I need design help w/a feed the hungry veggie garden 100x50

Clinton, MA(Zone 5a)

Hello there,
I have been asked, as someone who has done garden tending on a large-scale production basis (ie. 100 acre
potatoes...3 carrots/2 beets, etc) to design a 100x50' vegetable, herb, flower garden-focus on vegetables
and companion planting to keep pesticide use to a pest-911 only level. All vegetables and herbs are going to
feed the hungry via a local food pantry so we absolutely need to get the most from our 1/8th of an acre so I
want to use as much vertical space as possible, I am copying this to more local and other forums too and I'm not JUST dropping in for help and then disappearing like many do, you may be stuck with me. (Chuckles!
(Withme so far?) Oh, and there is going to be a chain-link fence-36" above the ground with another 1-2 feet below ground to discourage woodchucks, bunnies, and other diggers from devouring our garden. We plan on using a wireless deer fencing and netting-if necessary-to prevent deer from munching on the plants, flowers, herbs,etc. I wondered whether it would be most space efficient to use the tee-pee, 4 pole, hill design for our beans (pole beans) so we can plant several plants in a small area and just let them climb the pole as they are wont to do anyway. As far as sun orientation, let's flip this rectangle upside down and the left, upper border facing due North. Therefore, I know from experience that we do not want our taller crops to shade the others so we want to account for this. I am terrible with numbers, but I can tell you that we seem to have almost all the seeds we will need for this gardens. We are in Zone 6, so I have tomatoes and peppers germinating and some that are already planting size, and we have planted the herbs that we shall need and are just awaiting a volunteer who is, hopefully, going to get a local garden store-since she knows the owner-to provide us with more germination mini-greenhouses and starting mix which works best here on my apartment deck when mixed with one part regular potting soil-in the bottom-and two parts seed starting mix in the top.

So, what are we planting; that would help, I'm sure; Wax and Grreen Pole beans, cucumbers-2 varieties, zucchini and summer squash as well as acorn and butternut winter squash types, beets, carrots (Danvers Half Long), about 40-50 indeterminate tomatoes and about 15 Determinate or Semi-Determinate, cabbage-red and green (early/late), Swiss Chard, Lots of Bell and some Hot Peppers, should be going onto the germination mat within the next week, when it gets here. What I really need is one of the Larger-sized Mats, but I haven't had time to request that a larger company to make the tax-deductable donation of one, still tryiing to get the dang garden lay-out in my mind.

Is there anyone who could help me by offering a good layout design that would maximize space? I have a term. illness and am on SSI-no pity requested but empathy is alright-so do not yet have the money to buy one of these layout programs that I've seen alot of people talking about in this forum. We want to maximize space, have it filled with as many non-competing/pest-controlling flowers and herbs as possible, and get this together fairly soon. I cannot draw worth a dang, but would even settle for a percentage-based idea of how many of various crops need to be planted to make a dent in the food pantry's need for this healthy produce this growing season. Also, we are using drip irrigation with black-poly mulch around most crops, red around tomatoes and peppers to produce great yiels of everything. I hope that I don't look like a kook, but it seems that using lots of this space for potatoes as opposed to putting those in the huge 50 gal. garbage cans would be foolish, or is that not feasible.

It's not like we don't have land that is our own on the outside of this 100x50' gardem plot as we own many acres around it, so putting the garbage cans outside the fence, maybe along the fence or at the corner poles with morning glories or other vine plants which could be trained to cover up the ugly wire fence as we seem to have several people who are great with flowers but not so much with veggies! We want to incorporate many types of flowers, even if used as an outer border 1-2 ft around the entire garden or 1 foot at the end of the beds... We really want to use companion planting and I have worked very hard and have almost every one listed on the Wikipedia web-site that I found after entering "List of Companion Plants" in the Google Search bar, if that helps. One person suggested making 5 foot beds but with 3 foot walk-ways and I thought that too much space was used for the walking, thinking more like 2 should be ok. We won't, this year, be using wooden raised beds but will be building up individual beds where we can put mulch in the walkways. This fall, I wish to plant Hairy Vetch (think that's right) as a cover crop so that neck year, we'll be able to use natural mulch more. Ok, that's pretty much everything as far as most plans and my own thoughts.

I have Word 2003 and the latest version of Adobe Reader, so if ANY wiser and more mathematically-trained persons could send some ideas, or diagrams and/or files, etc. to me at thorandkevin@comcast.net or post here dimensions and thoughts, I'd be soooooooo appreciative as I don't like to appear completely inept. I know how to grow plants and have great success, but growing on this scale as an adult is unfamiliar to me. I have so many cherry tomatoes of every color that I'm going to have to sell some, they've done so well. On the other hand, If anyone just wants to support this effort-we don't have electricity-with seeds, plants that have germinated for later transplant (cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels Sprouts, second year garlic, onions, cucumbers, squash, cantelope or anything else-I don't believe we need more tomatoes, but that is certainly an estimation on my part), garden supplies (hand tools, cultivators, poly mulch or tomato-red mulch, valves or the ever time-saving quick-release connectors for drip irrigation, rolls or fencing, special space-saving devices you have developed or sell, or any other type of backing, please write to me and I can even send out tax-exempt receipts for your support so that your taxes can be sliced into a smaller piece.

Thanks everyone, I hope to contribute in any threads where I may actually have some experience or ideas. Boy, do I hope someone can help me here!! :-) Again, my regular Email and one to which you can send attachments is thorandkevin@comcast.net .

Gratefully,
Thor

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