Green House Tomato Spacing & How To's

[barefootfarmer]

I'm going to be using my greenhouse for the first time (ever)this season. It's 20x96. The plan is to use it for tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. For those of you with experience growing in a greenhouse, ( throwback ) how far apart should I plan on spacing my tomatoes if I will be pruning to a single stem and growing on a trellis system? Any suggestions on how wide I should make my beds and pathways?

Right now the structure is supporting my hanging cages for my meat rabbits. I've been letting the manure and urine fall onto the ground thinking it would help with fertility. But, the more that I think about tilling up the soil and planting directly into it, the more I think it might be a less than great idea. Originally it was a pasture made up of reed canary grass. I ran pigs on it for a season a few years ago and haven't done much with it since. Last fall we kept meat chickens and some turkeys in it and butchered under cover. The grass has died down and now it's just dirt, and rabbit droppings. But I'm worried that as soon as I till and add water, all that grass and weed will grow right back. Maybe I should just put in raised and framed beds and grow that way? I know it costs more, but I actually have all the material on hand, except the soil.

I've been having a heck of a time transitioning pasture into garden worthy sol. It's gut wrenching to put all the work into it, just to get over run with orchard grass and thistle a couple of months later.

I guess my questions are really- How far apart to space tomato plants in the greenhouse, and any tried and true methods for eliminating the pasture problem or should I just go with raised beds?

Can't wait for all the great ideas

[throwback]

Plastic mulch, plastic mulch, plastic mulch Poke holes and plant your plants, toms, peppers, cukes and melons love the heat. Plus drip irrigation under the mulch. Raised beds sound great but commit you to moving a lot of heavy material - soil. The mulch is lightweight, and if you don't like it you're not committed if you want to run your chickens in there during the winter for cleanup. You can probably get away with 18" or 2' spacing if you're training them to a single stem.

Paths? Make them wide enough to make harvesting a snap. Do you use a wheelbarrow, garden cart or ? to harvest with? Keep that in mind when planning your paths. I use my tractor mounted tiller for spacing, each tilled row ends up being an actual row or bed depending on what I'm growing. By the end of the season I still can hardly get between the rows due to the overgrowth. It's important to have good airflow so try not to crowd too much.

For stuff like peas, melons and cukes I usually just use a hog or cattle panel attached to a T-post, easy up, easy down, and strong enough to hold anything.

How exciting! I started my first seeds on Sunday and already some are sprouting! Yeah greenhouse!!!

Oh and that's a shameless plug for a friend of mine who builds those carts

[simplynaturalfarm]

i ditto throwback I tried to use up less space by staggering tomatoes - BAD idea, do single row

DO you buy your mulch plastic local throwback?

[grammagrace]

Heavy black plastic IS great. Right now mine is on the house to make it warmer. Spring comes it will go for the garden. Best of luck with your garden. Some day I would love a green house. I have a purple and green house but that is a different story.

[barefootfarmer]

When you say "plastic mulch" are you talking about a roll of black plastic? Like from a hardware store? Will that actually keep the reed canary grass from growing up through it? Fabulous if true!

I use a wheel barrow and a "garden cart" with sides to load up my harvest. I keep losing my dedicated wheel barrows though because they are so handy that everyone keeps taking them. I can't seem to make the rule about "produce only" stick, so I usually end up with just my garden cart. I don't let produce go into a cart or wheel barrow that's been used for other farm type chores.

throwback , do you train your tomatoes to a single stem or do you do something else? This year I actually bought "greenhouse specific seeds" for most of my tomatoes. Talk about sticker shock!! Those guys had better live up to the price tag.

[throwback]

For the plants I use the red or green mulch like this:
www.growerssolution.com/PROD/green-plastic-mulch-1-mil-embossed/greenmulch

I use the mulch more for heat than anything, since we just don't have warm nights up here in the foothills, hence the greenhouses The weed control is an added benefit. But I don't have reed canary just a million other things. You might want to try the weed block like you see in prop houses for floors. It's black and has green stripes, lots of CSA growers in the valley use it for paths or planting strawberries. With the reed canary you may want the weed block and raised beds...that didn't really sink in when I read your first post.

I usually train the toms to about 4 stems and use the clips, I just don't have the patience for the single stem maintenance, I'm more of a slash and burn gardener. Last year I tried the Florida Weave - ugh a row of tomato jungle, I could only pick from one side at a time instead of going around the plant. That killed my back twisting to try to pick. I also wasted a lot of tomatoes, since I couldn't really see into the jungle. I'm going back to the light pruning and wider spacing, and less tomato plants.

My neighbor grows hydroponic tomatoes and they pay about .25 per seed! I think my most expensive one is New Girl, one that Eliot Coleman recommends, but it doesn't come close to prices like that. You're gonna be a busy girl this summer

[barefootfarmer]

OOh, Thanks for the links! I remember my first year using black plastic for planting strawberries. What a nightmare! I made the holes too small, thinking it would keep out the weeds. Planting the crowns was a total pain. Then the wind ripped all the plastic off, even after I had staked it down with the metal "pins". I'm on the dikelands and we get some wicked wind out here.

Keeping the reed canary at bay is an ongoing effort I'm quickly becoming a raised bed farm. I want to plant in typical fashion, but the reality is it would take years to get to that point along with a lot of chemicals and tractor work. One year we tilled up plots within an acre area that had the canary grass. We waited for it to green up, tilled again. I made my rows, planted...and canadian thistle sprung up everywhere! That was probably my worst summer.

Florida Weave, yeah-I'm not a fan of that out here either. We've done it for 3 seasons but I kept thinking there has to be a better way. I usually plant 4-500 tomatoes, by hand. It's a lot to tie up that way. I'm hoping that by going to the greenhouse I'll get a better yield with less plants to manage. I'm still keeping about 100 in the field, but I don't think I'll be doing the Florida weave again.

Johnny's has a beautiful,blocky orange pepper for heated tunnel production. It's $42 for 50 seeds! But the kicker was this little beauty www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8861-beorange.aspx $59.95 for 50 seeds. That's $1.19 for a single seed!!
I had to include the link because you might not have believed me otherwise

I usually hate late February and March. But lately I've started looking at it differently. It's when I finally get to start planting seeds, seeing some green, life if full of hope. Summer is grand, of course. But there is also a lot of backbreaking work involved to go along with the beautiful weather.

As for being a busy girl, you've heard the saying "idle hands are the devil's play toy"? Or something like that. Keeping busy keeps me mostly out of trouble

[BasleeBackwoodsFarm]

I want a green house!

[grammagrace]

If you use the really heavy black plastic I think it will stop any thing from growing. It keeps the sunlight from getting to the seeds and plants under it. You could make it thicker by putting cardboard or newspaper under it if you like. I usually laid rocks or concrete blocks on the plastic. Have also filled plastic gallon jugs with water and placed on edges.
I have used the heavy black plastic many times. The only weeds or grass I had to pull was at the hole where I put the plant. Always wanted to put soaker hoses under it but never did. Maybe this year.