So as I posted earlier I'll be expanding the garden, we're going to be ordering seed soon and it got me thinking about seeding rate. I know its easy to figure when raising beans or corn or wheat, but in a garden it's probably complex.
is there a rule of thumb when it comes to Sq/ft per plant per type?
like saying a tomato plant needs X number of feet between them, or corn needs a spacing of 18" or whatever.
as a kid I remember just plunking in seeds wherever mom told us to without knowing why.

just curious if anyone has any advice on row spacing between plants, seed spacing in those rows and if there is an order to what produces best.

i plant tomatoes, peppers, etc with room to till in between the plants, north/ south. east/west.

beats hoeing

Most seed packets these day give a planting chart, but my rule" of thumb is 18"-24" for eggplant, peppers, and tomato and enough room between rows to pass my tiller.

I have 2 kids who will be doing all the weeding, so not worried about room for the tiller.

Check this out. Hope it helps. http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/plant-spacing/

thats exactly what I'm looking for, thanks Tim!

Weeds! I hate weeds, but they are part of gardening. I still work d@mmit, and don't have the time to constantly work on weeding. I used to use the bagger on my lawn mower and mulch down between rows with cut grass. It is dense and doesn't let light through like straw does. But it still is a lot of work. So a couple years ago, I spent some cash on filter fabric, heavy stuff not the light weight garden cloth. What I got comes in 3 or 4 foot widths. I set up and split the 4 foot cloth to 2 foot, then cut to manageable lengths.

So I till and lay out my rows and plant. I keep it all in straight rows and when things come up, I lay the cloth down between the rows. 2 foot wide for beans, corn, peppers, etc. When I plant my tomatoes and squash, I use the 3 foot wide cloth. This does a decent job of keeping most of the weeds down and I can manage the little bit around the plants themselves.

So far this cloth has lasted 4 seasons and it still is intact, so it was worth it.