Presumably, you have at least a rough idea of the size of the mature plant of most vegetables you are growing. Allow that amount of space plus enough space for pathways where you need them.

Spacing will depend on how you need to access the plants for weeding, harvesting etc. with your particular layout. Maybe also your shoe size as well. :-)

Seed packet info is normally for conventional single row spacing. It gives a between-row spacing and an in-row spacing. To provide info for all possible types of layout would not be practical.

Jim

This post was edited by jimster on Sun, Jun 23, 13 at 16:38

I'm in your zone - it's difficult to get lettuce to grow here during the summer. High temps cause lettuce to get bitter. I'm trying it under my tomatoes to see if some shade will help.

Last fall I planted mesclun mix and Swiss chard in September. We ate salad from the end of October through May! Best $2.00 investment I've ever made! Lol. I planted them across my 3 foot wide bed in 2 rows. Basically just 1/4 inch apart. Then I thinned them to every other plant or so. I wasn't too particular about it, just 1/2 to 1 inch. We picked them young, so they didn't need a ton of room. Pick them from the outside and they will keep producing for you.

The plant in your picture looks like Swiss chard. Mine bolted too once the weather got hot, along with the mesclun lettuces. Chard needs to be planted further apart - 4-6 inches is what I did. We cut those young and ate them in salad. If you let them get bigger you can cook them like collards. Very good!

Here is a picture at the end of the season. I pulled most of what was in this bed by the time this was taken. There was more chard and spinach in the middle. I'll be adding lots more mesclun this time around. That's it in the back.

This post was edited by lm13 on Sun, Jun 23, 13 at 17:26

I'm such a newbie at this, I even got my zone wrong. lol... I knew it was 8 (using a scale without a and b)... However, i thought it went to 7b... Nope, still 8, but 8b...

at any rate,, i do understand the difficulty in giving all permutations on one seed packet. However, getting past that, the in-row spacing seems to be too large as well... I used the 6 inches suggested, and I have a ton of space between my plants.. My next planting, I'm going for the very tight 1/2 - 1 inch and see how that works...

Of course, if i had any idea of what the mature version of what i am growing looked like then it would be a lot easier!! :-)

thanks for the replies