Welcome to Day 11 of the 30 Day Challenge: How to Start a Vegetable Garden. Recently, we discussed how to make mini greenhouses from plastic milk jugs and how to care for your seedlings.

If you missed any of the articles in this series, check out my Street Articles profile for a link to my website. Links to all of the articles and blogs are listed there.

Decisions Decisions

Today, I am in a quandary. I have 8 packages of seeds that are what I call vine plants. From all of my research so far, these plants spread far and wide as they grow and therefore require a lot of space. Problem - I don't have a lot of space.

So, the decision I have to make is, do I plant some of these vegetables in my raised bed garden, in my containers, or in a small section of land that has some quality top soil, but would need compost, etc. mixed in to make good gardening soil?

The Vegetables

Before I ask for your advice, lets discuss the vegetables in question.

Yellow Squash and Zucchini - These plants are already started and are ready to be planted in either a bigger pod or their permanent home. I tried growing these last year in containers, and they did not do well at all. The plants were small and pollination was a problem since I only had one of eat. Needless to say, I only got 2 yellow squash and no zucchini from our plants last year. This year, I want to plant 4 of each. My thought was to place them in my raised bed in a square (one on each corner) so that pollination of the male and female plants could occur easier and therefore my plants would produce better. However, if these plants spread, are they going to take over my entire raised bed? I hope not!

Pickling Cucumbers (2 varieties) - I was going to plant these in my extra large cat litter container with a trellis for them to grow up. But that was before I saw a blog which discussed growing cucumbers (and zucchini) up a leaning trellis (at a 45 degree angle) and placing lettuce beneath. Now, I'm not sure which way to grow these cucumbers.

Green Beans - I've heard of people growing them with only supports (like tomatoes) or growing them up trellises. I'm not sure which is better. I also cannot decide if they would do okay growing up a small trellis in a large pot, or if they need to grow up a larger trellis in the raised bed.

Peas - I'm in the same place with the peas as the green beans. Raised bed? Or Large Pot?

Watermelon and Cantaloupe - I've heard these take a lot of room to grow. I have a large flower bed in the front of my house with mostly decorative bushes. I was thinking of planting these between the rows of bushes, in full sun so they have lots of room to grow. I don't think they will distract from the look of the bed, and the bushes will not provide much shade. But, the soil there is quality top soil with mulch on top. I'm hoping to just put good compost in the hole where I plant the seeds, then use liquid fertilizer to feed them instead of messing up this area to mix in compost. Do you think it would work?

Advice?

If any of you have experience or ideas on how to best grow these plants, please let me know. I've got to make a decision and move forward this week. I'd appreciate your expert (or even novice) advice!

30 Day Challenge

Who is doing this challenge with me? How are your seeds doing? Have they sprouted yet? Please post your garden update here or on my blog. I'd love to see what you've learned so far through this process. See you tomorrow!