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I am starting a vegetable garden, and I need help with how many seeds to plant per crop?

I am growing tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, turnips, peas, lima beans, squash, and watermelon. I know I need to plant a certain # of seeds per plant, but there is no info on the seed packets, and I can't find the answer anywhere online. Any help would be greatly appreciated. ThankS! Wow, I received so many great answers so fast! Thank you all so much for all your help! I really appreciate it!

Public Comments

1. How many seeds to plant depends on what kind of crop yield you will get and your family needs. I suggest you go to that seed company's web site and look at the information it has. I don't double-plant as some people do because the seeds are generally guaranteed to grow and I find that I have to pull up plants because everything grew. Make sure you plant based on the spacing requirements so you don't have plants squashing each other and fighting over sun and nutrients. I went to gurneys, which is a major seed company, and just looked up lima beans to see what kind of yield it has. Try searching around the site to see the yields for other varieties. I generally use a 1:5 ratio if I can't find any information at all.
2. Depends where you live and how many you want in the end. I live in central Canada and we have to start the tomatoes, squash and watermelon early (in peat pellets) otherwise they won't have enough time to grow. I usually plant 2 seeds per peat pellet since the seed may not have 100% germination. As long as the seed is pretty new though, you'll probably get at least 80% success for germination for the tomatoes and probably about 70% success for the squash and melon. When I transplant those seedlings into my garden, I place them the recommended distance from one another (what it says on seed packet). If you are planting directly into the ground, plant two seeds at every recommended spacing. Let them grow for a couple of weeks (maybe 6 weeks)... If only one of the seeds germinate, great - then you don't have to do anything, If both germinated then thin them out (removed the more spindly of plants so the stronger plant can survive better). As for the spinach and lettuce (as well as swiss chard, kale..etc) plant directly into the ground at the recommended spacing on the packet (or if the packet doesn't say, look it up on the internet - lots of resources for veggie gardening on the web). One thing you should do with leafy greens like that is plant half a row one week, plant the other half of the row the following week, start another row the third week..etc because these plants tend to go to seed quickly if it gets warm. If you stagger the planting through out the season, you will always have some to pick from your garden through out the entire summer. The peas and beans - plant them at the recommended spacing. Here is an excerpt from this website: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1617.html Planting Requirements Peas are a cool-season crop and may be planted in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked. Sow seeds about one inch deep and two inches apart in the row. Low-growing varieties can be grown in rows 18 to 24 inches apart. Climbers need three feet between rows, or plant a double row six inches apart on either side of trellis. Beans are a warm-season crop and should be planted after danger of frost has passed. Sow seeds one inch deep in heavy soils and 1-1/2 inches deep in sandy soils. Bush beans should be spaced three to four inches apart in the row. Space pole beans six to ten inches apart along a trellis or plant several beans to a pole. Both peas and beans can be grown in a variety of soils, but good drainage is essential. Peas require a pH of 6.0 to 6.7. Beans prefer a slightly more acid condition of pH 5.8 to 6.3. hope that helps!
3. For the most part, it depends on how much space you have. Watermelon and squash have similar growth habits and will each need their own little patch, preferably somehting like 6' by 6'. In each patch put three hills somewhere around the middle and cover the rest of the space with wood chip mulch or landscape fabric or paper. In each hill, you should plant between 3 and 6 seeds. Spinach and lettuce can go in rows. Spinach should be planted close together -- a seed every three or four inches. Or you can just sprinkle it around the space you have available and thin it out when it comes up. To get a decent crop for the household, you'll want at least a 2' by 2' patch. Leaf lettuce follows pretty much the same drill. A lot of people like to plant these every two weeks so that you get a continuous crop during the summer. Head lettuce takes more space, but that's harder to grow anyway so it's probably not what you're planting. Peas and beans should be planted in rows. There should be a foot between rows and about six inches between seeds in the row. They are quite prolific but you'll still want at least six plants of each. If you have more, it probably won't go to waste. Remember that the whole plant is edible, so if you plant a lot you can enjoy the little shoots almost right away, put some blossoms in your salads later on, and still have a good crop of peas and beans at the end. Again, some people like to plant these every couple of weeks to get a continuous crop. Tomatoes need to be started at least a month before they get planted outside. Start them in a sunny window sill in little pots with a small amount of soil at the bottom. Two seeds per pot. When they sprout, thin them out to one plant per pot and add a little soil on top to almost cover them again. Repeat as they grow until the put is full to the top. You'll need three or four plants. But some people like to grow 10 or more. I've never grown turnips, but I imagine they grow like carrots. Plant them in rows. The rows should be six inches apart and the seed in each row should be three inches apart. You get one turnip per plant so that should help you decide how much you need. And you can eat some of the greeens as they grow. Good luck!
4. Some vegetables require more growing space than others so it will depend on how big an area you are working with for your garden. I've planted tomatoes less than 12-inches apart by enclosing them in a wire cage with great success. For vegetables that grow on vines like some peas and certain types of beans you just need to provide a trellis in the area so you can run the vines without having them run and tangle around other plants choking them, retarding their growth or killing them altogether. As for lettuce, you will need to provide room for them to bloom so the 12-inch space per plant may be a definite requirement, especially if you are planting leaf lettuce. Zucchini squash requires a large area because it become a big plant that can give quite a large number of squash and watermelon is another one that needs the freedom the run over a large area or you could try a controlled trellis area, except that the weight of the fruit will be a problem so a flat large area is better. However, spinach would work very well on a trellis or fence so you only need to germinate a few plants to yield enough spinach. Turnips need deep soil conditions as these are root crops, like carrots or potatoes. The best way to start is to hatch seedlings in small containers and then transplant each plant. If you have small yogurt containers, you can save them to grow the seeds for transplant make sure that you make small holes in the bottoms for water drainage. When the seedlings are about 2-inches tall or have their 2nd set of leaves, they are ready for transplant. Each plant in individual containers so that you don't have to deal with tangled roots and separation. Also important to label the containers as to what you've planted in them. You can also get help from a local garden shop if you bought your seeds from them or when you visit to get the peat moss to grow the seedlings. I have also included a link in my source that you can read as it covers everything for a beginner and has some great tips for anyone wanting to try gardening. Good luck and happy gardening!