reach from all sides then you can plant them equidistant as you do not need to walk between them to harvest or weed. My onions are in a 1m x 1.5m bed and are all just spaced the recommended distance between plants and you can then ignore the distance between rows.

e.g:

x x x x
x x x x
x x x x

The only exception i make to this is with my peas as i need a bit of a 'row' to put the supporting netting in.
This method also has the advantage of less weeds as the plants touch each other and drown out the weeds!   ;D

the following spacing for sprouts should work.
4ft x8 ft bed
18in per plant =22 plants.

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