This is my first season of growing vegetables and it appears i am a better farmer than i thought i would be! I only have a small patch and an average sized greenhouse and i think i may have planted to much. I now have hundreds of seedlings growing of all sorts of varieties and species. I imagine in a few weeks when they get bigger i will have to thin them out and discard some of the seedlings which i don't really want to do but i don't think i'll have any alternative apart from giving some to neighbours. What i wish to know if anyone could help me is minimum spacing for individual plants for Brocolli, Cabbage, Spinach, Onion, Carrot, Courgette, Sweetcorn, Parsnip and Tomatoes (money-makers)!!! Also, when i should start thinning out, at the moment they are all to small and delicate to move. How many weeks after they seedlings first appear are they strong enough to survive being moved about?

I thin out at about two inches, but for example tomatoes, recently
repotted, have not yet been thinned at 4 inches. I am waiting to see
which ones survive the repotting best.

If you are planting intensively (no rows), the distance between plants
should be

- 1 ft broccoli
- 2 ft tomatoes, cabbage
- 3 ft zucchini
- 3 inches carrots, parsnips, spinach
- 6 inches onions

Hi Rich79,

When you thinning out vegetables, you can eat some of them too. I always
sow much more seeds in the cabbage and lettuce family. I add them to my
meal each time I need to thin them out.

I had help a charity nursery to thin out carrot, those 1" long carrots could
be added to salad. However, you must remember not to let any leaves from
carrot on the ground and better cover them afterward as soon as possible
since carrot fly can smell the scent of carrot from several miles away.

Hope it can help,
CK from Aberystwyth, UK

It's good that you are asking these questions. (I see that you have some
good answers so far.)
It's human nature to try to "fit in" all the seedlings that you start.
One of the big mistakes beginners make is planting the garden so that it
looks about right when the plants are small but not thinking about how
much room each plant will need when it gets big.
I've had people show me their garden and ask why nothing is doing well.
Often they will have 4 or 5 zucchini plants where there is room for one.
They didn't have the heart to thin the carrots and wonder why they all
end up so small. Maybe enough corn in 10 square feet that could use 50
square feet of space for that many plants. They wonder why most of the
plants produce nothing or only a small ear of corn.
Well, that's a little extreme but do get used to thinning properly and
planting out with a decent spacing between plants. Throw away what there
isn't room for. The garden will turn out MUCH better in the end.

Steve


rich79 wrote:

This is my first season of growing vegetables and it appears i am a
better farmer than i thought i would be! I only have a small patch and
an average sized greenhouse and i think i may have planted to much. I
now have hundreds of seedlings growing of all sorts of varieties and
species. I imagine in a few weeks when they get bigger i will have to
thin them out and discard some of the seedlings which i don't really
want to do but i don't think i'll have any alternative apart from
giving some to neighbours. What i wish to know if anyone could help me
is minimum spacing for individual plants for Brocolli, Cabbage,
Spinach, Onion, Carrot, Courgette, Sweetcorn, Parsnip and Tomatoes
(money-makers)!!! Also, when i should start thinning out, at the moment
they are all to small and delicate to move. How many weeks after they
seedlings first appear are they strong enough to survive being moved
about?

rich79 wrote:


This is my first season of growing vegetables and it appears i am a
better farmer than i thought i would be! I only have a small patch and
an average sized greenhouse and i think i may have planted to much. I
now have hundreds of seedlings growing of all sorts of varieties and
species. I imagine in a few weeks when they get bigger i will have to
thin them out and discard some of the seedlings which i don't really
want to do but i don't think i'll have any alternative apart from
giving some to neighbours. What i wish to know if anyone could help me
is minimum spacing for individual plants for Brocolli, Cabbage,
Spinach, Onion, Carrot, Courgette, Sweetcorn, Parsnip and Tomatoes
(money-makers)!!! Also, when i should start thinning out, at the moment
they are all to small and delicate to move. How many weeks after they
seedlings first appear are they strong enough to survive being moved
about?

It is a good idea to keep the seed packages. The ones in the US at
least have germination time, spacing, size of plant and some have
maturity time. They also give suggestions on when to plant and when
to plant out as well as other information on growing conditions.

I always start many more plants than I will put in the garden. Right
now I have 100 tomato plants and I will only set out about 75. I
started even more seeds and some just did not germinate. I will keep
one or two extras of most varieties just to make sure that something
doesn't wipe out all of a particular one.

The mature size of plants can help you arrange your garden so things
that need sun are not shaded by taller plants.

I usually transplant when the plant has at least two true leaves. If
they are in individual cells, you can wait a little longer. I planted
some by just spreading seed in a tray. A real pain to separate since
the roots were intertwined.




--
Susan N.

"Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral, 48 percent indignation, and 50 percent envy."
Vittorio De Sica, Italian movie director (1901-1974)